Even the Wall Street Journal is noticing the health care crisis

[Lydia Leftcoast]

Since I refuse to sign up for paid access to any website, or even take a trial subscription that lets them get my information, I'm not going to be able to provide a link, but the front page of today's Wall Street Journal (which I happened to see in a coffee shop) carried the story of a woman who suffered from lupus (an auto-immune disease that can damage joints and internal organs) and died because she "fell between the cracks" in private and government medical insurance and didn't get follow-up exams and drug treatments that would have prevented her from reaching the critical stage.

Basically, she was unable to work because of her illness, had been kicked off Tennessee's health care program during their budget cutting frenzy, had been denied federal disability status, was ineligible for private insurance (because she really needed it), and put off going to the doctor, her condition deteriorating all the time, even though her parents offered to mortgage their house to pay for her treatment. Finally, they insisted that she go to the emergency room, only her internal organs were so damaged by this time that she died after several months.

It's a tragic story, especially since the doctors believe that she could have been saved (she was only 32) if she had been monitored regularly and problems had been caught early.

Ironically, she was approved for SSI disability, which would have made her eligible for Medicaid, after she was already dead.

Okay, after I read the story, I looked at the Letters to the Editor section, and it was full of epistles from pure greedheads whining about "income redistribution" and "penalizing success." I tried to imagine what such people would write in response to that story:

"Did she expect to live forever?"
"That hospital lost money on her, and she isn't even a taxpayer."
"She should have taken her parents up on their offer to mortgage their house."
"She shouldn't have quit her job."
"If she lived in Canada or Europe, she'd still be waiting to see a doctor."

I'm going to watch for the next few days and see what the greedheads have to say about this story. :grr:
"

[stevedeshazer]

1. It's a constant source of amazement to me how people can be so uncaring.

She's dead, and now they're kicking her corpse, too? Sheesh.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

2. These letters haven't appeared yet

I'm just anticipating them. :-(

I hope I'm proved wrong.

[stevedeshazer]

9. You had me going there

Very believable! We'll see.

[sgsmith]

3. Where have you been?

First, it was the Tuesday 12/5 paper with the article.

Second, the WSJ has been covering the health care payment problem for many, many years. There are frequent articles on how individuals are having to deal with poor or no medical insurance, as well as articles covering the industry in extreme depth. The WSJ has been covering the dismissal of the CEO of UnitedHealth. Two days after this article, there was another A-1 article on how William McGuire was fired by the board of directors for his involvement in post dating stock options.

There were seven letters to the editor in the 12/11 paper concerning this story, and their tones ranged all over the political spectrum.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

5. Sorry, as I said, I just picked it up in a coffee shop and didn't notice the

date.

I'm glad to hear that not letter writers to the WSJ are cold-hearted greedheads. :-)

[papau]

6. "health care payment problem" -good choice of words 'cause there's no health care problem - just a

system that puts insurance companies between us and getting health care unless we can get past the paper requirements for health welfare.

Take out the insurance companies as insurance companies getting paid to take "risks" and make the current insurance companies into the administrators of a national health plan at a cost plus tiny percent profit - and the whole problem goes away.

But the WSJ has never exposed that fact

Indeed any article on single payer national health - something only our country does not have among our peers - the WSJ pretends the insurance company hired hacks opinion has the same or more weight than the rest of the world - yielding at best a he said/she said no analysis article.

[WiseButAngrySara]

8. I so wish this would happen! And the same for Pharmaceutical

Companies. It is immoral to capitalize on someone's life. National Healthcare and a National Pharmaceutical...

[papau]

10. single payer Nat'l Heath is my Bright line - if Hillary does not support, I support someone else

So far no one besides Hillary seems smart and street smart and unafraid enough with enough backbone to be president.

But I will go with a weak "other" - even Obama with his real estate and drug conviction problem - if Hillary disappoints on single payer national health.

[phillysuse]

We have a single payer system now for the elderly

It's called Medicare.
We don't need Single Payer National Health Insurance.

What we need is Medicare for all.

That means we keep private practices and don't have "government salaried" physicians.
It's not government health care. It's not Nationalized Health Care.

It's Medicare for all.

You choose your own doctor, the government pays, as in Medicare, and the insurance companies are OUT OF THE LOOP and can spend their time not insuring people for floods, tornados, car insurance and other things.

[papau]

13. True - & a medicare "extension" to cover children ages 0 to 18 might even pass w/ Bush ok

:-)

[Lydia Leftcoast]

17. But where a Medicare extension is REALLY needed is for us people

between the ages of 50 and 65.

It costs very little to insure a child, but we who are just a few years too young for Medicare are treated as sources of free cash by the insurance companies.

I pay $200 a month for a policy that doesn't offer anything until I've paid a $5000 deductible and only 80% after that. This means that the insurance company gets $2400 from me for doing nothing but mailing out the premium statements. Oh, and I'm being charged the "preferred" rate. I shudder to think what would happen if I actually got sick.

Just for comparison, my company charges $66 a month to insure anyone under 18 with a $5,000 deductible and for $200 a month, they get a $300 deductible.

[WiseButAngrySara]

12. Kucinich is smart and brave enough....and for that reason probably

won't be elected.

[papau]

14. Kucinich ran in 04 - he just doesn't generate enough support n/t

n/t

[librechik]

4. it should dawn on them soon that a White Collar Welfare Bonanza awaits

when corporations get the US govt to shoulder the employee health care burden. They are just to cowardly to leave their anti-socialism stances just yet.

[davsand]

7. That sounds like a Lucette Lagnado story.

Lucette Lagnado has been writing for the WSJ for a while now, and that sounds a lot like a story she'd do. I know it sounds odd, but the WSJ has been looking at this for a lot longer than you might think. Take a look at this blurb about her and you'll see she's been winning awards about her work on health care:

http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/x4951.xml

Regards!


Laura

[sgsmith]

11. Nope

Byline is Jane Zhang, who's a staff writer out of the Washington DC offices.

[papau]

16. neither the WSJ's Jane Zhang or Lucette Lagnado has written a word on the advantages of single payer

Nat'l Health.

The WSJ has good reporters - and these are good reporters - but the WSJ is not into exposing an idea like Health Insurance companies must be removed from our basic health care system.

So we get stories of how bad the system is - and push toward health savings accounts and high deductible insurance .

The latest news release about the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI)/Commonwealth Fund Consumerism in Health Care Survey, 2006, says consumer-directed health plans (CDHP) and high-deductible health lans (HDHP) enrollment was virtually unchanged this year compared with a similar survey from 2005. The survey found that only 1% of the privately insured population ages 21 to 64 are currently enrolled in CDHPs, representing 1.3 million individuals. Meanwhile, those in CDHPs and HDHPs continue to be unhappy about their health-care experiences, according to the report - and not only that, but individuals in CDHPs and HDHPs are more likely than those with comprehensive health insurance to report that they delayed or avoided needed care because of cost.

There has been nothing in the WSJ about how their pet solution to health care problems does not work and is rejected by all but 1% of the privately insured population

[bloom]

15. I have no respect for the WSJ

If they are worried about healthcare - it's probably because someone isn't making the money they expect to make....

like Corporations who are tired of paying the Insurance - so they want the feds (us, really) to pick it up. While the corporations and the wealthy continue to pay little or no tax. They probably expect to make out like bandits (as usual).