Letters to the Editor
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#1 Reason for Bankruptcy
Remains health costs. A huge number of Americans are literally one car accident, one cancer diagnosis just one health emergency away from finacial ruin. And that's the people WITH insurance.
The US remains the only major industrial power in the world where this is the case. Its a disgrace.
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dangerous disparities
The thing that should be said here is this health coverage system collapse affects pretty much everyone, even fairly successful mid-level executives (VPs and the like) at big corporations - the type of people making well into the six figures. If your company provides health insurance, there's a good chance you are getting less for more money than you were paying 5 years ago.
I saw an article today about the sinking home market in wealthy zip codes. They said that the medium end - $2M to $6M homes - have gotten hit hard. But the ultra-high end is setting records, still.
Its really something that should give most of us pause. A tiny slice of ultra-rich and ultra-powerful people floating high above, succeeding wildly and making more money than ever while the rest of the country crashes and burns is really something you would expect more in Russia or Mexico, not the USA.
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Not falling apart
The system is not "falling apart." It's being looted.
The looting will continue until we as a people make a decision to address it as such, head on. No calling it "inefficiencies" or "modernization" or what have you. When we sit down and say to ourselves, "It's time to stop this looting of the nation's health care system," then we'll be able to do it.
But it's not all gloom. Here's a cheery way to look at it: we're sometimes told that the failure of developing nations to construct durable, effective social and political institutions somehow represents a cultural deficiency — that these backward people inherently lack the ability to govern themselves or organize their society properly.
But look, here in the United States we too can experience a system of institutionalized, corporatized corruption to make any tin-pot dictator blush — proof positive that there's hope for the third world.
Or at least, there isn't any less hope for them than there is for us.
Does that still technically count as optimism?
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It's The Fear
I've actually always had employer-provided health insurance. But there's always this fear, what happens if I lose it? I've been laid off twice in the last two years, and I'm debating right now - if I'm unemployed for several months or more, do I deplete my savings by paying the astronomical cost of COBRA (and end up having to go into debt) or do I chance the private insurance market and hope I don't get turned down for pre-existing conditions, or pray that the insurance company doesn't decide I'm not a good risk and drops me? I'm pretty healthy and rarely need a doctor, but even minor health issues can doom you to be "uninsurable", and once you drop down that rabbit hole, all you can do is cross your fingers and don't get sick.
This is one thing my Dad (who retired on Medicare) just can't understand. I try to explain to him the current situation, where you can lose your insurance any time and there's this constant worry and fear, and it just baffles him. He never had that fear.
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free to be enslaved
"As Paul Krugman points out: "The really important thing to realize is that this deterioration in coverage took place in the best years of the Bush economy. The system is now falling apart so fast that things get worse even during periods of economic expansion.""
The more people are forced to spend on healthcare (and anything else, particularly essentials as they have no choice) the better it is for 'the economy' as measured by GDP. Saving is bad, spending is good- and its even better for the economy if the savings option can be entirely eliminated. Keep that money moving- particularly upward! We're headed for a new feudalism with a small number of elites owning everything (by way of corporate control) and everyone else in perpetual debt slavery. We'll continue on this course unless the 'average' American is disabused of the 'someday I'll be rich' notion and starts making choices, political and otherwise, accordingly based on the realities of their situation.
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When you aren't underinsured and you can't be dropped
The insurance company simply refuses to pay.
I am lucky to live in one of the few states that actually forces even the individual policy market to sell to people who want to buy, even with pre-exesting conditions (of course, you have to be able to pay the premium).
Our small-business coverage has almost no deductible as long as you go in-plan, just a small one at the beginning of each year for the prescription coverage. Surgery was supposed to be covered 100% as long as it was in-plan - and considered medically necessary.
That's the catch. I had a bone sput in my shoulder which caused frozen shoulder and also significant scar tissue. They would cover the scope to file down the spur, but not to also get rid of the scar tissue. They considered only the bone spur medically necessary, even though the scar tissue was also causing pain and would make getting full ROM back more difficult. They simply refused to approve it - and if the doctor doesn't win the appeal I'll owe him a few thousand dollars, he was kind enough to give me a discount on the scar tissue clear-out since he was in there anyway for the bone spur procedure.
There was no way this was not medically necessary. They just didn't want to pay for it. I had all the right insurance coverage. The insurance company just decided not to cover it. And that's the way it goes. It could have been much worse. I could have been uninsured.
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Notice the American Cancer Society has changed its tune
I recently saw ads saying "Everyone Deserves the Chance to Fight Their Cancer."
Wow.
I understand, but wow. It's amazing that an organization with as much clout as the American Cancer Society has taken up the cause of the uninsured and underinsured. Finding a cure doesn't do any good if no one can pay for it.
Add the chronically unemployable in to this mix--my husband works in adult psychiatric care. The chronically mentally ill are not capable of holding a job with benefits--hell, most can't manage their own medications in the community. What do we do with the mentally disabled, or with people who are otherwise incapable of working?