Personal reflections on health insurance:

[LWolf]

I want a universal, single-payer, non-profit health care system available to 100% of the population, no matter who they are. I campaigned for the only candidate to offer it up in the '04 primaries, despite the fact that I didn't personally need it. I had "good" health insurance; no co-pays, all paid for by my employer, covered everything.

In 2005, a couple of things happened. My grandson had open-heart surgery. That's a big ticket item, and one he would have died without. There is no way that his entire extended family, all contributing together, could have funded that surgery. Happily, he lives in a state that does a great job covering kids whose parents are uninsured, and there were no delays in saving his life.

My son, the uninsured father of the grandboy, hasn't been to a doctor in years. He's been bitten by a black widow, broken a finger, and suffered concussion, none of which got any medical treatment.

My mother ended up in the emergency room, and underwent two major emergency surgeries. We are trying to come up with the funds to pay the bills that her medicare didn't cover.

Then I changed jobs. I moved to be close enough to both my mom and my grandson to help with their health concerns. My new job offers insurance, which I have to help pay for. Then I have co-pays on top of what I pay for the insurance, and deductibles that I have to pay before the insurance kicks in. That, along with a paycut, has gutted my personal budget.

It would have happened anyway; my previous union is threatening strike over....loss of health benefits.

So...I didn't get the mammogram I promised my doctor I'd do this summer. I haven't been back for the bloodwork to confirm that I'm managing some issues with appropriate diet. I didn't get my annual pap, or get my eyes examined to update the prescription for my glasses. I didn't even show up to get my teeth cleaned. I'm paying out all this money, and I can't find the cash to actually get routine preventative maintenance done.

Why are we messing around with tweaking health insurance companies? Why aren't we focusing all our attention on single-payer not-for-profit universal health care?

[jojo54]

1. You story is so typical of today's average citizen LWolf.

Hub and I have been without health insurance for 5 years now. We've had to scrape up the money to go to the doctor when I got shingles, hub got flu really bad and my allergies were completely out of control (infected sinuses). We've had none of the normal routine exams or tests for people of our age (50's).

I'm glad to know that your grandson and mother are doing well and were able to obtain the medical care they needed. Fortunately, my one daughter has health care for my grandson and my other daughter will have insurance in 30 days for my granddaughter. This makes me feel much better about the welfare of my grandchildren. Hub and I....well, we'll just chug along like we've been doing.

[LWolf]

5. We're all chugging along.

Meanwhile, I make sure all my local, state, and national reps hear from me on universal health care, and choose candidates who unequivically support uhc to support.

[bemildred]

2. I've had no insurance for three years now.

Just one of those minimal things that gets you PPO rates.
I like it.
At least I'm not giving those useless insurance companies and HMO swine any money.

[MockSwede]

3. Health care

IF we got rid of 'for-profit' then we'd be in a program called "socialized healthcare". To repukes that's too close to 'socialism', which they mistake to be 'communism'. So, "I've got mine and you can go f yourself!" is the name of the US healthcare game as we know it.

Insurance companies' off-the-top indemnity plans cost 25 to 45 cents to administer $1 of care. Medicaid costs less that 1 cent to administer that $1 of care. See the savings? See the increased numbers of covered individuals? See the better coverage? See Monkeyface use HUGE deficit spending to increase the numbers of young people in the military becoming amputees who will require greatly increased healthcare for the rest of their long lives?

Hmmmm. 'Compassionate Conservative'?

[LWolf]

6. I think it's time to come up with new labels.

We've allowed the right to "own" the labels for too long. All they have to do is say "socialism," and masses of people who really don't understand what socialism is have a gut reaction that shuts the door on any reform.

The current administration has taken the practice of indoctrinating the public with emotionally-tagged labels to a new level. We need to fight back.

We need new labels, and we need to talk as much, and as loudly, as they do.

We need to promote universal health care as: 1. A universal right for all people, and 2. A cost-effective, and therefore financially "conservative" way to provide health care.

Everyone has the right to call the police or the fire department and expect them to respond. Everybody can expect their taxes to make sure that there are roads, traffic lights, water, power, etc. available in their communities. There are many services funded by tax-payers' dollars that are taken for granted. Health care should be one of those services.

Perhaps we need to talk up spending tax dollars on "infrastructure" that keeps our society functioning.

[area51]

7. "Everyone has the right...."

LWolf said:

"Everyone has the right to call the police or the fire department and expect them to respond. Everybody can expect their taxes to make sure that there are roads, traffic lights, water, power, etc. available in their communities. There are many services funded by tax-payers' dollars that are taken for granted. Health care should be one of those services."

Exactly. You're singing my song. It makes both moral and financial sense to have universal healthcare in this country. For all the "business-über-alles" types, having universal healthcare will give businesses an advantage in the U.S., b/c they won't have to try juggling keeping a business running & paying for employee healthcare, and employees will be healthier, which means they'll be able to be more productive.

[LWolf]

8. That's something TPTB definitely don't want aired.

The status quo keeps their hmos and pharmaceutical companies happy, and helps to keep the class divide growing. They definitely don't want a conversation about how the high cost of health care hurts other business!

[benEzra]

4. I can relate...

We've been left with about $50,000 out of pocket on around $1 million of medical expenses related to my 6-year-old son. We had a high-deductible plan (of the type the "health savings accounts" people are pushing) for a while, then I went to work for a company with excellent health benefits (CIGNA, zero deductible in-network, very professional), then that company got bought out by another that uses a crappy no-name insurer that looks halfway decent on paper but in reality has a lot in common with "Insuricare" on The Incredibles (in-network coverage is only 80% of costs up to a ridiculously low limit, IF you can find an in-network provider, and out-of-network pays only 60%).

We don't qualify for Medicaid since they don't take expenditures into account, just income, and we are slightly over the income limit. So I can either take a job making less (but then we couldn't pay for our house and for medical expenses that Medicaid doesn't cover, like Pediasure), or we could have a third child so we'd qualify (but we can't cope with that physically or financially), or we can depend on charity from family and friends to make ends meet, which is what we're doing now. My son isn't QUITE sick enough to qualify for CAP-C Medicaid, and he's very intelligent so he doesn't qualify for CAP-MR/DD in spite of severe developmental delays (speech and feeding issues and motor issues).

The only thing that scares me about a National Health Service type system is my conversations with British parents of special-needs kids, who often come to the U.S. to get care the British government refuses to provide their children (I've met quite a few Brits with kids undergoing procedures at Boston Children's, making significant financial sacrifices to do so). The other thing is that making the doctor a "gatekeeper" (like U.S. HMO's and the British NHS do) makes the doctor an authority figure instead of a consultant in the doctor-patient relationship, which is a VERY BAD thing. I know of a British family who's cardiac kid died of subacute bacterial endocarditis because the pediatrician REFUSED to refer him to a specialist (he thought the mother was being a hypochondriac by proxy), and his parents weren't allowed to just take him to another doctor and demand care like my wife and I can (and have) with our own child. Lots of bureaucratic foot-dragging and butt-covering after the child's death made the subsequent inquest a farce; at least in the U.S., that doctor could have his butt sued off for gross negligence, but they stalled long enough to allow him to retire some years later without ANY repercussions.

My question: does any country in the world have a single-payer system in which the PATIENT is the authority figure in the doctor-patient relationship? Or does anyone have any idea how such a system might work?