Privileged Mitt's recent comments about health insurance, ER care, and pre-existing conditions shows how little he understands the challenges of ordinary folks.
He has suggested that people who don't get insurance when they are healthy should not be able to get it when they are sick.
Well. Wouldn't that be nice if we all had the ability to get and keep insurance AND be able to anticipate getting sick early enough to stay insured.
Let me share a personal experience below the fold....
My husband decided to go back to school in 2009. When he left his job, we lost our insurance. (He was covered by his university.) We tried to get individual plans through his former insurer. I filled out applications for myself, my son and my daughter. In the meantime, I looked into Medicaid for the kids.
I was expecting that if any of us would be denied coverage, it would be me because I'm the oldest. BUT I was shocked when the insurance company accepted me and my son, but rejected my then-two-year-old daughter.
The reason? She'd had ear infections!
Yes -- According to Blue Shield ear infections are a pre-existing condition.
My pediatrician wrote a letter saying that my daughter was healthy and probably not going to get another ear infection.
But that did not convince the anonymous actuary from leaving my daughter insurance-less.
The reality, Mitt, is that even healthy children can get denied individual insurance. It happens. (Probably would not happen with Obamacare.) If I had had to take her to the emergency room for routine care, it would cost hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars.
In the real world, healthy people are denied insurance, insurance can be discontinued for various reasons or simply unaffordable, and American citizens end up left out in the cold without means to get care.
In Romneys world, everyone is healthy and wealthy, so they don't need insurance, or if they do, they can afford it and access it. I bet Mitt has never been without coverage, or means, one day in his life.