Stating the Obvious

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Blue Cross/Blue Shield is gearing up to fight fixing Health Care - again.  Fortunately, Paul Krugman exposes their nonsense with a simple question: “We can do a lot better than…

59% of Americans Want National Health Insurance

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From a recent CBS/NYT poll:

HEALTH INSURANCE: PRIVATE ENTERPRISE VS. GOVERNMENT?

CBS/NYT Now

CBS/NYT 1/1979

Private enterprise

32%

48%

Government – all problems

49

28

Government – emergencies

10

12

Don’t know

9

12

Are Democrats listening? This represents a 37% swing in opinion on an item that Americans routinely put at the top of the list of priorities for the government to fix. National health insurance has multiple faces, so it is a mistake to think that this question indicates support for any one idea — but it is pretty safe to say that people no longer think that private insurance is doing what it should.

Another interesting item from this poll:

Is this procedure covered?

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After “Am I going to die?”, and sometimes even before, “Is this procedure covered?” has to be one of the most asked question of Doctors.  And, frankly, I resent it.  I resent the fact that Insurance companies have forced their way into my Doctor/Patient relationship.  I resent that they have the ultimate veto power over my health.

But, most importantly, I resent that I even have to think about Healthcare insurance.

Go ask anyone with a health condition how they are doing.  I guarantee that their answer will veer towards their health insurance.  They’ll tell you about their hassles with the insurance company, the number of bills they received marked as “not covered”, the number of phone calls they made trying to rectify the matter, and/or the amount they ended up paying out-of-pocket.  Along the way you’ll meet a couple of people who boast of how they didn’t have to pay a cent – their ecstatic tone far more suited to winning a lottery than receiving an MRI.

THIS is the difference between Healthcare and Health Insurance

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Last week I received a 400.00 bill from my children’s pediatrician.  Confused, I called the Doctor’s office and was informed that our insurance provider had denied the claim.

Now, before I continue, let me say that we are extremely fortunate to have – what most people would consider – excellent insurance.  This wasn’t always the case, for there was a time when Mr. Pandora and I suffered through the hell known as individual health insurance.  And for those of you who have never experienced buying your own insurance allow me to educate you on the scam it is and how you could find yourself in this predicament overnight.

First, for all the praise lavished on small business as the backbone of our economy most people do not realize that a lot of small businesses are one employee illness away from losing their group insurance.   And that’s exactly what happened to me, and up until I found myself in this situation I had barely given health insurance a second thought.  

In the early 1990s I worked for a thriving small, Delaware business that employed approximately 200 people.  It was a young industry, with a workforce whose average age was 30.  In other words, we were an insurance company’s ideal demographic.  Things were going great until one employee, a young woman, developed a life threatening condition and actually used her health insurance.  This is where the nightmare begins.