A recent opinion piece in the Boston Globe by Laurence J. Kotlikoff relates his experience at a recent conference where the keynote speaker was former Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Her topic was the healthcare crisis and her message was personal,according to Kotlikoff:
The gist was that even she lives in constant fear of major uninsured health bills. Not her own -- those of her son. He can't afford insurance because his son -- her grandchild -- has a preexisting condition.
As I listened, a light dawned: O'Connor and the rest of us with health coverage are also uninsured. We too face terrible, albeit more remote, healthcare risks -- the risk that our employer will drop our plan, that Medicare will go bust, that our plan won't cover our needs, that premiums will eat us alive, that our doctor will stop taking our insurance, that long-term care will wipe us out, and that our uninsured friends and family members will need major financial help.
For the rest of this piece, including Kotlikoff's opinion on possible solutions, please see here.
