Your cousin is a MORON. Would he have taken his car to the mechanic if it was sputtering and idling fast? Or would he have waited until his car stalled on the highway? There's something called personal responsibility, and your cousin clearly doesn't have much of it. If he was that sick and didn't bother going to the doctor because he was too cheap, then his priorities are out of wack. But I bet he pays out the nose for his cell phone and cable service.
I am one of those Americans without health insurance, and I absolutely do not want it from the gov't. I *choose* to take care of my own medical bills so *I* can make my own choices as far as what drs I see and when. We do have catastrophic insurance because we're not idiots. Because the state I live in has some BS gov't run heathcare and started dicking around with too many insurance regulations, it's now way too cost prohibitive for a middle class family to self insure. My monthly premium skyrocketted to well over my monthly mortgage payment, and I built my house when house prices were through the roof.
There have been many times I've thought to myself, "do I really need to see a dr and pay $125 for an office visit?" And you know, if I'm sick, I freaking do it. In fact yesterday, we just received a bill for $500 for me to have some basal cell removed. So the freak what. I'll pay a lot more than that on my electricity bill over the next few months, and I don't expect the gov't to pay for that either (what? electricity in the US should be a right!:roll
. I'll pay a lot more than that for the luxury of flushing my toilets this year.
So when I think of these people (who you know dang right well have iPods and awesome cellphones) who are too cheap to drop $100 to see a dr to take care of their health, I don't have a lot of sympathy. If you're dirt poor, the gov't will pay it anyway. If you're not dirt poor, poney up the cash and quityerbitchen.
/rant