This is a happy case.

Most employers DO NOT offer such amazing insurance plans. Small businesses are getting it more difficult to cover their employees with smaller, less coverage plans. There are young people who’d chose to work at small stores in a job that’s not adequate for their studies or skills, just because they can get a decent health plan. Students leave college to work in grocery stores or all kinds of unskilled labour for such a plan.

There are people who are still in unhappy marriages, because divorce would mean “divorcing that good health plan”.

Getting a private insurance is even harder.

The Americans who are seeking for insurance in the individual markets, must submit to “medical underwriting”. If there’s a pre-existing condition (even if minor and maybe not life threatening), they will be denied.

Kaiser Permanente Chairman and CEO George Halverson had this problem: “I could not get insurance. I’ve had heart surgery, and so I am completely uninsurable in the private market. So it’s important that I keep my job.”

And even if they are lucky to get an insurance plan and PAY their fees, this doesn’t always mean a “happy end”.

Realtor Jennifer Thompson from California knows it too well. Back in 2007 she received a letter from Blue Cross:

Congratulations! You have been approved for coverage with Blue Cross of California. … The immediate value of your coverage is peace of mind.

And, as life happens, Thompson was diagnosed with cancer, requiring surgery. Three days after leaving the hospital, she received another letter from Blue Cross, letting her know her insurance was “rescinded”. This left her uninsured and with a debt of more than 160.000 USD in medical bills. Blue Cross provided almost no comments when being approached by the PBS – Frontline team.

On the other side of the “fence”, insurance companies claim people are waiting till they’re almost ill and only then try to get covered. Even so, many pay 600-700 USD or more / month and, when in need to use their insurance, might be left to pay medical bills that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. There was a scandal some time ago, when a disturbing fact got public: most of the big insurance companies would offer bonuses for their employees who could find a loophole in the patient’s file, so that the firm doesn’t have to pay their medical bills. This left many people bankrupt, having to sell their houses to pay the medical bills and also losing their insurance, even after paying thousands of dollars in premium.

In 1994, Nikky White from Tennessee, was diagnosed with lupus, a serious and still treatable autoimmune disorder. She was dreaming of becoming a doctor one day, but the illness prevented her from working. This meant losing the job and the health insurance her employer provided. For years they’ve been trying to get insured, until she was accepted in the Medicaid program. Budget cuts made her ineligible for the program, while facing all kinds of complications from the lupus she was suffering from.

The medical bills reached $1 million. Even if she finally secured insurance through the HIPPA law, she died at 32, the victim of a “failing healthcare system”.

Who’s to blame? The hospitals with their huge bills? The doctors who are the best paid doctors in the world and still claim they’re underpaid? The insurance companies trying to do everything in their power to get the money and refuse payments the moment they can find a loophole in the contract? The patients who get insured at the last moment if possible? The people for getting sick?

A very disturbing and eye-opening documentary. Worth watching.