A Goose Ducks below the Affordable Care Act

If you become sick or have an accident, and suddenly find yourself in need of life-saving healthcare, the outcome may be better were you a goose. 

Such a goose lives in the UK.  It was involved in an accident in West Yorkshire.  When its owner saw that it was unable to eat properly as a result of having lost its lower beak, its disability was remedied.

See an account of what happened in this brief video.

The foregoing comparison to the ACA may sound cynical, but is far from it.  Over four million Americans have had their private insurance plans cancelled by the terms and conditions of legislation incorporated into President Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. For an estimated fifteen million Americans who have been covered under private, individual healthcare plans, there will be neither “Protection” nor “Affordability.” 

They are being ignored, insulted, and marginalized.  Their one resource:  They have been given a broken compass in the form of a non-functioning Healthcare.gov web site. 

Despite these obstacles, should these stranded policyholders eventually “navigate” through the thickets that comprise the “Affordable” Care Act computer systems, they will still find themselves stranded on an unrecognizable main road.

From there, each person will be compelled to hitchhike through a maze of governmentally specified healthcare options that are maddeningly complex, frustrating, and largely unaffordable for most Americans.

For some of those whose policies have been cancelled and who won’t be able to gain timely access to their doctors and hospitals, it will be too late.

Consider the plight of Edie Sundby:

“For almost seven years I have fought and survived stage-4 gallbladder cancer, with a five-year survival rate of less than 2% after diagnosis. I am a determined fighter and extremely lucky. But this luck may have just run out: My affordable, lifesaving medical insurance policy has been canceled effective Dec. 31.”

“Thanks to the law, I have been forced to give up a world-class health plan. The exchange would force me to give up a world-class physician.”

Is this how America’s healthcare system was supposed to line up all of its ducks in a row?  Is this how compassion radiates outwardly from the Oval Office?