Rising health insurance deductibles fuel middle-class anger and resentment

Denise Wall, a Fresno area school teacher with more than $2,000 in medical bills, was outraged to hear she could get free care if she quit her job and enrolled her family in Medicaid. Brenda Bartlett, a factory worker in Nebraska, was so angry about $2,500 in medical bills she ran up using the coverage she got at work that she dropped insurance altogether. “They don’t give a rat’s butt about people like me,” she said.