Smash the insurance industry

A good society does not allow this:

...Under the present rules for Katrina victims, if you are destitute, the government will pay your medical bills. Ditto if you are severely disabled or have children. But if you're an adult who had a job that included health benefits and you lost that job because of the storm, the government can't seem to help.

That's true even if, as with Wilson, there is every prospect that you can get your old job back as soon as things begin returning to normal.

"I went to Medicaid, and the lady I talked to let me know that Medicaid is mostly if you're disabled or pregnant," said Wilson, who fled New Orleans to Baton Rouge, La. "I don't want to become disabled, and I don't think I can become pregnant, so that leaves me out in the cold."

Wilson can't reinstate his health insurance -- which expires at the end of this month -- because the storm wiped out his job. The government says he doesn't fall into any of the rigid eligibility categories for federally sponsored Medicaid.

He's not alone. Of 6,322 displaced households that had applied for Medicaid through Sept. 23 in Louisiana, more than half, 3,456, were not eligible under current rules, according to the state....