I used to work at companies that offered me insurance plans. Then, I became a freelance writer and joined those 46 million Americans that don’t have health insurance (15% in the past 5 years). I called around for individual plans and got some very confused agents on the other line (when I could get to a human). I joined the National Writers Union, for the same reason many people join unions, to get health care. Even that process was fraught with waiting time and regularly changing plans.

While traveling the country researching JACKED, I met a middle-class senior citizen woman, during an Aquacize class I attended at the YMCA in Tampa. She told me her doctor was so annoyed at the red tape of insurance companies that he started offering his patients care at whatever price they could afford. He didn't want insurance companies telling him how to practice medicine or whom to treat.

As I traveled the country, talking to people about their wallets and lives, on this issue there was almost complete agreement. Our health care system is screwed up. It's not just a matter of rich vs. poor. No matter who you are, you worry. As do the people in the health care chapter in JACKED: a mother with two autistic children whose mental needs aren't covered, a Hollywood producer with a stellar plan who still wants to retire to Canada, a struggling actor with SAG coverage when he can find jobs -and when he can't - it's no job topped by no insurance, and a NY based woman who went from middle class to destitute because of medical problems for which lack of coverage nearly killed her.

It's wrong. We need to stop settling for mounting premiums and diminished coverage. We need to scream about cuts to Medicare and Medicaid to balance a budget boated with corporate tax cuts that make this okay in the eyes of Congress. We need a plan that cuts the insurance middleman or regulates their breadth of coverage, so no one has to choose death over treatment. Not in a country as rich as ours.

We need to stop settling for mounting premiums and diminished coverage. We need to scream about cuts to Medicare and Medicaid to balance a budget boated with corporate tax cuts that make this okay in the eyes of Congress. We need a plan that cuts the insurance middleman or regulates their breadth of coverage, so no one has to choose death over treatment. Not in a country as rich as ours.