Americans can no longer afford to get sick and there’s a reason why. That’s because a growing number of Americans are struggling to stretch their dollars far enough to pay their bills, get out of debt and ensure that if and when an illness arises, it doesn’t bankrupt them. This is a reality that no amount of partisan political bickering can deny. Many Americans can no longer afford health insurance, drug costs or hospital bills. They can’t afford to pay rising healthcare premiums, out-of-pocket deductibles and prescription drug bills. They can’t afford to live, and now they can’t afford to get sick or die, either.

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Show Notes

Helaine Olen, “Even the Insured Often Can’t Afford Their Medical Bills,” The Atlantic

Mark Betancourt, “The Devastating Process of Dying in America Without Insurance,” The Nation

Robert Pear, “Why Do Health Costs Keep Rising? These People Know,” The New York Times

Ester Bloom, “Here’s how much the average American spends on health care,” CNBC

Dan Mangan, “Most popular Obamacare plans cost average of 34 percent more for 2018,” CNBC

Zachary Tracer, “Rising Health-Insurance Costs Are Eating Into Employees’ Paycheck Gains,” Bloomberg

Dan Mangan, “We spend more than any developed country on healthcare and have less to show for it,” CNBC

Laurie Meisler, “Americans Die Younger Despite Spending the Most on Health Care,” Bloomberg

Lauren Gelman, “10 Wildly Overinflated Hospital Costs,” Reader’s Digest

“10 Ridiculously Overpriced Hospital Costs,” MBA Medical

Jayne O’Donnell, “Feds’ Obamacare site does biggest business yet, while about half of people can pay $0,” USA Today

Robert Pear, “Health Law Tax Penalty? I’ll Take It, Millions Say,” The New York Times

Kathryn Vasel, “6 in 10 Americans don’t have $500 in savings,” CNN

Ester Bloom, “Here’s how many Americans have nothing at all saved for retirement,” CNBC

Jim Powell, “John Locke: Natural Rights to Life, Liberty, and Property,” FEE

Dennis Hevesi, “Irwin Schiff, Fervent Opponent of Federal Income Taxes, Dies at 87,” The New York Times

Melissa Block, “A History Of The Income Tax,” NPR

Linda Greenhouse, “Supreme Court Ruling Supports Tax Protester,” The New York Times

U.S. Debt Clock

Drew Desilver, “5 facts about the national debt,” Pew Research

Uri Friedman, “Fighting Terrorism With a Credit Card,” The Atlantic

Jack Moore, “The Cost of War for the U.S. Taxpayer Since 9/11 Is Actually Three Times the Pentagon’s Estimate,” Newsweek

Gillian Kiley-Brown, “Post-9/11 U.S. war costs will soon top $5.6 trillion,” Futurity

Jeanne Sahadi, “The financial cost of 16 years in Afghanistan,” CNN

Linda J. Bilmes, “Iraq and Afghanistan: The US$6 trillion bill for America’s longest war is unpaid,” The Conversation

Alex Ward, “Trump is sending more than 3,000 troops to Afghanistan,” Vox

Dwight D. Eisenhower, “The Chance for Peace” (Apr. 16, 1953)

Financial Tyranny: ‘We the People’ Are the New Permanent Underclass in America

Battlefield America: The War on the American People

Rutherford Institute