Sick Around America: Half-Assed Health Insurance Doesn’t Work

[marmar]

via AlterNet's PEEK:



Sick Around America: Half-Assed Health Insurance Doesn’t Work

Posted by Christy Hardin Smith, Firedoglake at 10:45 AM on March 30, 2009.

This infuriates me. And not just because I have a pre-existing condition that would likely have me on the "insurance blacklist."




This infuriates me. And not just because I have a pre-existing condition that would likely have me on the "insurance blacklist."

It's especially timely because growing numbers are looking for individual health insurance after losing their jobs. On top of that, small businesses, which make up the bulk of South Florida's economy, are frequently finding health policies too expensive and are dropping coverage, sending even more people shopping for insurance....

''This is absolutely the standard way of doing business,'' said Santiago Leon, a health insurance broker in Miami. Being denied for preexisting conditions is well known, but when a person sees the usually confidential list of automatic denials for himself, ``that's a eureka moment. That shows you how harsh the system is.''...

Imagine working your rear end off for a company and having them close down in this recession. But you've paid into an emergency fund for health care coverage, so you think you've planned ahead and made wise choices.

Or, if you own a small business (as I have), trying desperately to find affordable coverage for your employees and continually getting quoted insane prices for a relatively healthy group of people that none of you can afford. It's nuts.

And then, you get slapped with the fine print:

Many jobless Americans are shocked to learn that the health plan, either paid for by the employer or deducted from each paycheck, costs so much. The average payment under COBRA can be around $1,200, and much higher if your company had a really good health plan....

$1,200? That's reasonable compared to what you could be paying if you have a pre-existing condition and have to pay out-of-pocket for an individual plan.

Once you are out of the workplace, you have no leverage to negotiate on a group basis for a lower rate. It's just you and your meds, and whatever an insurance company does or does not want to cover.

In what universe does it make sense that the people who most need regular medical care are the ones least likely to get it?

Or that people who are now out of work in their chosen field -- and are turning up at fast food joints or pizza delivery trucks or various other lower wage jobs just to make ends meet -- now have no decent, regular health care coverage. So communicable diseases they have get spread around the community if not treated.

How does this make any sense at all whatsoever?

Only in a system where medical care is treated solely as a "for profit" enterprise, and where public health concerns mean nothing. That's where.

The market takes care of its own, and screw the rest of us when it comes to health care.

That has to change. Or we are going to be in an even larger world of hurt if a bird flu or other pandemic hits. Just imagine how far some pandemic disease could spread if no one could afford to go to the doctor and have their symptoms identified until it had been spread through every school and public office and business in your county? And then tell me that health care isn't important.

Frontline has what looks to be a very intriguing documentary airing on this subject tomorrow evening entitled "Sick Around America."

Here's hoping some policy-makers are watching it, even though they still have their government-paid healthcare intact. But to keep it, they have to stay in office, don't they?


http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/134118/sick_around_america%3A_half-assed_health_insurance_doesn%E2%80%99t_work/

[Taverner]

1. Yes yes and yes

[TBF]

2. And yet the status quo continues ... n/t

[aquamarina]

3. And when will our esteemed leaders get it through their heads

that health insurance - no matter how cheap - is not the same as health care. I am very tired of the current discussion that "aims" to make health care more affordable because "affordable" health care insurance is no guarantee that actual health care will be provided. We all know insurance companies are experts at collecting premiums but when Mr. or Ms. Patient dare to ask for a few bucks or many bucks to pay for actual health care these same insurance companies are awfully good at denying the health care they profess to cover.

I am also tired of the notion that Americans have to rely on the generosity of an employer to provide them with health insurance. This is also a stupid practice. How many people can't "afford" to leave their jobs for fear of not being able to get health insurance at another job?

I really don't understand why Medicare can't be opened up to everyone. We already pay for it. Employers will save substantial amounts of money by not having to pay for their employees insurance plans and by adding a couple hundred million healthy people to the Medicare rolls (currently covering only the elderly and infirm), won't everyones costs come down?

Until the health care in this country is removed from the capital markets, nothing is going to change because profit ALWAYS trumps health.

[Kansas Wyatt]

5. "Profit" suffocates and kills Health Care.

It's a simple fact that to increase profits, LESS health care has to be provided. Democratic & Republican Congress Members do not give a flying fuck about the citizens of this country, because they cannot be that stupid.

The reason why Wealthy Politicians (both Republican & Democrat) don't get it, is because they have the best Health Care in the world, paid for by the U.S. taxpayer, and have their pockets stuffed by the Death Merchants who rape millions of Americans every day. Yank their Health Care, and they would solve America's Health Care problem overnight, without including "insurance."

I challenge anyone out there to prove to me that President Obama or anyone from Congress, who insists on including the Insurance Industry in Health Care policy decisions, has the best interest in mind for the Citizens of the United States. You just CANNOT improve Health Care, when "For Profit" Industries are allowed to reduce that very same Health Care.

[Ron Green]

4. My 3 elements of a good plan:

1) Single payer, everybody covered
2) Realistic expectations about death
3) Education for nutrition and fitness

[Mithreal]

6. Makes for a sweet load of profit though, can't argue with that. nt

[cabluedem]

7. At least "Bird Flu" would not discrminate: It would kill rich and poor alike. nt

[4_TN_TITANS]

8. Health care needs to be treated like public education.

The minute it becomes a "for profit" venture, those who are not profitable begin to be weeded out.