Letters to the Editor
-
Anonymous and ReganaD
Anonymous is correct that illness is not a choice, but ReganaD is correct that health insurance covers much more than expenses associated with illness, including frequently predictable expenses, and preventive care, including, for instance, cholesterol lowering medication (and many other things). Drugs can be antibiotics, directly associated with the treatment of illness, or NSAIDs, to relieve pain but not cure anything.
So the issue becomes: how do you contain this beast? But ReganaD's point is still correct: the beast is fed mostly by health care providers and their related expenses, and not simply profits or administrative expenses of insurers.
-
Medical bills and bankruptcy
Just a note on the evils of socialized medical care (Canada's, specifically)... US data is from a 2007 article in the NYT...
50 percent of American personal bankruptcies are a result of being unable to pay medical bills.
75 percent of those US medical-bill bankruptcies were suffered by people who had medical insurance but were under-insured.
Doing the math... (50% x 75%) = 37.5 percent of all American bankruptcies are suffered by people who HAVE medical insurance.
In Canada, the number of people who go bankrupt because they can't pay their medical bills is... ZERO.
-
My God! Some People REFUSE To Accept That Debt Doesn't Come Exclusively From Overspending!
So I _have_ walked a mile in your shoes, I just never bought "stuff" when I couldn't afford it. I wore the same clothes for years, I clipped coupons and scoured the grocery ads for specials, the whole nine yards. And that was as a 23 year old with a social life. It's not impossible.
Every time someone tells a story about job loss or a medical crisis -- someone is right there to "explain" that if you just stop spending so much money on silly little gadgets and expensive coffee then everything will work out fine.
None so blind as those who will not see.
Any kind of sudden shock or economic jolt can send people into deep debt almost overnight!
Medical expenses can bankrupt families within months! Months!
Job loss (even lasting less than six months!) can drive families so deep in debt that there may be no way out except bankruptcy.
Yet people keep writing in "explaining" that if we would just clip coupons or buy a cheaper car or stop spending so much on those darn expensive coffees everything would just "work out."
(eye roll)
-
Oh, stop it
I want single-payer. I think it is criminal to bankrupt someone over needed health care. I don't think it's the insurance company's fault that providers charge so much. I don't think people (like you?) should complain that they pay premiums and still have to pay for part of their care. It IS a shared responsibility.
Of course you don't choose to get sick. I don't choose to be diabetic (please don't preach to me about health care costs, okay?). People should be protected by insurance from crushing debt, like the $50,000/month chemotherapy costs. But they should not complain that they have to pay a $30 copay, as you did, to cure a short-term malady, manage a life-long condition, or ameliorate the effects of bad genetics (my 3 cholesterol and triglyceride lowering meds, for example).
One of the reasons healthcare reform failed in the 90's is because the plan took into account cost control, which made doctors, hospitals, and other providers very angry. My point is, and has been, that much of the problem is the out of control rise in the costs of health care, and that finding a convenient whipping boy like insurance companies will do nothing to control costs. More than a third of insured Americans are covered by self-insured plans, which means that rates are set only upon the cost of care, with no profit. Nevertheless, trend factors in the double digits occur each year (except last year) for self-insured plans. These are not the fault of the insurance companies.
Outrage, anger, and action are necessary. Some of this should absolutely be aimed at vile insurance company practices. But very very much of it is caused by irrational price hikes in the price of medical services (please don't say it's the liability coverage, that protection from negligence is less than 1% of the medical costs). We need to look at why the cost of drugs rose just before the Medicare part D plans went into effect (so they could pretend there was a "discount"?), why patients of medical groups that have bought MRI machines get referred for an MRI twice as often as other patients, why it takes a specialist to decipher your hospital bill, and why virtually every one of those bills has an error on it, never in your favor.
In the example I first responded too, Blue Cross did nothing but pay its share of the bill as its contract required. My point is that the anger is misdirected-the treatment should not have cost $75,000.
-
If We Can Pay For The Military, The Police, Fire Dept & Highways With Taxes -- Why Not Hospitals?
Obviously we've established illness is not a "choice" and thus hospitals cannot be run like a Wal-mart.
You can't have "sales" on chest xrays -- and people can't choose what kind of illness they will have, or when or where.
Exactly like crime.
Just pay the damn hospitals with taxes exactly like we do with the military (most expensive on earth), the police dept, the fire dept, our highways, etc, etc.
Free market forces cannot regulate costs on illness any more than they can for "safety" or "crime."
So instead of having every pay $300 a month to Blue Cross who then rations out a small percentage of that income to the actual hospitals (sticking citizens with the remainder of the bill) just do the common sense thing and pay for the entire hospital budget with taxes.
That is the only way to keep costs down.
Every time someone defaults on their bill -- the hospitals lose money and raise rates on everyone else to compensate.
If hospitals get paid by taxation then they wouldn't constantly be going broke because of patient defaults and rates would come down.
It works for the military. It works for the police. It works for our highways. It will work for our hospitals too.
And it will be cheaper because we will eliminate the middle man of insurance. We won't have to include their need to make a profit nor take into account their advertising budgets, etc. The money will just go straight to the hospitals.