Yes, I know that national health programs have their drawbacks (a Canadian reader wrote me with a bunch of horror stories just this week) but removing the profit motive should take care of many of the problems we have now:
Eric Simpson was strangely calm when the insurance company called last week, saying it was sending a man for his right arm.
The woman on the phone told him he should have known he had only $2,000 of coverage through Aetna for artificial limbs. And the arm, which he'd just received that week, cost more like $37,000.But, he protested, he'd been preapproved.
Angelo Russello had the job of taking Simpson's arm. He works for Allied Orthotics & Prosthetics in Northeast Philadelphia.
All week he'd been visiting Simpson at Moss Rehab in Elkins Park, fitting the device, teaching the 32-year-old Germantown man how to flex his muscles to move the thumb and fingers.
"I felt like a fool," says Russello. "I've got to tell you, this has never happened before."
Simpson read his face and said, "Just take it."
And yet, in that odd way that often happens when major media calls an insurance company, it was all a big mistake!
"A miscommunication," Aetna spokesman Walt Cherniak said yesterday.
Aetna officials had mistakenly considered his new arm medical equipment rather than a prosthetic, which is covered in full. They called Simpson to apologize.And the next day, Friday, Russello returned the arm.
"Honestly, I didn't think it would be back so soon," Simpson said Tuesday in his room. The new arm will make it easier to dress himself, to support his weight, as he tries to recover from his spinal injury. Doctors give him hope he'll walk again.
As we spoke, it was hard not to hear the man in the next bed talking with a rehab specialist.
"The wife just gave me the bad news," he said. "The insurance company just called and said we don't have approval for the procedure."
Sounds like it's going around.
The "insurance" would have cost about $20/week. However, the maximum yearly benefit for hospitalization was only $5000 and the maximum yearly benefit for surgical/diagnostic procedures was far less than that, $600 if I remember correctly.
This company is clearly preying upon the naive and inexperienced. Most teenagers being offered "insurance" supposedly through their employer are going to ASSUME the coverage is adequate.
Add to the above the concept of mandates and I think you can see where we're headed. With Massachusetts style mandates, if the employer offers medical "insurance" it must be accepted or the employee is penalized on their taxes, and because "insurance" is available through the employer, the employee may be ineligible for state-provided insurance.
Prepare to be fleeced yet again.
November we get a notice - price jump to $440.00
OKay
My husband goes to the foot doctor because his feet have been bothering him..Doctor suggests inserts that you can buy at GI Joe..a local store.
Insurance refuses doctor visit because my husband has had his feet for 54 years...they are pre-existing feet
So it would appear that we have secured health insurance on any NEW body parts that we can grow.
Wonderful
Money...money...money...money...Insurance companies...and their stockholders profiting on peoples lives.
Single payer. The sooner, the better.
Anyone who believes that the "system" you have in the US is remotely functional needs to have their head examined by a nerologist (I'd suggest Sunnybrook Hospital here in Toronto, but you'd have to put up with our Bill O'Rielly did not approve of "Soviet Cacnucksterism" Canadian health care.)
I won't say the Health Care system in America is broken, to say that is to acknoledge that there is a system at all. Health Care in America is a disaster.
For all the wining us Canadians do, I've got admit we did a few things right, our health care, our old age pension and our education system. Three things I'm happy to pay taxes (or Canada Pension contributions) for.
Kucinich's approach is the one we need.
Edwards has the best of the top three.
Clinton's approach is better than Obama's on this issue.
I prefer a mandate to a non-mandate. We need to establish the principle of health care as a right, not a privilege and we need to establish universality.
Until we have something universal, we will not move towards single-payer health care.
I'm not willing to support any plan like Obama's that already leaves 15 million behind on paper -- which means more like 30 million left behind in reality -- which is an insufficient improvement in health care for any prospective Democratic nominee.
Fortunately, no President gets his way 100% and it is important to lobby Congress so that what eventually is proposed has 100% involvement.
While I prefer Edwards, I think Clinton's New Hampshire support is based on people looking beyond the rhetoric of hope, which is nice sounding and inspirational, to actual policies of substance. I don't like Clinton's Iraq policies or triangulation, but there is without a doubt more meat on the bones of her health care policy than Obama's.
I just wish Kucinich and Edwards were more in contention right now.
I'd rather have UH.
How many sick people were denied care and died to give him his bonus? Who cares?
America is for the rich.
The bill came and it was large. The insurance won't pay it because I didn't have enough "out of pocket" yet. When I called to complain, the clinic told me that they made a doctor available and he had to get paid. I expected that because when I tried to complain on the day of the visit the lady in charge wouldn't get off of the phone, and I ran out of time. I can't go anyplace else because none are better. They all "practice medicine" from the point of view of the staff, and their lawyers, and I always end up feeling invisible.
I'm sure that single payer would not cure all of the ills but I'd love it if it got rid of the rock star mentality. That and allowing us to get our focus off of our family budget and back onto our health.
We presently pay 24 cents of every healthcare dollar for administration. That includes the extra staff that physicians and hospitals must employ just to do the paperwork for the insurance companies. That also includes what we pay the insurance companies, their costs, their profits, their purchasing of politicians, etc.
The last I checked, the administrative overhead of Medicare, the largest purchaser of healthcare in the world, was 1.8 cents of every dollar. Physicians and hospitals would continue to have some costs but they would be greatly reduced by having to deal with paperwork for only one payer in a single-payer system. Let's say that the total administrative costs become 5 cents. That is a savings of 19% of our total healthcare costs.
The present costs are paid through a combination of premiums, taxes, deductables and co-pays. If you have to pay it, does it make any difference what you call it? If everyone paid the same amount as they now pay, regardless of what you call it, to Medicare, the savings would mean that everyone would be covered. You would have the right to pick your physician and hospital. Checkups could be covered. Preventive care would ultimately bring significant additional savings. Eyeglasses and dental care could be covered. And still we would save.