America's health care system is in chaos. Or at least, imperfect. The president's signature HealthCare.gov site is riddled with problems and, so far, not enough young healthy people have signed up for insurance to offset the costs of caring for the old and the sick. Never mind that predictive models say the young procrastinate on enrolling.
If you've been following the news cycle, you probably read the stories about Obamacare's victims: the healthy, employed couples making $70,000 or $80,000 a year, just above the subsidy threshold for Obamacare, who now need to pay a bit more each year for insurance. If you live in New York or San Francisco, that may in fact feel like a hardship. But the reason that couples' insurance is more expensive now is because insurers are no longer able to discriminate against the less fortunate, driving up the costs for the relatively healthy and wealthy.
To put Obamacare victims' strife in perspective, let's take a trip down memory lane. You know, the golden years of American health care in "¦ oh, let's say 2007, back when you could be denied coverage for something as benign as acne or as mundane as pregnancy.
Back then, anecdotes about people who were denied coverage abounded. They included this 12-year-old boy who died in 2007 from an abscessed tooth after his family's Medicaid lapsed. And this 17-year-old boy whose insurance was revoked after he tested positive for HIV. This woman who was denied coverage for breast cancer because she wasn't diagnosed at the correct clinic. And this woman whose double mastectomy was denied after her insurance company learned she had visited a dermatologist for acne treatment the year before. Ah, yes, those were the days!