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Don't get me wrong, I pay for coverage. I pay nearly $1000 a month in premiums for a healthy family of four. As of the end of this month, I face a 21% increase in those premiums. But what I get for that outrageous monthly fee is not really, "insurance."
"Insurance" is something that is there when you need it. You pay your premiums every month, and then IF something happens, you're insured. So no, what I have isn't insurance.
Because I buy my coverage through the poorly regulated individual market, what I have is "insurance" only as long as no member of my family is ill. But if anyone becomes ill and the illness becomes expensive, my insurance company will work very hard to find a pretext to deny or cancel my coverage.
So I don't really have insurance. It's more like a weather report -- I have a 20% chance of insurance if I really need it. So, to recap, next year, paying more than $1000 a month will buy me an 80% (or greater) chance of getting nothing in return.
Part 2: I don't need Health Insurance
But here's the thing, I don't need health insurance. I don't need insurance at all.
Insurance is the wrong model. Insurance is something I get in case I need it. I insure my car, though I've never been in an accident and hope not to be. I insure my home knowing that it will probably never burn down. I insure my life through term insurance which is essentially a bet between me and the company -- they're betting I won't die before the term expires, and while I hope they're right, just in case, I want to be sure that my family would have that protection if I did. In all of these cases, I pay my premiums and I may never use my coverage. The insurance company makes a profit by spreading the risk around a large number of customers, knowing that only a relatively small percentage of them will ever need to be paid the benefit.
But when it comes to health, the question isn't IF I will need it, it's WHEN. Sooner or later every one of us will need health care. And sooner or later, it will be expensive care.
Currently, the industry is making a bet: they cover only the young and employed betting that by the time health care gets expensive they will not have to pay. Either the customer gets old enough to become eligible for Medicare, or looses the ability to work and looses work-based coverage. In any case, no longer the industry's problem. It's a good bet for them and the house usually wins.
But for consumers, it is a system that sucks money out of the economy. It's a system that fails to provide care. It is a system that is morally unconscionable. Or, to put it plainly, it's not simply a stupid investment, it is wrong.
So I don't need Health Insurance. I don't want Health Insurance. I need HealthCARE.
Part 3: I don't need more choices
I have choices right now, but they're all bad. I can pay too much for unreliable coverage from Company A, or I can pay too much for unreliable coverage from Company B, or I can take my chances and go without.
I have read proposed plans that would allow me to choose a level of coverage based on my needs, paying more for more coverage and less for bare-bones plans that provide less.
But here's the question, how do I know what I need? I'm healthy, so at the moment I don't need a plan that would cover certain reoccurring costs that for example someone with a chronic condition might need. I don't take any prescriptions, so I don't need a drug benefit.
But I have seen, sadly, how in a moment all of that can change. Young, healthy people get cancer, even with no known risk factors. I have no assurance that when I least expect it, I might be hit by a car, or struck by lightening, or eat cookie dough tainted with E. Coli and suddenly need a level of care that I didn't plan on when I signed a contract.
I know what I need now, but I can't know what I might need tomorrow, so I don't need choices.
Part 4: What I need ...
I need a system that spreads the risk around, including the young and the healthy as well as the aged and the ill. I need a system that doesn't just cover me and my family, because we don't live in a universe unto ourselves, we live in a community. My community suffers when my neighbors are forced into bankruptcy by medical bills. My community suffers when my neighbors are too sick to work. My community suffers when my neighbors die because they lack access to care they can afford. I need a system that covers everyone.
I need a system that doesn't suck money out of my pockets and put it in the hands of lobbyists who work against my interest. (Believe me, I have other places to spend that money -- my local economy, for example.) I need a system that doesn't put healthcare choices in the hands of MBAs, but leaves them in the hands of my MD.
I need a system that covers a minor illness or a major illness, an acute illness or a chronic illness, and doesn't rely on my ability to predict the unknown. I need a system that covers my kids as well as it covers their grand-parents. A system that covers my day-care provider every bit as well as it covers the CEO of my company, but charges them based what they can afford to pay.
What I need is affordable, reliable, universal healthcare.
It is a great read. But sad. Sad because we're highly unlikely to get Universal Health Care here. Universal insurance coverage is not the same as Universal Health Care.
Also, it's sad because the US Taxpayers send billions to Israel every year, and Israel has universal health care. We don't, and probably never will. The US government is spending hundreds of millions of dollars in Iraq to improve access to healthcare (USAID: Assistance for Iraq - Health (http://www.usaid.gov/iraq/accomplishments/health.html - broken link)). But if the same sort of spending were proposed for access to healthcare for US citizens, conservatives would be howling about socialism.
For some reason, it's considered OK to export socialism in the form of universal healthcare for foreign countries, but unacceptable to have the same sort of program here at home. What a bizarre double standard.
People really should stop concentrating on the uninsured only. Those of us who have insurance really have no way of knowing if we will actually have coverage when we need it. It's all a crap shoot. We pay outrageous fees based on a HOPE that our insurance company won't drop us when we are sick or refuse to cover expenses because we never disclosed that we had acne as a teenager, for example.
Why are Americans paying so much more, year after year, for insurance that is fundamentally driven to minimize it's risk and reward their selected doctors for spending as little time and money on patients as possible? Health insurance is often nothing more than a grand illusion.
People really should stop concentrating on the uninsured only. Those of us who have insurance really have no way of knowing if we will actually have coverage when we need it. It's all a crap shoot. We pay outrageous fees based on a HOPE that our insurance company won't drop us when we are sick or refuse to cover expenses because we never disclosed that we had acne as a teenager, for example.
Why are Americans paying so much more, year after year, for insurance that is fundamentally driven to minimize it's risk and reward their selected doctors for spending as little time and money on patients as possible? Health insurance is often nothing more than a grand illusion.
take away the high cost of mal practice insurance and introduce torte reform. things would change fast with just those 2 adjustments.
I think there is a problem with health insurance reform. Every one assumes that a requirement to offer health insurance to people with chronic medical conditions or a so-called pre-existing condition will be solved by requiring insurance companies to offer coverage. This is a false assumption unless it is backed by a requirement to offer those unfortunate people insurance at the same price as a healthy person. If not then the price can be set to eliminate such people from the market. For example , a person like me. I am a dialysis patient and my treatment costs S1,800 a week, so simply breakeven I would need to pay a premium of at least $8,000 a month for a single person. That would be at least double what I earn right now. Not all chronic conditions are this costly many like cancer are even more expensive. So offering me insurance priced at $8,000 a month would be just as effective at ensuring I would have no private insurance as a flat out rejection.
So why am I still alive without private insurance, I am alive because somone in the 1970s extended socialized medicine in the form of Medicare to renal failure patients at any age and it became possible to build hundreds of thousands of dialysis machines and treat people like us. Americans now spend through FICA taxes about $20 billion dollars per annum to keep me and about 300,000 other Americans alive.
That's a great read, Purple Love, and I gave you a rep.
I'm a retired, see my handle, and have medicare (since last year) along with my HC provider. Our Insurance premium has almost tripled since I retired, and at the present rate, my monthly retirement check won't cover the cost of our premium in the next few years.
I'm tired of seeing the CEO's of these HC providers making 11+million a year. Imagine for a minute if Congress granted that much money to a public servant.
People really should stop concentrating on the uninsured only. Those of us who have insurance really have no way of knowing if we will actually have coverage when we need it. It's all a crap shoot. We pay outrageous fees based on a HOPE that our insurance company won't drop us when we are sick or refuse to cover expenses because we never disclosed that we had acne as a teenager, for example.
Why are Americans paying so much more, year after year, for insurance that is fundamentally driven to minimize it's risk and reward their selected doctors for spending as little time and money on patients as possible? Health insurance is often nothing more than a grand illusion.
Just today I went to an oral surgeon to discuss getting my wisdom teeth taken out.
Two years ago my mom had her's taken out and the insurance company paid 80% and now they are only paying 60% of the cost. I have a $912 balance. I'm hoping he'll take 700 in cash. Even that will be a big blow to my budget but my teeth are really bothering me.
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