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This Is What Democracy Looks Like
www.NationalView.org's Note From a Madman
July 6, 2008
Real Health Care Reform - Yes, it's Still
Important
There are forgotten health care victims that almost no one speak of. By now
we're all familiar with those 47 million (or so) Americans who have no health
insurance at all. Likewise, we're also aware of those in our nation illegally
who use the system, as best they can, to get care for their children, spouses
and themselves. Unfortunately, we see them in crowded in emergency rooms or too
sick to help in our public hospital wards as they await death.
It isn't exactly what we, as the nation of the free and the brave, like to
advertise.
We're also familiar by now with those of us who simply don't have enough health
insurance coverage. We see them crowd into their doctors' offices before the end
of the year so they don't have to pay off Christmas gifts they purchased on
their 30-plus Annual Percentage Rate credit card and their health care plan's
deductible, which could cost them in the thousands of dollars.
These are the ones left out of the health care conversation completely. The
thought process is that they have the catastrophic care the others lack, so they
should be happy. Forget about the giant deductibles, the large co-pays and that
"flexible" payments due health care providers above and beyond the amount
actually paid known as "usual and customary". At least they have something...
right?
Those of us with jobs that provide some sort of health care coverage might find
ourselves trapped in jobs or positions without escape. Think of the average
family of four with one parent working full-time and one working part-time.
Assuming that the parent with full-time employment is lucky enough to have some
sort of health care coverage, at least partially paid for by his employer, how
tough would it be for that person to leave that job for any reason? How many
potential entrepreneurs are out there with a combination of a dream of starting
their own business and no reality of making that dream a reality because they
can't afford to not have health insurance?
Too many.
And it isn't only that they have jobs they feel trapped in. The manner in which
most small companies choose their health insurance provider - and remember, some
seventy percent of all employees are employed by small companies - consists of
an owner picking the best plan for them and their family. How many of you out
there were asked, or even informed, when your boss changed health insurance
companies because their doctor left your company's old plan?
I'm betting that not one of you got that phone call.
Perhaps I'm complaining too much. After all, I have a job which pays me pretty
well. So what does it matter that my company's old insurance plan listed my
handicapped daughter's doctors on their roster while the new insurance company
does not? At least my boss can see that cute ophthalmologist he has a crush on
every year or so.
Even though my salary, as compared to the median US income, is relatively high
(not even close to six figures, if you were curious), the amount I pay above and
beyond the "norm" for health care makes a real dent in my wallet, as I'm betting
it does many an American. Each and every month, like many of my fellow
countrymen and women, I pay nearly an additional one-thousand dollars a month
just to be able to take my daughter out of my company plan's included doctors.
Even still, I'm responsible for up to an additional $3,000 per year in
deductible, plus the copays and monstrous sums past the "usual and customary"
fee paid to the "out-of-network" doctors my daughter has no choice but to see.
Just a note to the "usual and customary" fee paid by the insurance companies to
"out-of-network" providers: Insurance companies get to pay an almost arbitrary
sum to doctors which they consider "usual and customary". Doctors and some
hospitals won't even give you a band-aid unless you agree to their terms to pay
for fees which "your insurance company" may not agree to. So even though you
paid your copay and your $3,000 deductible, you could still be liable for
additional sums which could add up to tens of thousands of dollars, or more.
Makes you want to invest in Euros or crude oil futures, doesn't it?
And according to most health care providers, they have no choice but to keep
their prices higher to those if us who have to see them outside of their
supported health care plans. They pay huge amounts of money to keep up with each
and every one of their supported health insurance company codes and such and
have to employ many people to do it. No wonder they have to make up their
"losses" by increasing the price to those of us, they assume, can afford more.
Even if we can't.
They even take credit cards!
The need for real health care reform just doesn't touch those without health
care, it touches just about all of us. How much more rhetoric do we need to hear
from the likes of George W. Bush and John McCain who said,
"We’re going to offer every individual and family in America a large tax credit
to buy their health care."
-John McCain
How much is he going to "give" those who pay no taxes at all? A tax break only
occurs if one actually pays taxes, and the unemployed don't pay taxes because
they have no incomes.
We know that the "plan" McCain proposes would cost the US middle class taxpayer
an additional $700 billion each and every year - an increase of about
thirty-three percent over our current $2.9 trillion national budget. Where will
he get this money from?
US - the same people without health care insurance, or without enough, who do
pay taxes
The word "reform" is only a word unless it's accompanied by real actions. And in
the case of health care reform, it's simply time for those real actions.
-Noah Greenberg
In response to George W. Bush's, "Although these numbers are disappointing, the
unemployment rate remains below the averages for the past three decades," Robert
Scardapane writes:
Actually, economic analysts see the constant unemployment rate as a sign that we
have not hit bottom. The best description of what is going on right now is that
the economy is in a slow motion recession. Technically, it's not a recession
until two quarters of negative GDP growth. But by the time, it reaches that
point it's real bad. Many analysts also don't foresee any recovery until the end
of 2009! Congratulations to Chimpy McFlightSuit and the elder Chimp McCain for
driving America's economy into the ground.
Send your comments to: NationalView@aol.com
-Noah Greenberg