I’ve had an “AH HA!” moment this weekend while at Sister’s house. It was decided that I had to watch a documentary about how horrible the health care in America really is (which I knew it was bad already) and how other countries are able to provide healthcare to all of its citizens equally across the board and it got me on my soap box in regards to my health care.
Currently Colleen and I are the only ones in the house with health insurance and the only reason I am covered along with her is because 5 months before she was born the rules changed and I could no longer get a child only policy, they now have to be on a policy with an adult. So I had to work the figures to see who we could afford to cover with her – because of Mark’s age it was going to cost over $150 more to insure him and Colleen than it would cost to cover me and her, we couldn’t afford to cover everyone. We don’t live an extravagant lifestyle in the least bit, we don’t go out and spend money on things we don’t need either. The only reason I could afford to get the insurance is ONLY because my car was paid off around the same time Colleen was born and I still had to get a policy with $3500 deductible to get the premiums to an amount we could afford. In the first 2 months of Colleen’s birth we already racked up over $6000 in hospital bills because of 2 hospital stays, once for jaundice and the second for what turned out to be a stomach bug – but at 2 months old you can’t not take a child to the doctor when she is having bloody stools and a high fever.
With my policy I only get 3 sick visits a year before I have to pay my deductible in order for them to pay another dime for my care. Last year I ended up developing a staph infection and within one week I used up all of my visits due to follow up appointments so when a few months later when I developed clogged earwax duct, which later turned into a really bad ear infection, I racked up almost another $1000 of health care costs on top of the premiums I already pay. The insurance company paid out less than $900 for my doctor visits last year and I paid over $1500 in doctor bills and co pays (for just me) and that is NOT including the $1900 I paid in premiums for the year. The only good my insurance is for is so that IF something major happens to me I will only have to pay $3500 of the X(thousand) of doctor/hospital bills.
If I end up pregnant the insurance will cover NOTHING for it because I can’t afford to add maternity benefits. We had no insurance when I had Colleen and luckily I had money in an IRA to take out to pay for the birth center where I delivered her. Had I delivered her in a hospital I would have had to pay AT LEAST $10000 but at the Birth Center I only had to pay around $4000. If I had maternity benefits it would cost an extra $250 a month in premiums AND I would have to pay those premiums for a year before they would pay anything for the pregnancy. So in essence I would have to pay $250 for at the bottom end 20 months (the year before and during the pregnancy) which comes to an extra $5000 for a birth that would cost only $4000 if I delivered at the Birth Center again…the insurance company just made $1000 for me to have a baby – how is that right??? Why not build more birth centers and all insurance policies include pregnancy? Who says that you HAVE TO deliver in a hospital? Women have delivered babies at home and with midwifes since the beginning of time – delivering at a hospital is a new development and all it does is drive up health care costs.
How much of the health care costs are going to Doctor’s malpractice insurance because everyone has gone sue happy? How much is going into the insurance companies pockets? Why is it fair that people like me have to choose who in the family gets to have health insurance and who doesn’t? People who make a lot of money can afford to have the top of the line insurance and there are programs for the senior citizens and children of low income families to be covered but what about everyone else? Why is government run health care viewed as horrible? I would rather everyone have medical coverage than only the people who can afford it. People say that the health care would be awful if the government ran it, that people would have to wait to be treated, but what about those who don’t get treated now – how is this better for them? The government even pays for prisons have top notch medical treatment for its inmates but my husband has nothing because we make too much money for any aid and not enough money to cover it ourselves.
Why it is ok for insurance companies to make astronomical profits and the people they insure are denied benefits for any number of reasons is beyond me. Why is it ok for insurance companies to choose who they cover and who they don’t? It’s only ok because politicians are bought out by these companies and nobody can seem to put a stop to it. This is exactly why I hate politicians; they look out only for themselves and who can give them money and don’t give a damn for the people who just try to make a living but end up going bankrupt and lose everything because they got sick.
I’m not one to believe something just because someone told me it was true, which includes this documentary but I know the health care in this country is crap because I live it every day. Not only are my premiums high for the coverage I receive but I’ve had the insurance company deny me coverage the first time I applied because I was expecting a child (not to be confused with being pregnant) and had them deny claims due to my glaucoma being a pre-existing condition. It is apparently impossible to get child covered from day one of birth if a policy is not already in place on the parent which I believe is so insurance companies can deny a baby coverage if they are born with a medical condition that will continue throughout their life –I can be wrong, but I doubt it. Something has got to change and it needs to be more than allowing kids to stay on their parent’s insurance plans until they are 26 – there are still MILLIONS of people who are uninsured and in the same boat I’m in.
As your father, you know I want nothing but the best for you (keep that in mind while you read the rest). I am responsible for myself; nobody on this earth owes me a thing (save a few butts wipes from my children when I get older). With that in mind I owe nothing outside of any contract I have chosen to enter. Should I want to help my fellow man? Absolutely; but this should be a moral decision; a decision I make on my own, and not a decision "Mandated" from the government (welfare, workman's comp, social security, Medicare, planned parenthood....and any other program where my money is taken from me and redistributed). That’s another whole discussion in itself.
ReplyDeleteInsurance came about "way back when" so that if something catastrophic happened to an individual, it was shared by the whole community. The community came together understanding this. An "Insurance Company" is only in business to make a profit. You would not start a business to loose money, why would you expect anyone else to. Every decision the "Company" makes is based on staying in business and making a profit. To expect anything else is simply unrealistic (and stupid).
Is there a problem with the "System"?; absolutely! Is it the quality of care; no, we have the best in the world here in America. The problem is the government having their hand in the system. There are so many restrictions, regulations, free services "mandated".... Someone has to pay for this, and that cost gets passed on. I had my little procedure 6 years ago, and it ran just shy of $50K. A vet could have done the exact same thing for a dog for less than $1K, and he would have made a profit! So where do you think the problem with the "System" is? You laugh at me and Mark for paying attention to politics, yelling at the TV..... You are doing the exact same thing, but you have allowed yourself to be deceived as to where the real problem is coming from! As for these other countries that have "free" healthcare; how are they doing financially?