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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Dear Margo: When Dad/Gramps Just Ain't Interested
192 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment
Words do have meaning.
You are NOT the only ‘disgruntled’ Vet. There are tens of thousands (my late father would not use their services either). But…he (like you) and tens of thousands other Vets currently STILL have the choice of a privately run healthcare/insurance provider.
Can you possibly be so ‘pro-Obama’ not to see the ironies in your own situation? A single payer, government run medical care provider will be nightmarish at best. Competition (for your valued insurance coverage) is what keeps the failing system ‘honest’ now. No competition; no discretion (hey, our clinic CAN treat that tumor!) and feel good mantra (does healthcare reform fall under ‘Hope’ or ‘Change?’) only will make matters worse.
There are none so blind as those that will not see…
De Burca….I now just skim some posts here, and for good reason. They bow to the talking heads. So many crow about how great FOX News is. Who’s camped there on a continual basis???… Newt. There he is, a private cirizen, yapping on and on with so many exaggerated claims that gullible people lap up.
Today, in my paper, I read that another person has been awarded 10 million in a malpractice suit. Thousands of those same lawyers are doing that every single day and will do everything in their power to make certain a public plan is not offered.
Yesterday, Senator Cornyn made this unbelieveably asinine statement in front of a group of doctors in Houston ( Mccain was also sitting in)… "We want to make sure we don’t crush the kind of innovation that has led to cures and happier and healthier citizens." I promise… he actually said that.
WHAT THE…..? Under our current system, insurance companies do not support innovation in any meaningful way!!! New and innovative treatments are costly, and that cuts into the insurers profits. Insurance companies also control doctors’ fees , and that in itself reduces any likelihood of receiving new treatment options.
Does anyone in his/her right mind actually believe the big insurers would like to see cures for cancer??
Let’s throw in Big Pharm. New treatment is expensive to research and develop, something the insurance companies refuse to pay for. I don’t know how a government plan would handle that, and no one else here does either, but right now we are being driven off a very expensive medical cliff, and people are buying into spin like Cornyn and Mccain are spewing. And by the way, a few doctors took both of them to task on that. Who the heck do they think they are fooling??
Yes, this is pure rubbish and is nothing more than the Republican Party trying to validate themselves in some way. Recent events show they are failing at that , too.
Maggie malpratice suits are part of the problem…and Obama doe not want to put a limit on them. You thin the private insurance companies limit payments..wait till the governmnet plan finds out that you cannot write a blank check for 100% of the costs for it’s premium holders witht the limited funds they will receive from all the so called rich they want to tax for it.
In utopia all would be covered for whatever it take…..that is not reality in either a private or public plan!
Hey how about dealing with some facts like Tort reform. The single most costly entity to our health care system, that drives up costs and places doctors to practice defensive medicine.
You know…TRAIL lawyers…like the ones that contribute some of the largest money to the Dems….those guys. Because of huge jury awards, it they cost Americans $2,000 per family. Yes, $2,000 per family. $2,000 could buy some private health insurance, that’s for certain.
But Obama will not TOUCH them….nope kinda like why sharks don’t eat each other…professional courtesy.
Due to Tort reform efforts in Texas, 15,000 physicians came to or returned to Texas.
Where is Obama’s malpractice reform? Punitive damage caps? There are NONE because he is beholding to trial lawyers.
Obama is a fraud and a thief….stealing our money and our country….and our peace of mind. He is not a Dem, he is a socialist.
Nope…not even close DeBurca…the PEOPLE do not want this plan. It has nothing to do with bribing anyone. That was what Obama did to get the votes on cap and trade…but I do see how you could get confused.
Only 33% approve of the Obama plan. People want to have a better system….but not the Obama socialization of our health care.
It is sooooooooo funny when the radical Libs think that they are advocating this "down with the rich" mentality when the Obama policies enriches only the HUGE corporate entities….BILLIONS and BILLIONS. HA!
All of the money will bled from the middle class into the government which will use it to put into entitlement programs to make slaves out of the citizens while giving the rest to the HUGE coroporations. No middle class. Just government drones and the elite in control.
And then….they will use their power of OUR money to turn America into another Globalist state.
What suckers you libs are…you think that there will be room at the top for you all? HA!
It’s propaganda, Deber.
I understand that it’s very likely that under the new proposal employers will be forced to provide healthcare insurance. If they do not, the companies will have to pay a penalty. Well, shucks darn, if the employers are forced to provide insurance they’ll need to find a way to pay for it. Aha! Reduce employees’ salaries. That ought to cover costs. [ /sarcasm]
Congress is indeed talking about a levy on private premiums.
So let’s go over the numbers again:
304M Americans in US
177M Americans have private insurance through employers
46M people [legal? illegal?] are without insurance
81M people get Medicare and Disabled or Medicare Supplement
Of the 177M who have private insurance through their employers, let’s assume that at least 25% of the employees are over age 50. This is when the real medical problems tend to surface. It stands to reason that these people will want to hang on to their private insurance because of the better treatment. So that’s about 45M people.
The employees under age 50 may or may not switch over to the public plan. They KNOW what they have with private pay………are they willing to sacrifice that for the public pay option?
My gut tells me that ObamaCare’s estimate that 70% of the privately insured individuals [132M] is off target. I simply do not see that many switching over.
The fact is that people resist change. But even more than that, they really hate reading insurance coverage and exclusion documents. Right now the privately insured individuals KNOW what they have. All they need is one reason why they SHOULDN’T opt for the public option and that’ll shut the door on their willingness to change. Why would they sacrifice current coverage for a flash in the pan? Not likely they will……so with that in mind, that 70% estimate that bo gave is a pipe dream.
Until someone gets real and tells us precisely what the coverage will be, as well as all the costs, that’s all ObamaCare is - a flash in the pan.
Good AM, Libra Lady,
While I appreciate that there are uninsured people in America who need insurance, I find no reason to jump on the first train that comes down the tracks. Apparently a number of politicians agree. I want the ones promoting ObamaCare to give me a matrix of numbers that shows they’ve done THEIR homework.
Hi, M Q-C,
But I believe there are so many complexities in designing a new healthcare system that the folks in DC haven’t even begun to figure out yet. None of them seems to be able to do simple math from what I can tell. That in itself is very dangerous. I get really tired of idiots who put the cart before the horse. But, you’re right, those same idiots could cause a grease fire.
If no one believes any of the numbers I’ve posted over the last several weeks, then they need to take the blinders off and ask themselves how well bo’s other plans are working. What makes them think ObamaCare will work?