I never said that most people couldn't qualify for coverage. I said that many people can't, and many others are only able to get unaffordable coverage. Its state laws that allow this to happen. There should be federal laws passed (and likely will be) that give insurance companies much less room to discriminate.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26664727/
But it's those who must purchase their own coverage, typically because they are self-employed or work for a company that doesn't provide benefits, who are in a uniquely precarious position. More than 27 percent of people who are self-employed have no insurance, compared with 13 percent for those who work for large companies. If you're buying your own health insurance, not only will you pay higher premiums than those who get a bulk rate as part of a group policy, but insurers in most states have much greater leeway to turn you down if they think their odds of losing money on you are too high. When confronted with an applicant who has any kind of medical history (including routine issues such as allergies, a past cesarean section delivery or acid reflux), insurers are usually perfectly free to charge much higher rates or to deny coverage altogether — leading to an entire category of women who are essentially uninsurable.
We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke
It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...." Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson
