Will Healthcare Take Center Stage In Obama’s Big Prime Time Speech?
I sincerely hope so.
President Obama may make health care a theme of the big prime-time speech he’s making next Tuesday about the major challenges facing this country, Obama aides confirm to me.
This could be a big deal, particularly if Obama uses the high-visibility speech (which will be made before Congress) to press the case that health care reform is essential to righting our economy.
The news comes amid other signs that Obama is moving on health care. Today’s New York Timesreports that Kathleen Sebelius has emerged as the front-runner for the post of Health and Human Services secretary, a choice that would cheer reform advocates.
It’s not yet clear how central health care would be to Obama’s speech, but if it’s a major component of Obama’s message, it could signal a renewed determination to prioritize reform.
I have always thought that fixing healthcare is one of the major keys to fixing our economy. And, let’s face it, healthcare/insurance in this country is definitely broken. It’s expensive, unresponsive, and more focused on denying claims than providing good-faith service.
How many of us have struggled to have a claim paid? How many of us have submitted a claim only to be told that it’s not, or it’s no longer, covered – and I’m not talking about some over the top procedure, unless you consider a child’s yearly check-up excessive.
It seems to me that the first course of action for Health Insurance companies is to deny. That also appears to be their second and third choice as well. And when they do pay there’s nothing to stop them from changing their mind. RSmitty, from Delaware Politics, is living this nightmare.
From the “When it rains…” file. Today, just a smidgen under six-months-to-the-day of receiving settlement, we received a subrogation request from my wife’s old health insurance to recover over $1200 worth of claims from the accident they paid for the first handful of hours…due to the settlement we received…you know, the one that didn’t cover total costs, after the fees, etc were worked in. Oh yeah, this is good times here
Read the entire post. One accident changed Smitty’s life. And it can happen to all of us, because the truth is… no one knows how good or bad their Health Insurance is until they need to use it.
So I hope Obama does put Healthcare front and center in his speech next week. The country is more than receptive.
Oh, and those of you tempted to regale us with horror stories from France and Canada. Save your breath, because for every one of your Nationalized Healthcare horror stories I’ll raise you two American privatized health insurance nightmares. I’ll start the ball rolling here, here and here.
Tags: Health Care
I want to hear a clear declaration that single-payer is on the table. I’m not sure how enthusiastic I can be about a plan to pump money into private insurance companies. But it’s better than nothing for the uninsured so I guess I’ll have to suck it up and get behind it.
Frankly, hearing anything other than we have the best healthcare in the world would be a vast improvement.
Oh, I haven’t even put it all out there yet, but it would consume so much time to do it. Here’s a little snippet for you. One of my wife’s ONGOING treatments today from that accident (you hear that, you “blanky-blank Is On Your Side” LOSERS) is she has to get some creepy stuff done to her upper back/lower neck. To do so, they need to numb her up. Well, it’s a deep-injection method, so it needs to be done by an anesthesiologist (I just took a ‘stab’ at that spelling, so apologies if I butchered it). If she didn’t have that anesthesiologist part done, the doctor said this couldn’t go on, as she would endure way too much pain. Well, while the doctor and the procedure to her back is covered, the anesthesiologist and that procedure IS NOT! $400/pop, every two weeks.
Oy.
Thanks, P, for referencing my post. While I certainly don’t do it to garner sympathy, I do absolutely do it, so people can follow a real-life story. It’s not just what you get from the media, but it is people YOU KNOW.
It’s always a “gotcha” game.
My neighbor suffered a heart attack. He called 911 and was rushed to the hospital. Upon being discharged he came to discover that, while his insurance covered most of his treatment, it refused to cover the ambulance ride. Why? He hadn’t had the service pre-approved.
Interesting tactic Pandora. Include RSmitty’s name as someone that is affected by our incomplete health insurance system and the wingnuts back off.
While your point is very well felt by all of us..I am afraid your examples are not the object of where national healthcare may help…unless there is cross over in the ENTIRE insurance industry:
1) Smitty’s nightmare–no private health insurance covers injuries when there is fault elsewhere, esp. auto claims, or work inuries…that’s a whole ‘nother process.
2) the neighbor’s ambulance ride–we are fortunate in Delaware, because yes, they will attempt to bill insurance, and some will pay. Otherwise, if it is an emergency transport, the ambulance (emergency services), will not charge. However, the “transport” service some people use the volunteer/EMT ambulance service for is expected to be paid. Just ask any ambulance person, they’ll tell you some of the “ridiculous” runs and requests they get, as a private taxi service.
Just wanting to keep the pain real–like my catheter and IV in place, ready to be sectioned for a breech 5th child, when anesthesia announces the baby “turned”–stop the process, off the table–insurance “says” we have to wait 10 days to see if I can pop this 10 pounder out, into permitted “legal overdue” time (I was already term)….Heck no, so we all gathered again at the appointed date, and did that C-section the insurance way. By my next annual visit, the MD even mentioned, you know what, not weeks after you delivered, they changed the ruling regarding situations like yours. Glad I wasn’t a statistic that probably caused the change.
We need a hybrid..I’m not sure..no I know I don’t want the government to run it.
On emergency transport…helicopter…thousands of dollars for Boyds Corner Rd to Christiana. Even though it was before her old ins determined it was an accident-claim, they had denied it.
As far as coverage not happening when caused by accidents, the treatment I mentioned in my first comment is now, after everything settled. I have been advised that at this point, her health ins is supposed to kick in. I believe that, because if it were otherwise, they wouldn’t knowingly cover the MD for this. I say knowingly, because my wife did fill out their “insurability” questionairre some time ago.
Health Insurance has become a racket whose primary goal seems to be how many claims they can get away with denying, how many services they can stop covering, and how many people they can deny coverage or drop from their rolls.
It’s rigged.
“I know I don’t want the government to run it.”
Yet you work for government, don’t you? To which I imagine you’ll say, “That’s why I know what I’m talking about.” To which I respond, as someone who works in the private sector, that I don’t trust the private sector to run it.
Which would you prefer process your claim — an underpaid, undermotivated government bureaucrat or a private-sector bureaucrat with a monetary incentive for denying you?
It is rigged, and even while they are busily working at not paying claims, they aren’t useful in containing medical costs either — as the fact that medical costs are rising faster than just about everything else can attest.
Insurance itself can really be part of the solution — the French system is insurance based and that works pretty well. But the key there is that the insurers are non-profits and the government negotiates reimbursement rates. Insurance is a big part of the health care systems of many countries whose systems certainly work better than ours — most of them, though, are dealing with non profit insurance who don’t have the same monetary incentives for shafting their insured.
Pandora, if it’s a business they are there to protect a bottom line. Which is why a hybrid is needed of service, selection, and REALITY. You have written beautifully about healthcare vs. health insurance.
No one in the US should be having to make decisions about the affordability of what I deem just sound public policy–immunizations, birth control, psychiatric meds….but c’mon, healthcare in this country has turned into this quest and mission of do everything for everybody…without a bill. Well…we can’t. That is where health insurance should be customized to that citizen’s desire, and then the fee worked out. You want chemo at 93? Fine. You want a third kidney transplant? OK. You want a sunny room w/ a Select Comfort mattress and your own remote anytime after age 80…and that can be arranged too. We need to get real about healthcare dollars, acknowledge that 80% of those dollars are spent in the last 30 days of heroic life-extending, and perhaps allocate a little bit differently. Give the citizen the public policy benefit, assess them for the resource of the rest, based on their philosophy of what healthcare is to them. It is a resource, not a requisition.
Recently I’ve been having a bit of a problem getting a medical procedure covered. I’d rather not discuss the particulars, but the gist is this: I’ve been seeing a doctor for the last2 or 3 years about a problem and my body is not responding to the normal treatment. I have two options – Surgery or a painless, natural method that has been the practice in the UK for around 30 years. I have pretty great insurance, mind you, but I thought that I should still check because this method is only done by one physician in the entire US (thankfully she’s at Temple in Philly). Well, after getting the run-around from my insurance company for almost 6 months, it was finally determined that they would not cover the painless procedure, but that they would cover the surgery. I was beginning to think I’d have to have surgery and suffer through the pain that comes along with the recovery, temporary loss of mobility, etc., when I got a phone call from the specialist in Philly. She told me that she has this problem with people from Delaware *all the time*, and cut me a great deal on what the costs of my treatment would be. Great deal doesn’t even begin to cover it, honestly. She said that if she hadn’t cut me the deal the treatment would’ve been about $150 though. I would’ve been willing and able to pay even that.
So, to recap: the insurance company would’ve paid goodness knows how much for me to have surgery and recovery, but refused to shell out $150 for a painless procedure. Or, for that matter, even investigate the cost thereof. A procedure that would’ve been free off the bat and par for the course if I lived in the UK.
I’m with you, Geezer. There are going to make bureaucrats making decisions about your healthcare no matter who runs the system. Would I rather have the underpaid, overworked person who gets a bonus for denying me healthcare or the underpaid, overworked person who works for the government making the decisions?
Joanne,
I hope that a universal healthcare system will be much more compassionate about decisions than our patchwork system that we have now. There will have to be a time when the decisions are made on what to cover and what not to cover. I heard about a state government making decisions by making a list of healthcare treatments, from common to least common and covering the top 250 or so.
I hope we’ll have some kind of hybrid system, where the government covers preventive medicine, accidents and people will still be able to get experimental treatments if they want.
Really, if you haven’t seen Sicko, I highly recommend it. Michael Moore covers what happens to people who have health insurance, and the pre-approval for ambulance rides was one of the topics. I think we have a crazy healthcare system, great for some and lousy for most. A better healthcare system would actually save money, because we could treat chronic diseases and perhaps prevent some by getting people treatment early, instead of after they are already sick. I don’t understand why we haven’t changed yet – there’s plenty of evidence that out healthcare is the worst in the developed world (costs twice as much as the next highest per capita, treats fewer people and has higher infant mortalities, for example).
I’ll take a system that works (Canada, UK, Taiwan, Scandinavia, etc) over one that doesn’t (what we have now).