Every American knows our healthcare system is a mess
An OPINION By Patty McKewan, Fillmore NY
Maybe you’re one of the lucky people that has a good employer paid health insurance plan or are Medicare eligible, if not you are stuck in the middle like the rest of us. Insurance companies and their executives make record profits each year, and yet Americans are not getting healthier and their medical expenses keep going up.
Currently an estimated 8.5% of Americans are uninsured, and that number is likely to go up, because the government has reopened with no resolution to the ACA tax cuts that many Americans receive and rely on to keep their health insurance affordable. The tax cuts expire December 31. Every American knows our healthcare system is a mess. You would be hard pressed to not know someone denied care, delaying treatment because of an expense, or forced to launch a GoFundMe because of the cost of treatment.
Just look at the numbers: Americans have $220 billion in medical debt, $88 billion of that is in collections, medical debt is the leading cause of personal bankruptcy, more than 100 million people in the U.S. are saddled with some kind of health care debt. One medical crisis shouldn’t be able to take everything you’ve worked your whole life for.
It’s a tragedy that we pay so much for healthcare and yet have some of the worst outcomes. Let’s all band together and tell our elected representatives in Congress and the Senate to stop playing politics with American’s healthcare, and get to work on fixing our broken system.
Sincerely,
Patty MacEwan
Fillmore, NY
Sources: Percentage of Uninsured Americans 2025 | ConsumerAffairs® The Burden of Medical Debt in the United States | KFF Medical debt | Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Medical Bankruptcies: Unveiling the Crisis & Finding Solutions 100 Million People in America Are Saddled With Health Care Debt – KFF Health News
