This is a true story. I was talking to a 60 something retired nurse from Texas. She has been going "naked"--i.e. has had not health insurance since 2004. She has some problems with her kidneys, but she is proud of how well she has taken care of herself without access to health care.
Having played the "you are not insurable because you are over 50 and a human being" game myself, I know that no health insurer will write a policy for a 60 something year old with kidney problems. I assumed (yes, I know all about the "ass" and "u" and "me") that she was tickled pink that she would finally be able to purchase health insurance this fall.
Boy, was I ever wrong.
When I brought up the topic and asked (naively) if she was glad she was finally going to be able to get insurance for the first time in almost a decade, she looked at me with a combination of horror and loathing in her face, almost as if I had just asked her
"Do you plan to boil and eat your grandchild?"
It seems that in Texas, no one will admit that they plan to take advantage of the change in the health care laws. I am pretty sure that ALL retired nurses (and pharmacists and doctors and physical therapists) who have been unable to qualify for insurance up until now will be signing up this fall. People in the health care industry know just how bad it can be to develop breast cancer/prostate cancer/heart disease without insurance. It is basically a death sentence.
However, when you talk to folks in Texas, where I live, you discover that Health Insurance is now a dirty word and it is something that no polite person ever discusses with another person. The only proper way to discuss Health Insurance is by talking about Obamacare as in the stuff that will 1)weaken our country's backbone, 2) drive doctors and hospitals out of business (no one every explains this one), 3) cause your (white) grandmother to be murdered by a "death panel" so that the money that would have been spent on her can be spent, instead, giving a Black woman liposuction and a tummy tuck and 4) cause your identity to be stolen so that your credit will be ruined forever and you will probably end up in jail.
America---the only nation on earth in which people are afraid to have health insurance.