I take you (and your health insurance) to be my lawfully wedded spouse. A new poll shows that 7% of Americans have married in the last year in order to obtain coverage through a spouse’s health insurance policy. And nearly a quarter of Americans have kept or changed jobs in the last year because of health insurance. These are major life decisions – marriage and careers – that in any other developed country would have nothing to do with health care. And yet a significant number of Americans are basing their life-altering decisions on the need for health care.
A majority of doctors and the American public believe that the country is in need of a national health care system. When we’ve reached the stage where it’s not really that unusual for two people to get married in order to obtain health insurance benefits for one of them, I would say that something’s gotta give.
