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My struggles with our nation’s broken health care system have been ongoing for 25 years.

When I became pregnant in 1982 with a high risk pregnancy, I was working as a Registered Nurse for a temporary medical pool and had no health insurance. Doctors advised me that there were possible fetal development problems and that I would need monthly visits to specialists, costing well over $3000.

With the bills piling up, I started a new position as a Primary Nurse at a hospital, where I would become eligible for health insurance that would cover most of my health care costs, including prenatal, birthing and post-partum care costs.

When my son was born, thankfully he was healthy despite a delayed spinal closure and didn’t need any specialty follow-up care. Because of limited finances and available earned time I had to return to work after 6 weeks. My son went to day care and I paid through my work for his health insurance. With living expenses, child care, and medical bills, things were tight.

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Robert and Linda Williams I’ve been self-employed since 1977 and have had to provide health insurance for my entire family. Currently, my wife Linda and I own a small wheel alignment shop and health insurance costs $8280 per year for just the two of us. The question is: what does our insurance actually cover?

Last year, my wife went to her physician for a typical office visit which we soon found out was not covered by our plan. We received a bill for $175 and submitted it to our insurance company who told us that they do not cover the costs of office visits. In the explanation of benefits our patient liability was $154, with a PPO discount of $21. We sent our check to the doctor for $154.

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Barbara WoodwardI haven’t had health insurance for the last 5 years. In 2001 my husband William was injured on the job and we gained custody of our10-year-old grandson. While William became eligible for Medicare, we struggled to make COBRA payments so I could have health insurance as well. We just couldn’t keep up with the payments and we had to drop it. I was very reluctant to do that, because my job working in a doctor’s office didn’t include any kind of health care benefit.

As our grandson got older, he required more attention from us. He was getting into adolescence and needed more supervision to keep him out of trouble. So, I had to retire from my job in order to be more involved. At that time, we were the only guardians he had.

I was relatively healthy until July 2005 when doctors discovered that a tumor was developing in my throat. I had trouble swallowing, sleeping at night and even just breathing normally. My throat was swollen and I had ear and headaches from the pressure.

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