As a middle-income couple approaching the years when we should be thinking about retirement, we can’t. Like so many others, retirement is out of the question for us, not because of our stock-market losses, a foreclosure, or unchecked debt, but because without my husband’s primary job—we both work about 60 hours a week—we couldn’t afford health insurance. Right now the cost of our insurance, deductibles, and co-pays is more than 50 percent of my husband’s salary. We are insured with Anthem Blue Cross, who recently denied approval of lab work requested by my doctor.

If the insurance companies continue to run unchecked, the arguments we are hearing used against a public health-care option are very likely to be our future experience with these same insurance providers. I would rather pay for my health care by increased taxes than increased profit, bonuses, and huge salaries for the CEOs of the health insurance companies.

I want a public health care option. It is the only way we can expect to lower the costs of health care. I believe most Americans feel the same. We just don’t know how to make ourselves heard by our representatives in Congress over the talking points and the money the insurance companies have behind them.