Supreme Court Health Care Reform Protestors On Both Sides Agree: Health Care Costs Too Much

Holding an American flag and a copy of the Constitution, Dan, who asked not to use his last name, of Virginia, protests against health care reform outside of the Supreme Court after the first day of arguments on President Obama's law.

Demonstrators gathered outside the Supreme Court Monday to be seen and heard on the question of whether President Barack Obama's health care reform law should be upheld or repealed. Despite stark opposition on the issue, attendees at the day's rallies shared a common view on one thing: health care in America costs too much.

Stephanie Cater, 50, owns a vintage clothing shop in Indianapolis and believes health care reform is unconstitutional. She wore a t-shirt emblazoned with the "Don't Tread on Me" flag that's become an icon for the Tea Party movement and carried her own drawing of the late conservative media figure Andrew Breitbart. Cater said Obama's law "flies in the face of the Constitution" and is "Orwellian." She came to Washington to protest outside the Supreme Court, just like she rallied against health care reform on the grounds of the Capitol in 2010.

Cater also has no health insurance. She and her husband dropped their plan last year after it got too expensive. “We’re on the ‘stay healthy’ plan,” she said.

“Basically, I always felt like it was a racket," she said of health insurance. "Nothing ever happened and I was just out the money.”

Cater and her husband are setting aside money for medical expenses, but what if something happens to either of them that exceeds their ability to pay? She says they'd seek help from family, community, church and charities. “That’s the way it used to be,” she said.

The Supreme Court convenes for three days this week to consider a constitutional challenge to health care reform, and is expected to issue a ruling before the end of June. On the first day, March 26, organizers from groups that favor the law staged a rally while a few stray opponents milled around in front of the Court. Conservative and Tea Party groups opposed to the law have events planned Tuesday to follow their rally on Saturday.

Health care costs are going up for everybody and have been for years. Americans spent $2.6 trillion on health care in 2010, which is more than 10 times such spending in 1980. Obama's health care reforms are the first major federal attempts to deal with health care and the uninsured in decades, but a majority of the public has never favored the law, according to polls.

Marlys Cox has learned that not everyone can rely on their neighbors in a time of need, as Cater suggests. Cox, a part-time substitute teacher who earns about $40,000 annually, dropped her health insurance last year. Because she has hepatitis C, it was already hard for her to find a plan, but when the premiums went from $300 to $1,100 over 11 years, she'd had enough.

Then came the breast cancer diagnosis. Cox found she wasn't eligible for charity-care programs because her income was too high, and she didn't get the help she sought from members of her community. Unlike Cater, Cox came to a different conclusion about health care reform, which enabled her to pay $376 a month for for the law's Pre-Existing Conditions Insurance Plan, which covered her cancer treatments.

“I saw the Affordable Care Act kind of as the light at the end of the tunnel,” Cox said.

Ron Kirby worked as an engineer at the Environmental Protection Agency and he and his wife are both covered by the retiree health benefits he earned. "We all should have health care," he said. But Kirby, 66, doesn't like Obama's health care reform law. Kirby, who lives in Alexandria, Va., carried a sign that read, “Obamacare Is All About Government Control." He is so distrustful of the government that he declined Medicare benefits, making the same decision recently affirmed by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. “I don’t believe in Medicare," he said.

Health care reform is the first step toward socialism, Kirby said, and people should be responsible for their own health care costs. “When I was a kid, when we went to the doctor, we paid the bill," he said.

Not everyone can get insurance like federal workers do, however. Ellena Young, 31, has had cancer three times. Because of her pre-existing conditions, Young has never had stable access to health coverage or medical care. When she could find insurance, it was costly and her expenses routinely exceeded the plans' annual limits. During a complicated pregnancy in 2009, she decided to induce labor early because the bills were mounting for the medication she was using at the hospital. Her son was born with genetic disorders.

Young is studying at the State University of New York at Albany for a Ph.D. in philosophy. Her husband is also a student and they're enrolled in the university's student health plan. When she graduates, she'll be relying on elements of health care reform to provide her with insurance that covers both her and her son's medical care and doesn't carry an annual limit. It will be the first time she'll have had comprehensive insurance, she said.

If the law gets repealed, she said, both she and her son will again face obstacles to health insurance because of their pre-existing conditions.

Comments

[twhiting9275]

03:20 PM on 03/29/2012

Nobody's arguing that healthcare costs too much. Anyone, anywhere can agree that healthcare in this country is FAR, far too expensive. If they can't, well, it's safe to ignore that person, because they haven't even bothered to do their homework and know nothing of what they talk.

The problem is that this bill does NOTHING to address these costs. NOTHING at all. It encourages these costs to remain exactly as they are. It allows the provider to continue charging insanely high costs ($1000 + / night for a SHARED room? 10-50x actual cost for an aspirin? $500 minimum JUST for walking in the E.R.? On and on and on these known costs go). In fact, it encourages it, forcing individuals to purchase healthcare or pay more in taxes (based on income)..

The problem isn't that insurance is too expensive, it's that it's even needed at all. Doctors and other medical "professionals"  are in a profiteering business, and what's worse is that they do so while performing life saving services.  That's the ultimate form of blackmail.. Overpay or we will let you die.

To add insult to injury, anyone who's ever been to the doctor's office, or medical facility knows that they keep you waiting. These people aren't punctual AT ALL. In most cases 30+ minutes, in many an hour + , sometimes longer. Why? Well, because they CAN. No other reason. So, they show a COMPLETE disregard for your bank account, AND for your own personal time. Talk about arrogant.

Now, I'm all for profit (as a small business owner), but there's no call for profiteering when human life is concerned.

[Wayne Caswell]

02:01 PM on 03/28/2012

The affordable alternative is a Single-Payer system - i.e. Medicare for all - like Thailand adopted, funded by tax revenue and available for all regardless of income. Thailand has exceptional care outcomes and the lowest healthcare costs in the world with a government run program. Maybe we should adopt their model, since ours is broken and the individual mandate may be overturned.

[gerald4]

01:46 PM on 03/28/2012

I am a fiscal conservative, but I am for Socialized Medicine, because people thing that everybody is entitled to Medical Services.

Eliminate the Medical Insurance companies and let those companies fire all of their employees, who can apply for government jobs administrating the Socialized Medicine.

[Ed Baker]

11:05 AM on 03/28/2012

When Obama was running against Hilary Clinton, he said he didn't think people were trying to avoid buying health insurance, he said he thought they weren't buying it because it was too expensive. He was right.

At that time, he was also against the mandate.

The problem with health care isn't insurance, it's the costs. But those who make the costs high are big political donors. Medical equipment makers, drug companies, unions, professional organizations......

The other driver of the costs is that the government purchases most of the health care in the US - just as when the government was the primary buyer of breakfast cereal, and baby formula, the prices went up much faster than inflation.

If he and his fellow politicians want to do something about health care, they have to address costs.

[twhiting9275]

03:23 PM on 03/29/2012

He was right, and he was wrong as well.
I don't contribute to the medical insurance scam, because that's just what it is... A scam. This scam enables doctors to charge based on what insurance you have, what deals you have with the insurance company. So person X walking into the office , getting the SAME treatment gets charged more (or less) than patient Y, who has the same exact thing.

You're right about the problem though, that being the costs. This bill does nothing to effectively do anything about that at all.

[Ed Baker]

04:57 PM on 03/29/2012

Check this out:

http://articles.nydailynews.com/2012-02-18/news/31075944_1_billing-error-insurance-department-medical-bill

http://www.northjersey.com/news/118635344_Aetna_sues_doctors_over_bills_it_calls__excessive_.html

[nothingchanges]

10:13 AM on 03/28/2012

Where is the incentive in America's health care through insurance business model to lower costs?

Do doctors compete on price?
Do hospitals?
Does ANYONE in the "healthcare" field?"

Not that I can see.

"I want the best care money can buy, cause I'm not paying for it, the insurance company is"

Not exactly an "Accurate" statement, but one that most people believe, at least by what I've observed.

Until that issue is addressed, I don't really see health care costs coming down.

Do you?

[Ed Baker]

11:08 AM on 03/28/2012

We really have the worst of all worlds. We have no cost controls as they do in the socialized models. We have no market force on costs because the government and insurance pay most of the bills no questions asked.

The television in my living room was once a $5000 set. I paid $900 for mine. Technology gets cheaper the older it gets. CAT scan machines have been around a long time now - why are they still so expensive? Why do we grant a new patent for drugs when all the company did was change the color of the pill? These are big political donors, along with the doctors, nurses unions..... etc..... they like the system the way it is.

[blohrd3]

03:27 PM on 03/28/2012

MOST people do not believe health insurance is free. As a matter of fact the premise of this article addresses just that area of concern. That is health cost too much.

[thereisonlyoneparty]

09:35 AM on 03/28/2012

The problem with health care, like many other things, is that people are only concerned with benefiting. That is the only part they want to engage in. The cost is someone else's problem.

Everyone feels that they are owed care. You know, because they American: one of god's chosen people. No one really wants to pay for anything though. They just deserve it regardless of social benefit (how does their care benefit society) or the social cost.

It is all about selfishness. People only want to take part if they see themselves getting a net benefit. That cannot work. Everyone cannot benefit. Someone has to lose out. People do not seem to care that there is a loser as long as it is someone else.

[twhiting9275]

03:28 PM on 03/29/2012

This is partly true
I'm not "owed" anything here. If I get sick, and I go see a doctor, as an uninsured individual, I expect to have to pay. That's how the system works. I have no problem paying. Then again, that cost is typically $65  a visit. No worries, that's about an hour and a half of work for me, as a trained computer professional.

The problem here, as I, and many others see it is that this bill does nothing to address the elephant in the room. The cost of medical services is so high that insurance is actually REQUIRED. $1000s  a night for a shared hotel room? $500 minimum just to walk into an E.R. ? 10x (and some times higher) the actual cost of medicines? Yeah, that's called price gouging and profiteering.

I have no problem paying a reasonable rate for services. The problem is that these 'professionals' have no respect for my time, or my pocketbook. Why SHOULD I have any respect for theirs?

[wbcv25]

10:24 PM on 03/27/2012

The guy who retired from the EPA is distrustful of government? These people against the health care act don't make any sense. The 50 year old lady with no health insurance is against it? There must be a big communication problem in this country.

[Ed Baker]

11:08 AM on 03/28/2012

Nope, it simply costs too much. She's self employed and can't afford it.

[Chironomid]

09:37 PM on 03/27/2012

I can hardly believe I'm writing this, but I come closer everyday to the idea of voucher systems, or even a completely free private market with no employer support, etc.

The reason procedures cost so much and are used so excessively is that there is just too much money in the system, chasing health crises that don't exist the majority of time. I think of my own example - I've had like 5 MRI's over the years due to various sports injuries, etc. NOT ONCE have the darn things shown any results. $4000 a pop, right out the window, just so a doc can peruse it for a couple minutes and say "nope, don't see anything there..".

The whole thing is a racket, a beast that needs to be bled. Obamacare should've been scuttled when they scared off of cost-effectiveness reviews for procedures, and bailed on the public option.

[Cerulean1299]

09:49 PM on 03/27/2012

Would you have preferred the single payer system? The problem with vouchers is that they won't cover everything.

I so agree though. The system is absurd. I had an emergency once and it cost my insurance 40,000. That is highway robbery. If you ever break down your medical bills and see what things cost it is jaw dropping.

[Ed Baker]

11:12 AM on 03/28/2012

Check this out....

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-24/ultrasound-at-59-490-is-outrage-in-aetna-claim-against-doctors.html

[Ed Baker]

11:11 AM on 03/28/2012

When the end user of anything doesn't have to pay for it, there is no market force to keep prices in check. It's like when the government was the primary customer for breakfast cereal and baby formula, the prices went up by thousands of percent in a very short time.....

There is just too much blind money in the system, that's why costs are high.

Why should an MRI - a decades old technology - cost so much? CAT scans - even older - still very very expensive, the machines are still very very expensive......

[Skepticat]

01:56 PM on 03/28/2012

In single payer systems - users pay out of their taxes, and reluctance to pay higher than necessary taxes combined with sensible auditing does keep prices in check. In Ontario and most other places with medicare administrative costs are around 3% compared to over 30% in the health insurance industry. The main reason is medicare doesn't need legions of people employed to creatively figure out ways of avoiding paying out for medical costs.

[tck29]

08:01 PM on 03/27/2012

Want to lower costs?

Remove health insurance from the equation. Root out fraud.

I just saved you 60%.

You're welcome.

[Cerulean1299]

09:32 PM on 03/27/2012

I don't understand your comment. What do you mean?

[tck29]

09:51 PM on 03/27/2012

Think about the "value" that insurance adds to care. Sure, they pay bills for you, but what else do they provide? Nothing.

If providers didn't have to get paid by insurers, the costs for their services would be about a third. You could negotiate your own rates with providers. That's a real free market.

Similarly, Medicare fraud adds about $.33 to every dollar spent on care. Eliminate fraud, and rates come down by another third.

In order to do this however, you'd have to take money away from a big, powerful, and connected industry. This will not be allowed by the powers that be. It's not even on the radar.

[DrObvious]

07:14 PM on 03/27/2012

It's sad to read people talk about public health services as creeping socialism, as though that is a bad thing.    There are worse things than having public services offer health care,  like dying for lack of that care.   Nearly 50 million Americans face that prospect,  most unwillingly.

The system that the ACA tried to address is still broken,   but conservatives spend all their time destroying one partial solution (the ACA)  without offering any solutions at all for spiraling costs,  declining insurance coverage  .....

instead,  we'll take comfort when we die from treatable disease in the libertarian paradise that results when effective government is destroyed through deliberate Republican malfeasance.

[Cerulean1299]

09:37 PM on 03/27/2012

That is what is sad here. People want to deny instead of help people. They can't see beyond themselves and they think they will be healthy forever. It doesn't work that way.
They still buy that lie that was floated around that socialism leads to communism. Never even understanding that what they see as communism is actually fascism.

[gerald4]

06:38 PM on 03/27/2012

I read somewhere that healthcare costs about 0.5% of the GDP in 1950, and that today it is aproaching 20% of GDP.

How much can the US citizens afford?

[DrObvious]

07:15 PM on 03/27/2012

how much of your wealth wouldn't you spend to keep yourself alive at a decent quality of life?

You can't take it with you.   And that inelasticity of demand for life-saving medical care is at the root of our spiraling cost problem.

[Patty Ann]

09:39 PM on 03/27/2012

DrBbvious...what if you don't have or never had this wealth you speak off ?? Most of us today, are not sitting on piles of wealth...

[gerald4]

01:47 PM on 03/28/2012

How about not destroying the US economy with deficit spending so that something will be left for my children?

[JefMaj]

06:11 PM on 03/27/2012

I don't want to pay for the others....... either get insurance or pay cash up front..... they can be their own private death panel......... but, it's a big gamble. That's the true freedom the are calling for.......... Also, exactly what Article and/or Amendment of the Consitution is being violated? We don't have a general "concept" of the Consitution that can be violated.

[Jane Scherr]

06:02 PM on 03/27/2012

Have enjoyed tyhe realistic comments of fellow Americans.
Let's be real. Insurance companies use actuaries who calculate the premiums based on everyone getting cancer and then don't accept them on the preconditions clause.

The high cost of healthcare is the result of every physician thing he is in the $milliomn dollar club and hospital administration commanding huge salaries and poor labor negotiators. Plus rules that make no sense whatsoever. I just had a very minoir fingerr opertaion. But first I had to go through a clearance which tool 4 months and cost $40,000. And the results of the operation were not as advertised.

The system is sick. Congress allows Insurance Companies to get a piece of the pie with Medicare Advantage which is fraud. And Medicare Part D is another fraud which I dropped as my insurance costs were higher than my drug costs.

Look at the Michael Moore film "Sicko" it's true. People laugh when I talk about Healthcare in Cuba, but Cuba has one of the best preventive care programs in the world. While we have more than 10% of our doctors who should lose their license to practice because they are out of touch with modern medicine. The insurance mandate in Obamacare is designed to include young people who don't think they want health insurance because they can drop into any Emergency Room and get quality care AND walk away from the bill, sticking you and I.

[Cerulean1299]

09:39 PM on 03/27/2012

But they don't get that. They can't connect that right now we are paying for the uninsured. I watched Sicko and it made me angry. With all of our wealth our healthcare system is broken.

[kickserv]

05:30 PM on 03/27/2012

Under Obamacare will I be able to keep my Catastrophic Insurance Plan?

[DrObvious]

07:16 PM on 03/27/2012

yes.

[stevec2nd]

05:17 PM on 03/27/2012

I know this is an awful thing to say, but it would be poetic justice for some of these people railing against affordable healthcare to be stricken while they are on the picket line, and then have to face the emergency room fees in DC, before they go back home.

[Cerulean1299]

09:41 PM on 03/27/2012

They won't get it until it happens to them. That seems to be the way they learn. A sharp lesson maybe what is called for here.