The American health care system has proven time and time again that it needs to be reformed from top to bottom. The crisis is so big that the presidential candidates have made the health care system and its improvement one of their main talking and campaigning points.

The situation is indeed dire, as more and more people find themselves in life-threatening situations and can’t afford to save their lives. More often than not, doctors find themselves in the position of choosing between respecting the Hippocratic Oath and respecting the insurance companies’ policy – and again, more often than not, they chose the latter option.
Employed citizens were usually safe from these issues, as employers offered than health care coverage, and not only for them, but also for uninsured family members – usually children. The economic crisis, however, has prompted insurance costs to sky-rocket, which in turn entailed higher costs for employers. Many employers have thus decided to stop offering health insurance that extends to family members. Others have offered to continue offering it, but only if the employee agrees to pay more for it.

The situation has only two possible outcomes: the parents quit, and we have at least double uninsured citizens, or the parents continue working and we have an astounding number of uninsured children. The change affects, of course, middle-class citizens. The problem with them is that they make too much money to receive help from the Government, but too little to afford private insurance for the whole family. So far, it has been estimated that in households where one parent is covered there are 2.4 million uninsured children. People were indeed expecting a change – but I believe this is not the change they had in mind. Whether the issues will be resolved remains to be seen.