teaberryblue (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
teaberryblue) wrote2009-08-11 08:37 pm
teaberryblue) wrote2009-08-11 08:37 pm
(no subject)
Getting up on the political soap box once again. This is not in my regular blog, only in my LJ.
I would like to point you all to a letter written by my Congressional representative, Mr. Jerrold Nadler.
And then I would like to point you to a little factoid. In the United States, 15.7% of American citizens and legal non-citizen residents are uninsured. That is 47 million people. That number comes from the beginning of 2008, and after the economic crisis that followed later that year and the rise in unemployment, I can only imagine that it has risen higher, although that is the number still being quoted.
I spent three years of my life uninsured. I was lucky in that I managed not to get seriously physically ill or injured. I did, however, have to see a psychiatrist for an anxiety disorder during that time period, which cost me approximately $350 a month, out of pocket. That was less than the lowest health insurance premium I could find that would have covered part of my visits to the psychiatrist. If I had chosen to insure myself, I would have had to pay slightly more for my premium, plus the cost of the co-pay, plus the cost of my medications-- in short, probably close to $600/month for the same quality of care I was receiving without paying into a private insurance plan. And my doctor would have seen less of that money than he did when I was paying him directly.
Now, that insurance plan, the one that would have raised my monthly healthcare costs by $250? Would still not have covered any truly serious illnesses or hospital stays. Like my little brother, if I had been admitted to the hospital, I would have been kicked out as soon as preliminary tests had been done, because they would have seen that my insurance, though expensive, did not cover the costs of the kind of hospital stay and treatment he really needed. I would have been bounced around from doctor to doctor when the doctors saw that the insurance was unwilling to cover the actual costs of the treatments he needed.
And yet, I would have been paying hundreds of dollars a month.
When I lost my last insured job, in 2007, I was not going to elect to keep my insurance. This time, the plan that was available to me would cost $547/month. That was more money than I made after taxes and rent. My mom was kind enough to step in and pay it-- which was lucky, because by that point, my asthma, which had generally been mild, had developed to the point where it required regular maintenance, including doctor's visits and inhaler refills.
I got a new job with insurance literally two months before my COBRA would have run out. I am now insured again, but every doctor's visit is still a battle with the insurance company to get them to pay what I am entitled to receive from them. And that is when I pay a premium of about $100/month. Many months, I do not go to the doctor at all. I have fallen back on visiting the free clinic at work because if I go there, I only have to pay for my prescriptions and not my visits.
But most people don't have free clinics at work.
I am a healthy, upper middle class, thirty-one-year-old woman. And the insurance industry in this country is failing me.
If it's failing me, someone who has enough education and a good enough support system to wade through the ridiculous red tape, to argue my rights with the insurance company that tries to nickel and dime every item in spite of taking my money every month, someone who can afford her doctor's visits when the insurance company refuses, what is it doing for all those uninsured people out there who maybe don't have well-off parents...or who are elderly, or don't speak English as their first language? What about people with serious pre-existing conditions?
I am sure all of you have heard by now about Sarah Palin's ridiculous accusations of death panels this week. Except to me, they're not so ridiculous. Right now, 47 million people living in this country face a death panel every time they get sick or severely injured. They face a choice of letting their condition worsen, or risking bankruptcy. They don't face government bureaucrats, who, at this moment, do run a public health care system with a high success rate, and whose jobs are dependent on the quality of service they provide. They face faceless megacorporations whose job is to pay out as little money as possible, doctors who are under pressure to cut costs in spite of the Hippocratic Oath, and the emptiness of their own pocketbooks.
It is embarrassing, the state of health care in the United States. It is embarrassing that we live in a country where people-- any people-- are not willing to pay into a system to help their friends and family when they need it most. I am embarrassed by the idea that someone making many times what I do might care more about saving a little money in their line-item deduction every year than they do about the idea that their neighbor down the road might not be able to afford to call EMS. And I am embarrassed that we live in a country where we allow our elected officials to take blood money from an industry that is behind the cause of more accidental deaths than any other in the United States. You want to see a death panel? There's your fucking death panel. Ask any uninsured parent of a Downs Syndrome kid who doesn't make as much money as Sarah Palin does.
I would like to point you all to a letter written by my Congressional representative, Mr. Jerrold Nadler.
And then I would like to point you to a little factoid. In the United States, 15.7% of American citizens and legal non-citizen residents are uninsured. That is 47 million people. That number comes from the beginning of 2008, and after the economic crisis that followed later that year and the rise in unemployment, I can only imagine that it has risen higher, although that is the number still being quoted.
I spent three years of my life uninsured. I was lucky in that I managed not to get seriously physically ill or injured. I did, however, have to see a psychiatrist for an anxiety disorder during that time period, which cost me approximately $350 a month, out of pocket. That was less than the lowest health insurance premium I could find that would have covered part of my visits to the psychiatrist. If I had chosen to insure myself, I would have had to pay slightly more for my premium, plus the cost of the co-pay, plus the cost of my medications-- in short, probably close to $600/month for the same quality of care I was receiving without paying into a private insurance plan. And my doctor would have seen less of that money than he did when I was paying him directly.
Now, that insurance plan, the one that would have raised my monthly healthcare costs by $250? Would still not have covered any truly serious illnesses or hospital stays. Like my little brother, if I had been admitted to the hospital, I would have been kicked out as soon as preliminary tests had been done, because they would have seen that my insurance, though expensive, did not cover the costs of the kind of hospital stay and treatment he really needed. I would have been bounced around from doctor to doctor when the doctors saw that the insurance was unwilling to cover the actual costs of the treatments he needed.
And yet, I would have been paying hundreds of dollars a month.
When I lost my last insured job, in 2007, I was not going to elect to keep my insurance. This time, the plan that was available to me would cost $547/month. That was more money than I made after taxes and rent. My mom was kind enough to step in and pay it-- which was lucky, because by that point, my asthma, which had generally been mild, had developed to the point where it required regular maintenance, including doctor's visits and inhaler refills.
I got a new job with insurance literally two months before my COBRA would have run out. I am now insured again, but every doctor's visit is still a battle with the insurance company to get them to pay what I am entitled to receive from them. And that is when I pay a premium of about $100/month. Many months, I do not go to the doctor at all. I have fallen back on visiting the free clinic at work because if I go there, I only have to pay for my prescriptions and not my visits.
But most people don't have free clinics at work.
I am a healthy, upper middle class, thirty-one-year-old woman. And the insurance industry in this country is failing me.
If it's failing me, someone who has enough education and a good enough support system to wade through the ridiculous red tape, to argue my rights with the insurance company that tries to nickel and dime every item in spite of taking my money every month, someone who can afford her doctor's visits when the insurance company refuses, what is it doing for all those uninsured people out there who maybe don't have well-off parents...or who are elderly, or don't speak English as their first language? What about people with serious pre-existing conditions?
I am sure all of you have heard by now about Sarah Palin's ridiculous accusations of death panels this week. Except to me, they're not so ridiculous. Right now, 47 million people living in this country face a death panel every time they get sick or severely injured. They face a choice of letting their condition worsen, or risking bankruptcy. They don't face government bureaucrats, who, at this moment, do run a public health care system with a high success rate, and whose jobs are dependent on the quality of service they provide. They face faceless megacorporations whose job is to pay out as little money as possible, doctors who are under pressure to cut costs in spite of the Hippocratic Oath, and the emptiness of their own pocketbooks.
It is embarrassing, the state of health care in the United States. It is embarrassing that we live in a country where people-- any people-- are not willing to pay into a system to help their friends and family when they need it most. I am embarrassed by the idea that someone making many times what I do might care more about saving a little money in their line-item deduction every year than they do about the idea that their neighbor down the road might not be able to afford to call EMS. And I am embarrassed that we live in a country where we allow our elected officials to take blood money from an industry that is behind the cause of more accidental deaths than any other in the United States. You want to see a death panel? There's your fucking death panel. Ask any uninsured parent of a Downs Syndrome kid who doesn't make as much money as Sarah Palin does.
no subject
Granted, I've never fully understood the US health care system, but I also don't claim to. I'm getting really tired of seeing posts on my flist being SO against UHC because it means OTHER people decide who gets treated. It kills me because (at least from what I gather) isn't that basically what insurance in the states does? They choose to cover things, or they don't? And the people who don't have insurance, or it doesn't cover preexisting conditions are SOL, and have to hope to god they never get sick?
I said this on the only other post I've read that's not all "rawr this is bad" and I'll say it here. I'm glad to be in a country where if I break a bone, or get sick, or whatever, I don't have to weigh the pros and cons of going to see a doctor, or going to the ER. I just go.
Which brings me to the wow, how much do I hate people spouting off shit about countries with standardized health care when they really have no idea? I read one post with someone saying that it's huge, like, years long waits to see doctors, and that because a lot of it is through OHIP and the like, it's all substandard care. And all I can ever really think is that at least here everyone can get care. It's not substandard, but even if it was? I'd rather get substandard care (to a point) than have to go bankrupt to get any care at all.
...err, that comment got sort of long. Way longer than it was meant to. Sorry. But yeah, thank you. For at least being logical.
no subject
I'm also aware that the Veterans Administration health care system frequently sinks to a truly appalling level of fail, so I can understand the perspective of, "Wow, if that's what national health care would look like in this country, I don't WANT it!"
Some of the best health care my family had was when my husband and I were broke students on Medicaid, though. Really.
no subject
See, my only real problem with our health care system is that I wish they covered dental. I'm off my dad's insurance in 4 months, and my teeth are terrible. Like, I've paid almost 4 figures for every dentist appointment I had for like 3 years. Which was a lot of appointments. If OHIP would cover that, man, would my life ever be easier XD
I've never had bad health care though. Ever. And I'm massively accident prone, and paranoid when I'm sick. So I end up at the doctor/hospital a fair bit. If I had to pay every time, I think I probably wouldn't have gone when I broke my foot a couple years ago, or when I couldn't stop throwing up for a week, and it freaks me out to think about what could have gone wrong because of those sort of things.
no subject
no subject
Essentially all serious medical problems in Canada are covered by the government, and the only scenario in which your friend's baby would not have recieved care is if the hospital she was delivering in didn't have adequate resources. In those types of cases, the Canadian government sends patients to the United States, on the government tab.
Just wanted to clarify that, as it seems to be something that comes up from time to time.
no subject