A few years ago I was having terrible neck pains and needed an MRI.  My health insurance provider approved the procedure, I got the MRI, which revealed a herniated disc.   Several months later, I was forced to cancel the health insurance due to lack of funds.  A few weeks after that I receive a letter that my procedure, which had been pre-approved, would not be covered because I had told the doctor “I have had pain for at least a year,” which to the insurance company sounded like a pre-existing condition.  I ended up owing $1000 for the twenty minute procedure.

I’m not perfectly happy with the Democratic bill that passed.  I’m not sure how I feel about forcing people to get health insurance, especially since I know nothing in the bill which is going to lower costs.  I do laud the significant changes in policy: people with pre-existing conditions have to be covered.  Insurance companies cannot drop individuals who get ill.  It is said a society is judged by how it treats its most infirm.  By that standard, we’re pretty low on the totem pole.  But I believe this legislation, however flawed it is, moved us up just a bit.