My employer, a charity, just received a 10% increase in our Blue Shield group health plan -- a standard Preferred Provider Plan with a $500 deductible for outpatient care and for prescription drugs. Care is expensive in Los Angeles and many physicians have dropped health insurance billing altogether -- which means we pay whatever their fee is and submit the bills to Blue Shield -- which regularly rejects them to delay payment of refuses payment or pays a fraction of our actual out of pocket bill.
Our family of 3 costs my employer $2900 per month or $34,800 per year with the new increase and we are regularly out of pocket over $10,000/yr for what Blue Shield won't pay for or which they only pay a fraction of.
The Republicans and scared Democrats in Congress are whining about the new health care bill potentially raising our taxes and forcing health insurers to raise premiums to cover all those uninsured masses who would now be able to obtain some modest level of health coverage.
I would RATHER PAY thousands more in taxes for an outright government health insurance plan (NOT government doctors, just a simple plastic govt issued insurance i.d. card with negotiated, reasonable rates) like they have in France, the UK, Canada and most other industrial nations than to get SCREWED like Americans are now by private for-profit health insurance companies.
The fact that half the American public does NOT UNDERSTAND how screwed they have been means they are either totally unsophisticated or easily led like lambs by venal private profiteers and politicians. The estimated cost of the very inadequate Senate and House blls which just passed is equivalent to just 13% of our annual defense budget. A full-on national health plan might cost as much as our national defense but SAVE us the massive insurance premiums we are now paying. One health insurer off-sets the many others and vastly simplifies the system -- think Medicare For All with negotiated rates for health providers. The cry-babies in insurance will still be able to sell policies filling the inevitable gaps in coverage like they now do to seniors.
If the current legislation fails to curb costs or vastly increase access to care, it should be scrapped and a full on national, or even state by state, health care plan substituted in its place. Give them 3-5 years and do a serious analysis of whether the current bills have worked. They won't.
Follow Richard Walden on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Rwalden63
Arianna Huffington: Will The Unemployment Disaster Be Obama's Katrina?
There's a Category 5 storm about to make landfall, and the president and the officials in charge of preparing for the approaching disaster don't seem to be particularly worried. Sound familiar? Just as Katrina exposed critical weaknesses in the priorities and competence of the Bush administration, the unfolding unemployment disaster is threatening to do the same for the Obama White House. The members of the Obama administration may not be attending a birthday party at John McCain's ranch in Sedona or shopping for expensive Ferragamo shoes in New York as a great American city is destroyed, but their decidedly lackadaisical response to what job losses are doing to multiple great American cities raises the question: will unemployment be Barack Obama's Katrina?
D. Brad Wright: The Price of Hospital Stays Around the World
Technology costs more in the United States. Physicians cost more in the United States. What about the charges of health care facilities? Today, we examine the cost of hospitalization to find more of the same.
The U.S. has to get universal coverage for both fairness and national security, which requires that a country have a well-educated and healthy population. In addition, we have to cut the cost to international levels to improve international competitiveness. The trade deficit has to go and U.S. manufacturing and tech have to be rejuvenated. Getting out from under the health care costs is essential to doing this.
An increasing number of doctors no longer submit to insurance companies. My primary care physicians do not submit, leaving me being what I jokingly call "health insured without health care." For many self-employed people such as myself and others who pay the full cost of their premium this is a reality. After paying the high premiums, it can be a challenge to find the funds to meet the deductible. The situation leaves people without primary care and its sole purpose becomes catastrophic.
The last thing the American people need from our hapless representatives is another heads we win, tails you lose piece of legislation. A boon to the health insurance industry is a bust for the American people. I agree with your conclusion, this legislation must curb costs and vastly increase access to care or be scrapped. We don't need a mandate to make a bad situation even worse.
In the mean time, we'll be offering up millions of new *mandatory* customers to the for-profit HC industry. Don't you think it's a bad idea to make them stronger before the next fight? I do.