I recently had a "near death" experience with the U.S. healthcare system—figuratively speaking—and I’m just glad I didn’t "cross over" during that time because I don’t think my family could have afforded the costs.

Bernie and I are in the process of relocating to Atlanta to be closer to our children. Since Bernie is a nurse who likes her job in a surgery center, her hope was to stay with her current employer but just report to a different location.

But Murphy’s Law reared its ugly head, and Bernie found no position waiting for her, at least not right away, which threw us into health insurance limbo for a short period of time that was just long enough to convince me the system is, as the younger generation is known to say, whack.

For the next few days, while we pondered Bernie’s future, I began an odyssey in search of reasonably priced health insurance. I started calling different companies and, I’ll be completely honest with you here, I started each conversation with, "Hi, this is Harvey Kart of Hospital News …" I’d pause to let the significance sink in, then continue. " … and I want to know what the deal is with your coverage."

Perhaps I didn’t stress the Hospital News identification enough but you no doubt will be happy to hear that it bought me no special treatment whatsoever. They asked me about my general health status and I freely and honestly offered that I have a bad back and a touch of arthritis—not too unexpected for someone who has lived five decades already, right?—and the standard response was uh, wait. As in, I may have a waiting period until I can be rated.

So I found myself swelling that much ballyhooed statistic of 46 million, as in how many Americans do not have health insurance. A little perturbed and a lot panicked, I checked into COBRA. Without citing an actual monthly cost, let me just say it was this side of astronomical. In other words, COBRA is a great acronym for this program because it really bites.

I also figured I better order a 90-day supply of my prescription medication before our present health insurance ended, just to be safe and to make sure my wallet was empty of just about any piece of paper with a dead president on it.

Like most people caught in this type of situation, I put my mind in overdrive, grinding back and forth between self-pity and panic. The self-pity verbalized itself mostly this way: "I guess it’s just not a good idea to move closer to the grandkids and have them develop a sense of family."

The panic prompted me to think about over- reacting (and those who know me appreciate that I don’t need a big push in this area) as in planning to spend the next 90-days or so in my house and in bed. Such activities as cutting a cucumber or using a step stool to reach something overhead would be taboo. If possible, I’d encase myself like the Boy in the Bubble, although with my luck I’d end up suffocating myself. And I can’t afford the bill for attempted resuscitation, even if unsuccessful.

Finally Bernie’s employer informed her that, indeed, they could use her in a surgery center near our new home in Atlanta. We again were covered through our present plan. I’ll be brutally honest, if not altruistic: It didn’t take long—say about 30 seconds—for my passion for fixing the cracks in our healthcare system to largely subside.

Hey, I’m covered, and I figure we’ll be okay for the next few years until we ease into Medicare.

But you know what? It’ll be awhile before I forget how it felt to be completely vulnerable to anything from an accident, to a flu bug, to a heart-stopping diagnosis of a major health problem and how any of those could have financially devastated my family. I don’t now the answer, but we’ve got to keep the question on the table until we find one.

Harvey Kart