Health care is not a commodity

It is clear that the United States needs universal healthcare for everyone.

In the U.S., you cannot have healthcare without a fulltime job. This is very limiting to people like myself who want to work in specialized fields as teachers, freelance writers, etc., that don't always have fulltime positions with benefits.

I've lived in Japan on and off for the past 10 years. Here I've been able to get affordable health insurance through the government under $400 per month, which can be less or more pending my annual income. If I were to get full coverage for my family in the United States even at a lower income than what I make in Japan, it would cost close to $600 a month with employee subsidized insurance and over $1000 if I were to pay it on my own.

Once when in the U.S., my health insurance costs went up 20 percent from one year to the next, while my wages did not increase at all. This great of an increase can only be explained by the insurance industry's desire to exponentially increase the return to their stockholders, as well as by the absurdly high salaries they pay some of their workers. I feel healthcare is not a commodity, but the right of every person.

It makes sense that people who make more should pay more in taxes to help subsidize the cost of services for all. Most people are hard workers, and there is only so much a person can do in one day no matter if they are billionaires or making under $20,000 a year. Both deserve the same right to live. If both were lost in a snowstorm climbing a mountain together, we'd send the same rescue team and put them both on the same helicopter, wouldn't we?

We are all climbing the same mountain.

Thanks.

Adam H.
Japan
Wisconsin