July 4th is a day to celebrate our many freedoms. One of our most important freedoms should be freedom from fear, including fear of financial ruin because of medical bills. You may not know that almost half of all bankruptcies in the United States are related to costly illnesses and failure to pay medical bills. And to me, that is just wrong.
A friend of mine recently faced bankruptcy over an enormous hospital bill incurred by the emergency hospitalization of his four-year-old son. Even though he had insurance, the amount he would have been required to pay was far more than his limited resources could handle. He and his wife were literally sick with anxiety. He was panicked that his inability to pay the bill would result in a collection agency garnishing his salary or ruining his credit record. I encouraged him to question the bill and talk to the billing department at the hospital. There is almost always a discount or way to settle these bills in a way that fits your budget. In addition to sitting down with the billing department and discussing what he could pay, I suggested he also ask about the hospital's "charity policy" and whether he might be eligible for it. He and his wife both work and he figured their combined income would be too high. To his surprise and great relief, after submitting all the paperwork, he did qualify and the hospital wrote off his bill!
As relieved as we all were by my friend's good fortune, unfortunately he is one of the few lucky ones. So this July 4th, my hope for families and individuals who face medical bankruptcy or high medical bills, is that some day soon, they will experience some freedom from that fear because of some new laws and programs.
While we are not yet free of all fear of medical bankruptcy, the Affordable Care Act has helped many families already, and it will continue to help us all as it is fully implemented in 2014 and beyond. July 4th can be a kind of Health Independence Day for us all.
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Once you do listen to them you will hear the Creation of the HMO's that needed Federal Government Approval for such a Business Model because it broke so many Ussuary Laws.
Listen to Nixion joke when he is told of the Kiser Plan to Charge MORE for Health Insurance and Provide LESS Medical Care to INCREASE Priofits.
Now that is the very system created in COLLUSION with the President to DEFRAUD the American People that you want to protect and keep paying excess fee into.
I think the all people in the world have a right to free healthcare. I think the goods and services that are provided by healthcare providers should be given to anyone who has fear. I think the healthcare providers went to school on public monies and should pay back, their hourly rates should be capped so people can afford their services.
How does this inconvenient fact get accounted for in your thinking?
BTW: I am for public option (medicare expanded) so you are not talking to someone who is not asking if there is a public role but one that thinks the problems go away if you have a public role is just political talk.
Have you compared other "industrialized countries" waiting times for primary care, specialty care and surgical procedures? Do you think American will accept, as the other populations obviously have, longer waiting lines being used to ration care and control costs?
In most states, there is significant differences, the non-profit BC/BS is considered the insurance of last resort? If there is such huge margins to be made in the for-profit industry why are not these large non-profits kicking butt in terms of care delivery quality?
Why does medicare deny claims at a higher rate than than private insurers?
CNN's Clark Howard suggest bypassing the billing department and meet with the hospital social worker. The social worker is the one who usually administrates the charity and discount programs availble to former patients.
The bottom line is that we should be ashamed that the U.S.A. - is the only industrialized nation where its citzens can wind up broke and homeless because they become ill.
I spent some time in eastern Europe and though the unemployment rate is 20% and by our standards taxes are high - there are NO homeless living on the streets or ill and injured people going without medical care.
Meanwhile, hospital CEOs and other at the upper ends of the medical/industrial complex take home salaries on par with the GDP of small nations. It all about profit and greed and it's way past time some common sense was applied to rates, fees and profits.
Suddenly the price of health care increased to the point where only those with health insurance could afford it . The health insurance industry grew very quickly (so did their prices) and many members of Congress took advantage of that opportunity and became investors .
Our law makers are now making laws to regulate the very industries they are investors in . That is why the debate on "health care costs bankruptcy" was morphed in to a mandated health insurance reform program , which the Republican/media then called "Obamacare" , while the media silenced the debate on bankruptcy .
Is that fair check out commonwealth connector----it online response---we dont qualify for the free stuff
ANd dental insurance? Are we Cuba? Why do we live where jet owners are given priority? and the poor simply become daily victims of massive car accidents? Will anyone respond or do we live in silence?
I use my CAR Every DAY
Mind you, you'll only get base salary, not "anxillary income"
Glad that family with the 4 year old were able to get the hospital bill trimmed. Always negotiate.
Happy Birthday USA
Consider the primal fear: recognition of our impending personal extinction. No matter what we do, no matter what happens, no matter the effort or treasure expended to extend our stay on Earth ... we all know that our personal extinction is inevitable. Would it be possible to have a human life AND immortality (Ie; freedom from fear of death)? No, that would not be possible. The primal fear of our own inevitable death is what defines us as humans.
Not to mention, we're not talking about "freedom from fear" or not receiving treatment. We're talking about "freedom from fear" or bankruptcy, which removes this from the existential realm and reduces it to the pecuniary. This "freedom from fear" thing is simply not a well thought out premise for making a healthcare pitch.
Yes. The devil is in the details of how we do it. The solution should be better than the current situation, Ie; without wreaking worse havoc on the rest of our socioeconomic system. This is too long-lasting an issue to "do something for the sake of doing something".
Our nation is sick.....the people w/o healthcare are struggling with pain and curable ailments, and there are too many who die simply because they don't have large stacks of green paper.....our nation is sick because we have a Congress that is so mired in sectarian beliefs and narrow mindedness, that literally nothing is getting accomplished. We are sick because there evidently is not one person in this entire country that can bring us together and strive for equality for us all.
The US is now the land of greed, corporate profit and elected officials who are emotionally detached from those they swore to protect.......