Medical Disasters

what a potential disaster with my health insurance coverage .... AGAIN!!

So last time i had been told that health insurance open enrollment was between 1-20th May - so I had been on the watch out for the emails in this regard for the past week. But no such email - finally today i dropped by the office and asked about it and was told enrollement ended on friday!! seems that was 12th not the 20th. And enrollment is I believe only once a year? anyway I was about to have a heart attack - it was bad enough as it was when my insurance got canceled last March due to a missed payment - My funding source was changing and they missed one payment. Anyway we managed to fix it by backdating it and then sending it saying it had actually been sent last friday. I found out that I was actually not on the mailing list which yes, can cause the problem. But what a brush with disaster... I am so happy I am once again covered. Well starting July 1st anyway.

I seriously don't understand this open enrollment period of insurance companies in the US - why is it that people can only enroll in insurance at only certain times?? I was once told because of the added costs associated with having an enrollment period all year long - but surely it is not just me that has been a victim of this limited time opportunity?!! In Australia, we had all year long enrollment I believe. It is so much more user-friendly.

I was talking to a health insurance economist on the weekend when I was in the airport (that was one weird conversation!!) and I thought of a fundamental question: the concept of health insurance for all is to a large extent an extension of socialist ideals - so can a strictly capitalistic country have a good health insurance?