Alicia : "I could not give up my job and lose our insurance"

[RedEarth]

Alicia .........Personal story from Health Care For All......

Health Care for All is not just about providing for the uninsured; it is also about protecting people who are supposed to be insured and are nonetheless denied the care they need. It’s about allowing doctors who have actually examined a patient to make decisions about their care.

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Alicia

I have been paying for health insurance since I was 16 years old. That is 42 years of adding to the coffers ofinsurance companies, and now that I need something back, it is one brick wall after another.

Last July, my husband became very ill. After 11 days in the hospital, he was sent home with a walker and a wheelchair.

For a while it looked as though he was improving. I continued to work at my job in advertising sales, not only for the income but to keep insurance. I would prepare food and put all his necessities where they would be handy before leaving for the day. We paid for a rolling walker with a basket to give him more independence. Our health coverage did not include in-home care, so we did the best we could.

Then his condition worsened, and it became impossible for him to stand or move himself from chair to bed. I tried numerous ways to get help for at least part of the day. As much as friends might want to assist, there is only so much time they can give, and as his health deteriorated, we had to pay for professional help.

This was extremely expensive, but I could not give up my job and lose our insurance. I began to dip into our retirement savings and made plans to sell my car. We could still only afford part-time help. The rest was up to me.

I had suffered a severe back injury years before, and many things I was doing were damaging to my back. At the same time my arthritis was progressing rapidly. But what choice did I have? There was a lot of lifting -- not the least of which was getting the wheelchair into the car trunk for doctor visits. There was little sleep. Needless to say, there was no time to see to my own health.

In January, I lost my husband. He was my best friend and love of my life.

I tried very hard to go on and pull myself together, but finally, the physical and emotional pain proved to be too much and on the advice of my doctor, I applied for temporary disability. Not surprisingly, I was terminated the next day. I immediately filled out forms and remitted payment for my first month of COBRA coverage.

more........

http://www.healthcareforall.org/stories.html#alicia


Single-Payer National Health Insurance

Single-payer national health insurance is a system in which a single public or quasi-public agency organizes health financing, but delivery of care remains largely private.

Currently, the U.S. health care system is outrageously expensive, yet inadequate. Despite spending more than twice as much as the rest of the industrialized nations ($7,129 per capita), the United States performs poorly in comparison on major health indicators such as life expectancy, infant mortality and immunization rates. Moreover, the other advanced nations provide comprehensive coverage to their entire populations, while the U.S. leaves 46 million completely uninsured and millions more inadequately covered.

The reason we spend more and get less than the rest of the world is because we have a patchwork system of for-profit payers. Private insurers necessarily waste health dollars on things that have nothing to do with care: overhead, underwriting, billing, sales and marketing departments as well as huge profits and exorbitant executive pay. Doctors and hospitals must maintain costly administrative staffs to deal with the bureaucracy. Combined, this needless administration consumes one-third (31 percent) of Americans’ health dollars.

Single-payer financing is the only way to recapture this wasted money. The potential savings on paperwork, more than $350 billion per year, are enough to provide comprehensive coverage to everyone without paying any more than we already do.

Under a single-payer system, all Americans would be covered for all medically necessary services, including: doctor, hospital, long-term care, mental health, dental, vision, prescription drug and medical supply costs. Patients would regain free choice of doctor and hospital, and doctors would regain autonomy over patient care.

Physicians would be paid fee-for-service according to a negotiated formulary or receive salary from a hospital or nonprofit HMO / group practice. Hospitals would receive a global budget for operating expenses. Health facilities and expensive equipment purchases would be managed by regional health planning boards.

A single-payer system would be financed by eliminating private insurers and recapturing their administrative waste. Modest new taxes would replace premiums and out-of-pocket payments currently paid by individuals and business. Costs would be controlled through negotiated fees, global budgeting and bulk purchasing.

http://www.pnhp.org/facts/single_payer_resources.php