Health Care Reform | 07/02/2009 10:50 am
Obama Tries to Sell Health-Care Plan, But Others Still Worry About Medical Bankruptcies (Video)
There are too many people being sent into financial ruin with crappy coverage, experts say, so what’s Congress going to do about that?
© AP
We here at wOw told you a few weeks ago about a horrible tragedy going on in America. It turns out, two out of three bankruptcies in America are due to medical bills. If you or your spouse suffers from a serious ailment that lands you in the hospital for any extended period of time, it just may send you into financial ruin.
Now, The New York Times follows up on that, reporting on how even as Congress and Washington try to push through health-care reform to cover the tens of millions of Americans without medical insurance, many health policy experts say giving everyone an insurance card won’t be enough to fix this particular problem. For many Americans, the coverage they have is so skimpy, any major problem can send them right into the red.
"Underinsurance is the great hidden risk of the American health-care system," said Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard law professor who has analyzed medical bankruptcies, and who is heading up the panel overseeing distribution of the government’s economic bailout funds, to the Times. "People do not realize they are one diagnosis away from financial collapse."
Many hope President Obama and Congress will take this into account when they debate health-care reform. Obama yesterday pushed his plan on how to insure the more than 45 million Americans currently without coverage, and he promised to sign a health-care reform bill by the end of the year that cuts health-care costs, expands access to coverage and creates greater efficiency in the system. A key part of this plan includes a public option.
The middle class may be a particularly tough crowd for Obama to sell his plan to. A new CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released yesterday shows that people are worried their health-care costs would go up if the administration’s proposals passed, and only one in five thinks that his or her family would be better off under the Obama plan. Fifty-one percent of people surveyed say they favor the president’s health-care plan, with 45 percent opposed.
You can watch Obama at the Virginia town hall below:
Read more about: Bankruptcy, congress, Health, Health-Care Reform, House, Medical Bills, News, President Obama, Public Option, senate, Town Hall, U.S., Video, Virginia
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Deber, don’t shy away from "a trillion bucks," it’s not that much. Limited vision about our nation’s money is keeping citizens from having the full benefits of a democratic nation.
Has one congressperson (elected, in DC) forfeited their health care plan? Well, no - and that is single-payer, run and managed by the U.S. Government — Cheney wouldn’t be alive today were it not for government run health care! No one in the U.S. will get a hip replacement without government run health care.
How many seniors (we are in the majority in this nation) wants to get rid of CMS? Let’s take it to a national vote!
The prez is going to get blisters on his behind from sitting on the fence, to protect corporate for-profit America. In many philosophies, being lukewarm is not an attribute, and letting people die in this nation is a crime.
"Wait a minute," you’re thinking, "the President denounced John McCain for a similar proposal during last year’s presidential election. He ran a campaign ad accusing McCain of ‘taxing health care instead of fixing it.’ Surely, the man isn’t such a brazen hypocrite that he’d go along with this travesty now." Sorry to break this to you but, according to the Washington Post, he has already given his congressional allies the go-head. A couple of weeks ago, he told a group of Democratic senators "that he is willing to consider taxing employer-sponsored health benefits to help pay for a broad expansion of coverage."
Sadly, the increase in your tax burden is only the tip of the cost iceberg. Obamacare’s inflationary effect will render health care in general more expensive. Its "efficiency" initiatives, for example, will add significant overhead costs to care providers which they will in turn be forced to pass on to you. We got a preview of this in Obama’s "stimulus" package, which requires doctors and hospitals to buy expensive EHR software. The government will allegedly reimburse the cost, but an analysis by PricewaterhouseCoopers concluded that "funding for health IT is a small carrot compared to the amount of resources it will take to deploy this technology." In other words, Uncle Sam pays the tip and leaves you with the bill.
Thus, you will be taxed for Obamacare up front and pay more for care at the point of service. Ironically, when you and the rest of the voters start complaining, the President and Congress will try to "control costs" by restricting your access to care. Presumably, when you think about "access," you don’t visualize a Canadian-style waiting list. You want to see a doctor or get a hospital bed without significant delays. These luxuries will soon be a thing of the past. The President and Congress will not, of course, overtly restrict access to physicians and hospitals. They will, instead, impose a set of price controls so Draconian that many providers of care will be unable to survive financially. They simply won’t be there to treat you.
This is already happening to patients covered by the government’s existing health coverage programs. Government price controls have, for instance, created a primary care shortage for seniors. Medicare patients are having increasing difficulty getting appointments with primary care physicians because the program’s Soviet-style payment system doesn’t cover the cost of an office visit. As ABC News reports, "Primary care doctors from around the country have told ABC News that they are either opting out of treating Medicare patients, or are preparing to do so." In other words, Medicare restricts access by setting payments levels so low that doctors can’t afford to treat the patients.
Such access-restricting tactics will also be employed by the "public option," a new government health plan that the President and congressional Democrats insist must be included in any health care legislation. The public option closely resembles Commonwealth Care, a taxpayer-subsidized coverage plan created by the state of Massachusetts in its 2006 universal coverage law. Commonwealth Care imposes strict price controls, paying so poorly that many physicians can’t afford to treat patients covered under the program. According to a new study, "One in five [Massachusetts] adults said they had been told in the last 12 months that a doctor or clinic was not accepting new patients or would not see patients with their type of insurance."
"Yawn" is right. Deber, come with me to Canada, before you protesth more.
Nawww C Jay…I know Deber will pass on that offer. 16% more of the women with breast cancer DIE there in Canada. Their own memeber of Parliament had to come to UCLA for her breast cancer surgery….
As the Canadian Madam Chief Justice stated; "Canadians may have Universal Health Care, but they do not have Universial access to health care."
The best doctors come to America to practice…with Obama’s plan…those will leave and other will not come. You can’t practice medicine when THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH DOCTORS….and who wants a mediocre one cutting up your family memeber?
Rationing and loss of choice= Obamacare.
CANADIAN HEALTH CARE: COMING SOON TO THE USA
by Dick Morris * A 16% higher cancer death rate in Canada
* An eight week wait for radiation therapy for cancer patients
* 42% of Canadians die of colon cancer vs. 31% in the US
* Cutbacks in diagnostic testing
* The best meds for chemo therapy are not available
* No way out of the system; you can’t even pay for services yourself
Why is health care so bad north of the border? Because there are too few doctors to treat everybody and cost savings — which slice medical incomes — drive doctors out of the profession. When Obama calls for a 21% cut in Medicare fees to physicians and a $2500 cut in health costs per capita, that is exactly the kind of downward spiral in medical care quality he will bring to the United States. By making too few doctors cover too many patients, he will cut the quality of care to everybody.
As Obama’s proposals make their way through Congress, it is vital that we all get up to speed on what is happening in Canada, so we can stop it from happening here
Kelly: …21% cut in Medicare fees to physicians and a $2500 cut in health costs per capita, that is exactly the kind of downward spiral in medical care quality he will bring to the United States.
Quite true. If he thinks the system is broken now, just wait….
People, including myself, travel for the best care when faced with serious conditions, or lack of expertise, locally. Others may want immediate care for variables too great to even consider (which was the right of the Canadian person mentioned here). It behooves each of us to do everything we can for ourselves, and others who may not have such options, or … knowledge as to what, where, why, and when to go elsewhere, and under what circumstances (in many cases, traveling is no longer needed - we’ve reviewed cases on a white board, online).
There are no "expert" standards in our cities, state, or nation except via NIH/NCI. It behooves all of us, if we can, to seek out the best care for our individual needs, based on our individual preferences. Sometimes that care, we may think, has to be IMMEDIATE because we are scared - rightly so in most instances - but that is not always realistic. In the case of cancer it’s been there, growing, for at least 10 years and unless a pathologist (after careful staining, and studying the cell), or oncologist say immediate action is require(meaning within 4-6 weeks) there’s no use in doing much other than seeking a retreat, meditating, gathering more information, support and, IMHO, trying to keep one’s immune system at optimum to support oneself. (Our Dora went on a retreat!) I advise those I help to do same …
As for myself, I’ve traveled thousand + miles for medical care. My doctors have taken my case to other cities to present them for input and consultation - I wanted that. I have my every bit of tissue removed from me (pathology) re-read at least twice (no doctor would settle on 1 path report for self or loved ones, in any nation!)… and I have had private health insurance, and kept my large family on private health insurance (paying over $600/month for my children’s coverage, alone, in the 1980s, in fact) and now, I am on MEDICARE and a supplement A policy with a private carrier - and would not want any of the carriers I have had prior to CMS. (note here: during the 80s, I had a child with a RUPTURED AVM in the center of her brain - and I didn’t have time to sweat insurance coverage - she was dying every day for months, but that did come up in spite of what I was paying!!!!)
Accessing optimum care, et al (the aforementioned) may be a personal choice, but I have been in other countries and been a recipient of their health care, or sought same for others I was with (family, and/or friends). At no time, in any nation was health care denied for a valid reason. It has been denied, and is being denied, in the USA for a US citizen, and it still is - in for-profit *health care settings (*an oxymoron if there ever was one).
If you are under 62, and need a hip replacement, good luck in the USA. CMS pays for hip replacements and guess who does that surgery? DOCTORS who are complaining about single-payor health coverage????? Sorry folks there are no guarantees in any profession - things change. Our ethics, however, may not.Nations with excellent health care services provide medical eduction (and all higher education) to those who come to their doors - they don’t force them to become $$$ hungry by graduating them with $KKKKKK in loans - I was there, but I expected it… we just did the best thing, work and pay it all off; same with any graduate education.
Please, do not ever speak for the medical profession - never say that those in the medical professionas will not care for people. That is a personal, and professional option, not controlled by any politician, or political party member. There are always those in every profession, and every job category,who simply do not want to work. (Look at the goof-offs taking today off - Friday - because July 4th falls on a SATURDAY!). Such people find any excuse to not work - indeed, blame it on the government. Good doctors care about taking care of their patients. Period. If they’re troubled, they can move into non-profit care, and equally benefit by being able to care for all. Again, options. There will plenty of opportunities for the for-profit sector insurance brokers to sell the frosting on the cake of health care to those who want luxurious options - that will not however, affect excellent medical care. Remember, the insurance industry is also making trillions on annuities, life insurance, et al, and heaven-forbid, the useless "extended warranty" insurance that AIG underwrote (to our demise).
Out in ‘these hare parts,’ we all know an MD/PhD who didn’t want all the work that came with his PhD, so he went back to school (quickly) for an MD - he still moans to patients that he didn’t "expect to work with complicated conditions." Nothing will change that bloke except the AMA or state board of medicine (formerly State Board of Medical Examiners) in Texas who should kick his butt out of medicine (and so should his local colleagues) - ifffff they still believe that medicine is a Profession(What is a profession? A group that polices itself).
No one can blithely state any condition must be treated immediately, or give any time for immediate response, other than that deemed and wholly accepted everywhere as an EMERGENCY - and you do not apparently know what that entrails. If you do, by all means share that with us so this thread will be leveled for our readers.
Finally, it might be interesting for all WOWOWERS to state their health coverages, and costs … adding a simple paragraph as to age group, and desire to toss out same or keep it. Let’s hear from everyone. I started …