The absolutely scariest thing of taking the plunge is losing health insurance through work. Although that coverage wasn’t terrific – I am still paying for a minor accident – at least it felt like I didn’t have to worry too much. There was no ominous “life time maximum,” for example. Well, I expected the process of finding market coverage would illuminate all that is wrong with the health insurance system in the US. Still reeling from filling out the application – where you almost on threat of death have to swear all information you entered is correct – I thought I’d share a little about my experience, which probably pales compared to what I’ll be going through once the for-profit company will review my application, thanks to a pre-existing condition.

The first thing that hit me: The choices are overwhelming. If you think choices are good, think again. This feels more like playing Russian roulette because ultimately, I am not choosing what I really want: Universal health care. I am just making trade-offs. Some of these trade-offs are relatively straight-forward: Deductible vs. monthly premium. Flat fee for MD visits vs. percentage. But others are scary: What health insurance will not drop me? Where will my premium not skyrocket? Will that life-time max be enough? Since health insurance companies are for profit entities, I know that they will try to minimize how much they have to pay for my health but maximize how much they can get out of me for coverage.

The other thing that hit me: They don’t really care about my data’s safety. For example, they display my SSN prominently on the PDF version of my application. Great. You just transmitted my SSN via the Internet. I am just hoping that the socket was really secure!

And something else I found out: There are waiting periods! Remember the cries that you won’t get immediate care if we were to get universal health care? Well, the criers are ignorant. There are waiting periods for certain procedures under current insurance plans.

Finally: The reason why I am shopping for health insurance in the first place is that my premiums under Cobra would quadruple. Yeah, sure, when you don’t have a job you can afford to pay for that!

It would be so nice if I didn’t have to worry about all this! If I could simply focus on creating a life that is more in line with my values. I had hoped that I would have another option after Obama was elected. Pretty naive, I know. I didn’t realize just how much our politicians are bought by the health insurance and financial services industries…

Those of us who are experiencing the dark side of the US sickness profiteering system need to start speaking out so that slowly but surely the message gets across: This system ain’t working!