Healthy alternative

Medicine | A New Jersey clinic may be a model for a new health-care system, but is anyone in Washington paying attention? | Susan Olasky

ZAREPHATH, N.J.–Three years ago, if you had asked Amal Gurguis whether she was worried about a crisis in health insurance, she probably would have said no. The thirty-something mother of two small children was covered under her husband’s health insurance policy, which he had through his employer.

But when her husband suffered a massive coronary on her son’s second birthday, Amal’s life changed. She lost her husband and joined the ranks of the uninsured.

Although the particulars of Amal’s story are unique, the arc of her story isn’t. And whether she knows it or not, Amal has become a rope in the tug of war between those who want the United States to adopt a single-payer, Canadian-style health-care system, and those who want to give consumers more choice and responsibility for their health care. For Amal is one of “the uninsured.”