Talkback: Your health-care stories

My employer’s insurance would cost me $200 per month. Instead, I went to ehealthinsurance.com and found my own for $166 which isn’t great but it’s better. My employer’s health plan had a $5000 deductible & the one I got on my own has no deductible other than $250 for prescriptions.

I looked up a quote for Dental Insurance and was so aggravated by what was shown. The dental insurance was $60/month and had a $1000 limit per year. Okay, well…a root canal from start to finish (with the cap) will cost $1800. Therefore, I just paid $720 year for insurance that only covers $1000?? So I’d need to come up with an additional $800. What good is it?

I’ve since turned to dental savings plans instead. I had to pay the whole year in advance, but it was only $120 and when I went to the dentist to get my root canal, I paid $350 instead of $750. Therefore, it is clearly more cost effective.

I have Vermont Blue Cross Blue Shield. I have been taking 10 mg of the cholesterol lowering drug lipitor for 8 years. When I tried to fill my prescription recently my physician was informed by my insurance company that I now needed prior approval to receive Lipitor. When my physician sought to get prior approval the insurance company said before they would give approval for Lipitor I had to try another less expensive option for 30 days and if that drug didn’t work I would have to try a different, less expensive drug for another 30 days before they would approve my regular dose of 10 mg of Lipitor. In order for my physician to determine if the alternative drugs were effective, I would have to have blood work at the end of each 30 day period. My physician has had experience with these other drugs and he does not find them as effective as Lipitor so he would prefer that I continue to take Lipitor but my insurance co. will not pay for Lipitor unless I do trials with these other drugs. What’s the difference between an Insurance Co or the Government getting between you and your physician. Personally, Id rather have the Government than Insurance Companies getting between me and my physician. At least the Government doesn’t have to make$$$$ for its shareholders.

My wife and I both have full time jobs. We bought our first home this spring and feel that our lives are pretty blessed.

However, we do not have health insurance. We can not afford it. We both work for smaller firms, unable to offer a reasonable rate. And we make too much money to qualify for state help. We are literally one medical (possibly unavoidable or accidental) disaster from complete financial ruin. We would lose the home we worked so hard to buy.

I see so many people here have written about how they have been paying for their own insurance for X number of years and I ask you, how do you afford that. How do you justify paying $300/mo for insurance with a deductible so high you could never reach it. Dont you see that as just giving away your hard earned money for nothing? The average amount of money I have found for private insurance is $10,000-$12,000/year. That is only a couple thousand less then I take home in a year.

The best thing that could possibly happen to health insurance is to take the profitability out of the equation. Government or not, if we all helped take care of each other we would be in a much better situation.

If you look at this issue as a life and death situation for millions of Americans, then I can make the argument that under the Declaration of Independence we are guaranteed this. The DoI begins with a promise to the pursuit of “… life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” I attest that these guarantees no longer apply to today’s American citizen. That corporations and their pursuit of profits have stripped the average citizen of their rights.

Pass affordable health care now. Millions of Americans are depending on this. I am depending on this.

For those who talk about the rationing in the UK single payer system. They are right and wrong.
There is rationing in the UK BUT that has not much to do with the single payer system.
You know where those patients go? To France, Germany, Poland… You know who pays for it most of the time? Their UK health insurance.
If you have a health insurance in any European country, you can get treatment in another European country and get coverage acoording to the rules of the country you are searching treatment in.
Example: you live in the UK and don’t want to wait 6 months for a hip replacement surgery.
Go to Germany. You’ll get the surgery pretty fast, ask your national insurance and most of the time they’ll cover it.
Example 2: you have an accident while visiting France. That’s an emergency, no need to ask insurance. Go to the doctor/ER and you’re automatically covered for at least 60%, 100% for operations (the French insurance will pay for these and recover them from your UK insurance). If you have a private insurance to cover the rest, cool. If not, it won’t ruin you.

An emergency treatment to fix a tooth broken in an accident will cost approx. 40-50US$

So the problems you are mentioning are typical of the UK not of the insurance system.

I feel I need to contribute to this.. I have worked in comunity or state work for 35 years and before that 10 years geting to adulthood. I became disabled afther working for the same employer for 23 years at the age of 53. I was able to use sick leave days I had built up 1/2 of the value to continue my familys health ins. this lasted about 6 months –for me it was ok since I was able to go on Medicare – but for my wife and child it was going to be like 1400 per month to keep them under that policy since our total income is lile 3000 per month that ended up impossiable. So I found a inexpencive high deductaable rage except major problems it dosnt cover anything. well this insurance started at 178 5 years ago and we have never met the deductables the 2 nd year it went up lto 213/month then the knext year 275/month then the next year 302/month and now we have just recieved notice it will raise another 17% if we want to keep it this year. It is to a point that its either pay it or take a chance on loseing all with a emergency stay in hospital or go with out alot of other things .. like food and school supplies.. Yes I am not lhappy about having to become disabled after working my whole life..but how about my family –I realy dont know what they will do when I die if nothing happens soon ..I am not in good health and I worry about their future.. I really dont want them to loose everything I worked my body to the breaking point to provide for them.. We live in Idaho we have 2 insurances comp[anys to lchose from here and they are both ran by same system blue cross or blue shield
I have looked into some insurance plans that are not ins but I am very scared to get into 1 since so many times since we live in a rural area those plans do not cover the needed items that are available to our area

I cannot believe that Diane Dryfuss refuses to pay for health care but has no problem going to the emergency room for treatment which is the highest cost health care and let the rest of us pay for it and does not see the irony in this.

I think it is tempting for people who have been blessed with strong health to think that it is through their own efforts.Like Ms Diane Dreyfus they dont want to help defray the cost of those who they think have brought bad health upon themselves. Reality is that there are those who are born without two strong legs to run marathons on. There are those born with an illness, such as my hemopiliac brothers. The hardnosed survival of the fittest supporters may think they should be aborted and not be a financial burden to others. Needless to stay, only the rich can have a disease like that and not be ruined without healthcare.

wow…i cant believe all these people find it so easy to get and keep health insurance.the state i live in does not make it so easy to get coverage.(TN)i know people and have family members that cant get coverage anywhere.(even with the state)they have to use the er at the hospital for health care for every thing.i dont know of a company in TN that will cover eye glasses except medicaid.(the children only)
i think a public option is the only thing that will force the insurance co.s to lower there premiums.they are not going to do it out of the generosity of there hearts,when they have been raising price yearly and cutting benifits at the rate they have.
costs would be reasonable for everyone if we had a PO.
some say they dont want gov. to run health care.the gov. runs medicare and care for vets. and our elected officials.if is good enough for our elected officials it is good enough for all of us.

For me as a foreigner the US discussion about health care seems totally absurd: Every statistic shows that US citizens spend more on health care than people in any other industrialized country just to get a worse service than all the others, still you hesitate to change.

In my eyes US citizens not only have a very irrational attitude towards health (nutrition with fast food, low fat milk and tons of useless vitamins).

In my eyes some US citizens even fail to have the sense of being citizens of a state at all. Living together in a nation means to share risks, thats what Rousseau meant by the “contract social” which is the foundation of a state. But some just think: “I dont pay the risk for anyone else but myself!” I wonder what these people do when their parents fall ill…

In my eyes Republicans are distrusting everyone else, afraid of taking part ina democratically build community, just like some paranoid anarchists!

I am a self-employed attorney and I pay $1100 per month for an Anthem policy with a $6000 deductible, for 3 of us (myself, husband and one teenager). I guess I am lucky to be able to afford this but I would never let it lapse, because it is too important. I also have a health savings plan to which I can contribute $6000 this year.

When people ask me if I am outraged by the cost, my attitude is–it costs what it costs. If I were employed, my employer might pick up some of the cost, but then I would not know the real cost.

Having to pay for the coverage and the first $6000 of expenses has made me a much better consumer. I comparison shop for the policy and for medical service.

I am absolutely opposed to universal care. I know that the cost would go up and the service would go down. When Medicare is used as an example, I point out that the average person contributes $40,000 over his/her lifetime and then has access to unlimited care, costing many, many times that. The government pays less than 100% per service and the cost is passed on to those of us with private insurance.

Also, doctors are forced to practice too much defensive medicine. Contrary to what the President believes, doctors don’t over-prescribe tests and treatments in order to line their pockets. They do it to prevent lawsuits.

The solution is, at least in part, a refundable tax credit to those who can’t afford insurance and a full tax deduction for those of us who already pay for our own. And, there has to be some restriction on the “free” services provided by Medicare. I will be in that category soon enough, and I don’t like the thought, but I am realistic. Only if consumers know what the real cost is can they make rational economic judgments.

If I may share a situation that occurs with regard to being DOUBLE BILLED to both of my medical plans that also are plans funded by my unions both now and in my previous occupation which provided through MLBPA indemnity which covers professional ball players specific to the medical condition that was to result in retirement from our chosen occupation. When we then move into another career that carries my general medical benefit unrelated to the baseball injury treatment(s) I had through no diligence of my own, lucked onto what one would assume was a billing code 596.77 for a 15 minute office visit to pick up something for the basic sinus infection or similar common discomfort. (okay i’m wrapping this up!) well I was signing in at the local clinic for a typical breif appt to see the GP when the receptionist told me that both my union provided benefit had specifically dropped them as they had just went ahead with billing them both for the last several years since I had been a patient there for primary care, so what my usual empty headed ignorance assumed was a billing code was really a $600 twelve minute stop in for some meds for a cold? I will add that NEVER has the specialist group that provides care for my injury have they even made an honest billing mistake let alone knowingly just billing them both and only refrained when found out. Maybe that just helps pay the bill for the uninsured ?? Wonder if this is a situation that occurs more than us empty headed athletes would notice ? Jay

I’m a physicians assistant practicing in NC. I really appreciated getting to read through each of these stories. The majority of my patient population is on Medicare, so it is not very often in my clinic that we have to deal with issues related to the uninsured patient. Regardless of where everyone (myself included) stands on the issue, I think it is good to actually hear some of the stories from people that are struggling to keep coverage. I will be suggesting this article/story to our providers.

While I am not a supporter of universal health care, I do agree that we need major improvements to the system. Perhaps an affordable, although not free, disaster plan for those who loose their jobs. Or, caps on medical malpractice to limit defensive medicine and the need (or perceived need) to order unneccessary testing. One responder said universal coverage does not equate to universal care. I agree with this. Just look at Medicare patients. They still have to pay a certain percentage when they come in for visits or get admitted to the hospital. I frequently have patients that fall into the donut hole and have to go without medications. If we do go to a universal coverage system, this is the kind of care we can all expect to receive.

ps – The lady who got $17,000 bill from the ER really needs to call the hospital and dispute this charge. I work in critical care and those are the kind of charges you would expect the see come out of the OR or an ICU setting. If your son truely was ok and probably only diagnosed with a laceration or contussion (medical jargon for cuts and bruises) then there is no way to incur those kinds of charges. I would call and talk with someone in the billing department and request an itemized bill.

Although I have employer health care it costs me $5,000 out of pocket. Check your paychecks folks. Your insurance is probably not free. Even if it is free to you, it is costing your employer a whole lot. I am a manager with several employees and a budget to watch. I have to watch the eligibility for health care (they need to be kept part time!). Even at $5,000, I have an HMO. I simply cannot afford our PPO plan. I spent 4 hours at urgent care and have colleagues that waited months for biopsies. How can it be worse? My daughter lives in Belgium. Her government health care even paid for her to go to a sleep clinic for snoring! She has a choice of plans and has a very, very small co-payments for some services. She can choose a private plan, but the company offering it must be non-profit. Sounds good to me. Also, why do people think the government can’t run a health care program? Medicare works pretty well. It certainly pays the bills for most seniors! And Medicare is about as government run as you can get!

Had to take my wife to emergency for abdominal pain before paper work done to get her on my insurance.

CT scan, cost – $1,075
Told them no insurance, cost: – $537.50

A year later she had the same problem in China. Same procedure, using EXACTLY the same equipment. Cost: about $58.

Government requirements for EVERYTHING, and the paper shuffle it takes to meet those requirements are the second most expensive part of out medical system, right behind torts. The only way to fix the system is get government out.

Health Insurance is NOT healthcare. Health Insurance is ACCESS to healthcare…so your ACCESS to healthcare depends on where you work !

In this Employer Based System , are we really promoting the capitalist market that we brag about to the world ???

Is it really a free market ?

My kids both graduated from college this year and took government jobs ?…turned down better paying private sector because of …..you guessed it…health insurance

Reality…go to work for Uncle Sam or some large monopoly so you can have access to our healthcare system..

WOW…It is the same way in CHINA

What really struck me about (most) of these stories is that people don’t want the GOVERNMENT involved with healthcare.

As for the last story, if Canada is so wonderful WHY doesn’t she just move back there and quit whining?

Many people seem to think that a government plan would mean the end of decent medical care for this country. I am on a government plan, that costs me absolutely nothing in premiums and provides very good medical and mental health coverage(no dental or glasses), $50 annual deductible, $100 max deductible per family – no deductible for inpatient or ambulatory surgery services. It pays 75% of allowable amount after deductible. There is a $3000 annual catastrophic cap. There is medication coverage and free meds by mail for maintenance medication. I am completely free to choose my providers – it does not interfere with or mandate any of my treatment. Treatment decisions are strictly between me and my MD.
What is this wonderful plan? It is called ChampVA and I and my children are eligible as the survivors of a disabled veteran.
Why can’t we expand this kind of a program to all taxpaying US citizens and legal residents? Maybe fund it with a straight percentage tax for everybody.
I was born in Germany and they have a mandated socialized insurance system. Employees pay a straight percentage up to a maximum, depending on the coverage they choose. Basic benefits are mandated by law and negotiated between the government and german counerpart to AMA. Every employee is covered. Medical care is excellent and accessible to all without waiting periods.

John Pierpont I am very happy that you were able to get health care coverage at a very reasonable rate through Kaiser. Please note that this pricing is due to the fact you live in California.

I am an individual payer with Kaiser in the State of Georgia. Unfortunately, they have different pricing in this state and in comparison between the two states our price in Georgia is double to what I would pay for the same insurance in California. I believe there are laws in California that protect payers on a state level. We need this throughout the country.

We need private health care insurance company reform as much as anything.

Put people and principle before profit.

Politicians, health care companies, drug companies, lobbying companies
if we do not get reform – it will blow up in your face sooner or later when you have outpriced everyone from being able to afford your services. What will you do then…

It was very interesting to read the real-life stories here. My husband and I have been debating the merits of a public healthcare system. He worries it will lower the standards for healthcare in our country. I worry that without it too many people will continue to suffer, physically and financially, because they cannot afford healthcare.

Our family has a decent health plan through my husband’s employer and if we lost that we could probably afford to pay more (at least for a while) but I believe healthcare should be a right for every American. The fact that it has become cost-prohibitive for so many people to get basic care is embarrassing in a country as rich as ours. I would rather have a slightly lower standard of care that everyone could access than continue to have healthcare available only for those who can afford it.

However, what I wish I would see more of in this debate is some factual info on what is included in the new healthcare bill. I feel very underinformed about the specifics of the proposed plan and can’t find any unbiased, thorough information on what it is proposing (I’ve searched on the Internet and in other media sources). As with most political debates it seems to have become a screaming match between the “right” and the “left.” Where does someone turn for straight, unbiased facts so we can really understand what we’re talking about?

Hi
I am from Canada and have seen some very negative ads from the USA, regarding our universal healthcare wait times.
Recently( June 29, 2009) I was told by an orthopedic surgeon i would require arthroscopic surgery on my knee for torn cartilage.I had this surgery on July 24, 2009. 25 days after seeing the specialist and 6 weeks after seeing my family doctor.
During this time I also had an x-ray and also seen a physiotherapist all at no charge to me.
I have a private drug plan but if not there is also in my province a government plan i could join and not be refused at a nominal charge.
Our Canadian plan may not be perfect, but no one is left behind as in the USA where the mentality is to care about oneself and not the tens of millions without health insurance.

The present insurance system is the worst. If people think this is the best they can do, then it talks poorly of their abilities. I have a good health insurance coverage. I had to take my daughter to emergency when she got severe allergic reaction to insect bite. The hospital gave her two doses of anti-histamine. The bill was a staggering $800+. I feel that the doctors and hospitals charge a lot more than they should. I have seen universal health care work very well even in developing countries like India. An open heart surgery can be performed in India for $2000.00, whereas it almost costs $200,000.00 here. The congress which has the best health care coverage cannot really understand the problems that normal people face day to day. Unless the public who have suffered at large while battling everyday with insurers have to speak out loudly and more vociferously. otherwise the few affluent people with good health care coverage and the health care industry will have their way and nothing will be done to the present system.

I am 42 female working steady for 20 years as a stylist. I paid my own health Inc for about 15 years, but it got to expensive. I asked my employer for help to maybe contribute to the health care cost. I was denied and forced to stuggle every month to pay this cost. My empoyer of now 20 years still does not help, but I need my job. I would jump at a chance to help.

Until the cost of services are reduced, no form of insurance will help the masses. Why do pharmaceutical companies advertise prescriptions? Hundreds of millions are spent a year to market these items, when the doc is the only one who should be telling us what we need. That cost is picked up by the buyer, which ultimately passes to the insurer in many cases. We’ll still be paying for universal health care if it comes, it will just be in other ways.

Last May, our 5 year son got hit by a bicyclist in a park. We were scared!
We called an ambulance who took him to
San Francisco General Hospital.
Luckily, our son was fine.
After a 10-minute evaluation by a resident (medical student), he was discharged in under half an hour.
No X-rays, stiches, or anything at all.
Now, about the bill.
It came a month ago.
17,000 from the hospital (yes, it is
seventeen thousant) and 1300 from an ambulance. Outrageous!

Our insurance has told us that would
under 5000 since the hospital is not in
the network.
We are a teacher and engineer with a
household income at the US median.
How are we going to pay for this?

Love patient number from Seattle.

She is complaining how bad it is and how expensive, yet she seems to be working the sail on a rather nice boat.

Pay you cheapo!

I just got a job in February working for a Fortune 500 company and I was really excited to make it past the 90 days and finally take a look at my benefits since I’ve never worked for a company that offered benefits before (I’m 29). To my great disappointment, I learned that my employer doesn’t contribute ANYTHING to our insurance coverage so it will cost me $688 per month in order to cover myself, my husband, and our 2 daughters. That is a full 1/3 of my gross monthly income and almost half of my after tax income. Sadly, I will not be able to even sign up for the benefits because right now I am the only one working in our family and we won’t be able to make it paying 1/3 of our income to insurance and another 1/3 to our rent and another 1/3 to the rest of our monthly bills leaving us no money to live on. I think that there is a lot to be desired of the Universal Health Care plan to this point but the status quo is just unsustainable and unreasonable.

why does everyone cite canadien provincial health care plans when they are in disagreement with universal health care? Do these same Americans understand that we are the only industrialized nation without some form of socialized medicine? do all these countries have it wrong, or is it American hubris that clouds their shortsighted vision? Oh yes, a quick reminder to those conservative religous folk out there against a form of universal coverage, profits over people or privaledge over right doesn’t seem very Christ like. WWJD!

This article appears to be a part of the Big Industry media blitz that launched last week trying to stop universal health care, because it will mean less money for the fat cats. Don’t believe me? Here we have 9 stories about health care. NINE. That means things have to swing one way or the other. They could easily have 10 and pick 5 pro’s and 5 con’s but they choose 9 and made the majority negative. How is that balanced journalism? And don’t tell me you just picked them randomly out of hat.

That earlier poster got it right… Doctors, hospitals and insurance companies in general are a bunch of crooks. Doctors charge whatever they want because they know the “insurance” companies will pay and insurance companies, scrape every last penny out of any benefits we can get. I can’t get my own health insurance because of my diabetes, other than that I’m a healthy 43 yr old. I make a decent living around $90k, however the wife is a stay at home mom. Her job skill level would not provide much income even if she was working. My companies insurance costs me $750/mo. I have a $3000 deductible before the insurance company kicks in and then they cover 80% until I reach an additional $6000 out of pocket. Basically I could be looking at medical bills of $18k/year for something as minor as an ACL surgery. BTW, my oldest son had ACL surgery. For eight hours worth of in and out care the hospital bill came to $54k dollars (that’s more money than Michael Jordan makes). I have to have some sort of coverage to handle that type of bill. Other insurance that might be available where the insurance takes care of everything up to $3000 will not work for this type of injury. Just think what the bill would have been had it been a major auto accident involving multiple day stay. I shudder to think where I would be financially.

Get a job……universal health care = no access.

Who the hell does Pamela think she is.
“My husband has a Ph.D. and I have a Master’s, so we are fortunate that we have the knowledge to figure things out. But for ordinary folks, it’s a mess”
Pam does that mean the “ordinary” folks without an advanced degree couldn’t possibly figure out health insurance plans. Get over yourself. Maybe you and your hubby should use all those smarts and get real jobs that include insurance. Unreal!!

You have posted a very good cross section of people with all kinds of coverage, or none. What is amazing is that all of those that want the government plan seem to all ready have insurance and those that don’t have insurance seem to know better than have the government take over.

It seems to me that most people, (especially the well educated), think that universal health care means that everyone will be given care. They seem to miss the fact that everyone will have coverage, not care. They are two different things. The coverage we will get will provide certain care, but not total care. No one has total care except for some very important people, mostly government employees or the very wealthy. This is not necessarily a bad thing but is a fact.

All of the plans being put forth are based on the premise that the very wealthy should pay for the very sick. Everyone else will continue to pay their own way (or someone else’s way) through a premium based system currently in use. The current system helps keep the ecconomy afloat and pays it’s own way. Soon they (those rascals in DC) will mess everyone up and we will all pay for it, so I vote to leave it alone for now until someone comes up with a real plan.

The United States is the only industrialized country in the world that does not have Universal Health Care. Under the current system, health care is a privilege- those with better jobs and more money get better care. That is flat-out wrong. Access to basic, affordable health care should be a right, not a privilege.

I have a good job with a large company and make a six figure income. I am thankful for the coverage I get….but humble enough to know that if I lost my job, I would need to pay the equivalent of a small mortgage payment just to keep my family covered. For the coverage that I do have, premiums go up about 10% a year. While I can afford those increases, there are many who can’t. No one should have to choose between their livelihood and the ability to get medical coverage if they need it.

The system doesn’t work. It needs to be entirely overhauled.

We’ll get better health care in the US of A when we get a better class of patients and doctors!

“The bad news is that the Federal government doesn’t acknowledge our relationship…”

And the easiest way of dealing with that situation is NOT taxing someone else for YOUR situation.

START THINKING ABOUT WHAT THE REAL PROBLEM IS, HERE.

I don’t think there should be Universal Healthcare. In theory the idea is great but if you go and ask the people that are reciptents of the insurance you will hear horror stories. My MIL is from Canada and tells me how she waited months for a appt for a mammogram. Another person who lives in Ireland came to the US for a surgery that she had been waiting for in Ireland for 4 years.

The government will tell the people what they want to hear not what the truth is. They will say that the negative things about Universal Healthcare is just propganda and not true. If someone talked to 30 people in one of those countries I bet you would hear horror stories about the wait for health care.

What I think the government should do is give the people who are uninsured an option that will give them assistance with medical care.

The state of Mass. has a system called MassHealth. It provides medical care for the uninsured that are at a income level. My brother has medical issues and when he lost his job the first thing he did was to sign up for it.

People need to research what is out there.

our 3 healthy member family pays $1650.00 / month including mandatory prescription we never use and high deductibles and copay for very basic coverage and no dental care. what a criminal robbery that is. WE ARE SICK AND TIRED OF CRIMINAL DOCTORS, PHARMAS, AND INSURANCE.

To Tim Monroe. Regarding the 5 MRI in Canada claim: http://secure.cihi.ca/cihiweb/dispPage.jsp?cw_page=media_21aug2008_e

Make that 222 MRI and 419 CT scanner in 2007. Since then the supreme court has ruled in favor of letting private practices compete with the public sector for providing services to health patients both out of their own pocket AND out of the pocket of the government. Similar system has been in place in GB for a long time, making it possible to break status quo when the govt run hospital have problems meeting federal standards (which are published with the score cards for provinces per type of interventions). Private sector then gets the same amount per operation /service than the public sector gets, providing a level playing field. It has also created a second track for wealthier citizens who want to pay to go to fully private clinics.

Don’t believe the ridiculous claims about months to go for an MRI, when it is urgent, it gets processed very quickly: doctors talks to doctors. Any wait that costs money to an insurance company (worker comp accidents who are on disability etc) get sent to private clinics within days.

Cheers.

After reading the health care coverage stories, I got a little down. I am so for the universal health care side and only about a quarter of them were truly for it. I lived in Canada practically my whole life until moving to the states four years ago with my husband. He was active duty military so for the first year and a half, we were covered under the government. So lucky! In that year, I had a serious kidney infection and a child. Since then, we went uncovered during those first 3 months of getting the new job, something I as a Canadian had a really hard time understanding (side note, not fair that people are miserable in their job but have to stick with it b/c they can’t go uncovered for 3 months). On to medicare for just 3 months (and gosh, did our relatives give us such a hard time about that!) but what were we supposed to do when my husband worked at a grocery store for 9 bucks an hour and me as a server trying to get my teacher cert. in Georgia. So lucky for medicare b/c our daughter broke her arm. See, unexpected expenses! Universal health care pays for the unexpected. I worked as a certified teacher for the last two school years. I have had state insurance. The first school year I had an HMO for our family (great as long as you stay in network). This year, one month before conceiving, we were to choose our plan, and I elected for PPO (pays 60% if out of network). Absolutely sucks for pregnancy and delivery! Wish I stuck with my HMO. And stuck with it for a year. My Canadian friends beg me to come home. They and I think it’s absurd to be “stuck” in a plan. It’s supposed to be the happiest time in your life and it’s been one headache after the next. It’ll be a 3000 dollar baby…and so many will not feel sorry for me because I should have read the plans. And don’t get me started on maternity leave! I want to go back home to Canada to get my one year paid leave at 55% of my pay. You have to go back to work 6 weeks after your baby is born. That is not enough time for a parent and baby to bond. So my husband decided to re-enlist in the military and I get to stay home for the first year with my baby and 3 year old. I have a lot of good things to say about universal health care growing up and having it within the military. The military coverage is as close to universal health care as your going to get in the states. 30 western countries have universal health care. These countries’ citizens have longer life expectancies than the US. We avoid doctors here. We hope that we will stay healthy. We need to see our doctors for preventative care. I’m going to end it here.

If you have public health insurance in Germany (and yes, you can choose to be insured privately if you are self-employed or your income exceeds a certain amount), it costs 15.5% of your gross monthly salary. You pay half this amount and your employer pays the other half. The amount is capped, however, at 558 euros, so the maximum amount you pay in is 279 euros (about $330 at today’s exchange rate). We have choice of doctor, no deductible, and no maximum. We do have some out-of-pocket expenses, but these are minimal. Over the years (I’ve been here since 1992) I’ve seen my rates rise by about 4%, and some things (like eyeglasses) are not covered as generously as they used to be. However, there were no bills for two pregnancies and deliveries. One of the kids had severe eczema as a baby and has asthma now. There were no rises in insurance rates because of that and no worries about insurance being cancelled. I am not worried about being ruined financially because of catastrophic illness. If I needed an operation, I’m confident I would get it quickly. Public insurance may not be perfect, but it sure seems a whole lot better than the U.S. system.

After reading several comments, I have to laugh at the one that says, “The reality is that health care is expensive…” Yes it is expensive when a hospital charges $50.00 for 1 damn aspirin. Or how about charging a woman $100 for a pregancy test when she came in because she stepped on a nail? Yes, it is expensive when the hospitals, insurance companies, private doctors and others OVERCHARGE for services. Yes, a mechanic can charge X amount of dollars for a service, but guess what I can go to another mechanic who is more reasonable as well as realistic. Or I can fix it myself. That is what a lot of people are doing now…google your ailments…buy the medicine from overseas to try to alleviate symptoms, pain, etc. Its a shame that there are some complaining “my wife had to wait….to get a BUNION…removed…a Canadian citizen living in the U.S.” Ummm, bunions are not life threatening, I know, I have 2…at least she could get them removed…I cannot…I live with it…as for living in RURAL area…that’s why its called RURAL you lived in the country and usually that means far away from the city and it amnemities like a hospital and other medical machines. Try going to a “rural” area in the U.S., like the Appalachian Mts…that’s rural. I am all for making sure my neighbor is cared for as well as I am. I am all for paying higher taxes and being able to care for my son and self without worrying about whether I can keep my ins, if I change or lose my job. And since I am already paying almost $359 a month for insurance, with a whole lot of restrictions, like no maternity, no mental health, no vision coverage, I would rather put that towards taxes and receive the care that I need and deserve as a taxpayer.

I also wanted to say that I don’t know why we don’t follow the Europeans…It doesn’t look like they are suffering financially or health wise —does statistics show that they live longer than Americans as a whole? I’m all for living longer…how about you?

I am a single mother, I work full time, I am in school full time. I do not recieve any outside help or gov’t assistance for myself or my son. I was recently pay close to $357 a month via my employers ins plan for myself and my son. I took him off and placed him on private insurance for $129 a month, expecting to pay only $50 per month for myself thru my employer. Unfortunately, my employer cut everyones salary by 10% and raised insurance for individuals from $50 a month to $124 a month. (this after taking 2 “business” trips with his family @ approx. 2500-6000 a trip). So I am now in the same position I was in with even less money. I am for universal healthcare. I have spoken to several people from Canada and Europe and all of them say the same thing, they love it and would not have it any other way. They also say the propaganda about waiting lists, poor quality ec etc, is rubbish (not my words).
Ps: My son was on SSI but my income of $22K was too much—go figure

Anthem has a secret group in Louisville KY that reviews all large claims and looks for a reason to cancel you policy retroactively back to it’s inception. If this group finds a reason, they get a bonus. The state of California sued Anthem, fined them 11 million dollars and required them to reinstate 2200 policies. The city of Los Angeles is suing them currently for the same thing. The did this to me and I’ve obtained council and plan to involve the State Attorney General to go after this sorry excuse for an insurance company. If all health insurance companies disappeared today, health care costs would drop 50% with the elimination of the health care insurers overhead. It’s time for National Health Care. Good riddance health insurance companies. They’ve become profit centers only and couldn’t care less about their clients.

I don’t understand the people who say that “Universal Healthcare” (implying a quasi-socialized system) will make healthcare cheaper and more affordable. Will the expenses just magically disappear?

What they mean to say is that is will be cheaper and more affordable FOR THEM… because the cost is shifted to everybody else.

I am in Connecticut- age 57. I am working per-deim as a substitute school teacher and another PT job.

The state has a program called The ‘Charter Oak Health Plan’ based on income- there is no asset means test.

This program is based on a sliding scale- It covers 90% of hospitalization, 100% lab work, up to $7500 a year for medications. $25 co pay- I have a $150 s year deductible.
I pay $75 a month-

This program heavily subsidizes the lower income. There is no exclusion for pre existing conditions.

Blue Cross with a $200 deductible a year would cost me over $600 a month.

The system is broken and hoping to get the corporations to bring the cost down won’t bring them down. There might be promises but without regulation they will never be kept. I don’t know if universal health care is the answer, but I know that we cannot continue with the current system any longer unless we give up living in houses and eating.

As for the Doctors out there, I feel for you about the cost of education. One of the next things that needs to be dealt with is the cost of higher education otherwise Americans will just be indentured servants to the Banks, and this at a time when you almost have to have a college education to get a job.

Healthcare in US is a ‘ponzi’ scheme – it steals from low income group and fill coffers of healthcare providers. The premiums are sky rocketing and even Obama administration does not seem inclined to reigning in the cost. The cost needs to go down 50% in 2 years; and it is very much possible. What is needed is a change in mindset.

What is wrong with the current system –
• Cost is exorbitant.
• Patients not able to see the doctor immediately; wait for available appointments or go to emergency room / service.
• Patients have to wait at every stage in doctor office (loss of productivity).
• Doctors are multi-tasking seeing multiple patients and being able to focus on any.
• Timings are inconvenient for the working folks – late appointments not available; so patients need to take time off for doctor visit (loss in productivity).
• Now because everyone pays excessively for health insurance; people see doctors excessively (even when not required) &
• Consume excessive medicines because they want to recover the money paid for health insurance.

Greed of providers
• Doctors work in the interest of industry and not the patient who pays and is the sucker.
• Doctors want a continuous stream of revenue – patients are coerced in making the next appointment during doctor visit. Ensuring that patients fall sick after on due date to see the doctor.
• Old people are source of continuous unending revenue and are being kept alive to fill the coffers of healthcare professionals.

What can be done
• All healthy individuals below 50 NOT take health insurance and pay out of pocket.
• Government provides basic healthcare and emergency services.
• Pharmacist and nurses should be authorized to prescribe medicines for minor ailments.
• Doctor offices accept ‘walk-ins’. Have a rate list displayed; many providers do not tell the cost of treatment ahead of actually being administered.
• Government competes with private agencies and provides insurance; medical care – doctors, hospital, lab; medicines.
• Implement Wall-Mart process & model to cut costs & ensure efficiency.
• Outsourcing some of healthcare to Europe / Asia / South America; US is a nation of immigrants. Everyone has a root or branch in some foreign country. Treatment can be combined with tourism or a family visit or an official visit. Certain procedures can be done in Europe at 50% cost or in Asia at 20% cost with better results. All payments through local US embassy with approved doctors, hospitals & laboratories. Cuba and Canada are very good sources for cheaper treatment next door.

Problems of shortage of doctors & nursing staff will go away.

A BIG part of the problem in this country is that people want any and all care modern medicine is capable of providing, sans restrictions, but no one wants to pay for it. Hip replacements for patients with terminal illnesses, patients on life support at family request (demand) for months (or more) with little to no chance of recovery, and the like all cost the system many billions of dollars each year. Families (rightly) want everything done for terminally ill relatives but many of them have no desire to consider the financial implications of this (wrongly). In fact, being in the health care industry myself, people are often offended if the subject of finances is mentioned at all.

Private industry’s response to this is to ration healthcare (through increased prices). Insurance companies increase premiums and make patients responsible for more of the financial burden through higher coinsurance and deductibles. If private insurance companies think a procedure isn’t worth the investment, the coverage for the procedure is denied.

The government, for reasons of political expediency, wants to provide health coverage for EVERY American (and many non-citizens, as well, bless their hearts [sarcasm]). The same healthcare system will be in place, and there will suddenly be 45+ million more people using it regularly. The system will not be able to handle this, and rationing will continue, this time in the form of lengthy weight times and bureaucratic red tape. Socialized medicine will be no better than what we’ve got; it will just come with different problems.

I would prefer to see some sort of hybrid system in place (NOT like what we have now). All government-administered healthcare should stop. Regulations should be placed on the health insurance industry requiring, say, 80-85% of premiums MUST be spent on patient care. If less than this amount of the premium was spent on the patient at the end of the year, the patient should be able to elect to have the excess returned to him/her or apply it to next year’s premium. This would eliminate superfluous premium increases and ensure that patients get the care they need. All Medicare/Medicaid recipients would be able to be covered under the health insurance plan of their choosing and the government would pay the premiums on their behalf. This ensures that people who need government help get it, but private industry would be the ones dialing efficiency into the system.

Finally, laws requiring health insurance of everyone would be created. This would also have the effect of lowering costs because there would be no uninsured, thus the insured population wouldn’t have to subsidize the uninsured any longer. The health insurance plans would still require coinsurance/deductibles (still related to the premium amount, as they are now), so people would still have some personal financial responsibility which would discourage superfluous use of the healthcare system.

This is a FAR better proposal than a single payor system. If you think money is wasted in the healthcare system now, wait until EVERY healthcare dollar has to find its way through federal and state bureaucracy before it goes toward your healthcare.

I used to live in Canada where they have government medicine. I paid 52% income tax and 13% sales tax for “free healthcare”. My wife needed to have a bunion removed and waited 2 1/2 years on a surgical waiting list and became crippled waiting. My son was hit head on by a car and could not get a CT scan because we lived 80 miles from Toronto in a small city of 130,000 population and the equipment was not available. In Canada it is illegal for a doctor to accept payment for medical care, you must wait in the government line.
I now live in California and pay $336 a month per month for health insurance and am free to pay for medical treatment when I need it.
The system is not perfect, but it is a million times better than government medicine.

I love taxes.

I love paying them, doing them every year, and see how they get invested
by my government in my best interests.

I know my government is looking out for me because I decided with my fellow
citizens who is responsible for investing my tax money and what their intentions
are. And btw, me and my fellow citizens pay more taxes(percentwise of course) than
anyone in the world.

Will I ever own a ferrari, yacht or a $20 million home?

Not likely.

Will I ever own my own home, have one or two cars, travel abroad every year
with my 2.1 children with a wife where we both work.

Most likely.

Do I ever have do deal with health insurance companies or health insurance at all
during my entire life? Or wonder how losing/changing jobs or employing myself
will affect my health care situation?

No, never.

Do I trust my government to themselves, or through privatized medical companies of my choosing
provide me with good health care?

I appointed them so yes.

Do I mind paying more for health care than others even though I use less of their services?

At different points in my life I will have different “paying power”. It is only natural
that when I am younger and older, pay less and maybe use more of their services.

The cost of a doctor’s education is high and they many times have demanding and inconvenient
work hours throughout their entire careers. Doesn’t this justify large salaries?

Yes and no. In my country education is free but the inconvenient work hours and the simply fact
that they are putting someone elses life in their hands does mean greater responsibility.

Pharmaceutical companies charge outrages amounts for their products, how can I afford this?

I can’t, but the government can. The cost of bringing a new drug to the market is high considering
research and trials etc, so it is not surprising that drugs are expensive. Normal citizens can’t
afford this. Where I live the government subsidizes most if not all drugs. And if my yearly
costs for prescription drugs exceeds about $150 they are free. Example: A diabetic’s cost for
a year supply of insulin: $150. An elderly’s yearly cost of heart and cholestoral medicine: $150.
Again, that is YEARLY, not monthly.

Do I have to wait days, weeks or even months for standard x-rays/CT/MRI scans?

The few times I have had x-rays or CT scans it was same day(ER). But I have heard people
wait months for MRI scans that were not ER related. Typically non-elite type sport injuries.

What did my last ER visit cost?

Severely dislocated shoulder(backwards). Ambulance. 2 xrays. A good deal of morphine for relocation.
Time in ER: 3h
Standard pricetag: $35. Physical therapy every 3-4 weeks for 10 months: $150(includes the 35 from ER)

What kind of care is provided for the elderly that might need 24/7 supervision because of dementia, strokes
or other incapacitating illnesses?

In my experience, very good. Some places are better than others though and there are can be many levels of burocracy
you need to navigate to get what you want for your family members.

we are Robert & Denise White
after my wife lost here job and our last child turned 18 we lost our insurance and the only way we could get help was to get a Divorce after 34 years be couse her med are over 500.00+ a mo and i use my VA bust i have ssi part A & D and to get Part B i have to pay 230.00 amo it is sad that our health care is so broken that even this so called stimmless packet well not help those that need help when we were married i mad 70.00 to much on my ssi to get help it is sad that we as a countrey see thing as the rich gets richer and the poor gets poorer how sad

Doesn’t this person know Medicare (“whatever elderly people get”)charges a monthly premium?

As a small business owner who has been providing health care insurance to my employees, it is now becoming impossible to do so. The premium letter I’ve just received from the insurance company indicates a rate increase of 60% (not a typo!!!!!!). Doesn’t leave small business owners like myself many choices.

Free Market Health Insurance is what we have NOW, and it sucks!!!! Universal Health coverage would keep these criminal Health Care Companies from bleeding the American Worker to death with their double talk, deductibles, copays, etc… I have NO problem paying more than someone less employed, for the benefit of all American CITIZENS… But when a recent visit to the ER for my daughter cost me $300 up front, and an additional $400 of deductibles… What good is insurance??? I pay $550/month for my BCBS plan.

The question to be submitted to members of Congress should be: If you are truly servants of the people why can’t your “masters” enjoy the same health insurance that you do, at the same cost you pay? Do you think you are better, or more worthy than the rest of us?

Although I agree with the rising health care costs, it’s a necessary commodity that can not be overlooked even in the worst of economic times. We all understand the fact that money is tight right now. However, if you overlook the simple facts of having a health care policy, you’re really only cheating yourself. Just look at some of the other comments on here. People become sick, crippled, or what have you; nothing of which they might have expected. Even the healthiest people can’t expect that ‘no accident’ or sicknesses will ever come to them. Just imagine, if you fell down the stairs by mistake one day and needed to go to the hospital? The ambulance ride alone would be $1,500+ on average; not taking into account when you actually get to the hospital. Life is full of unexpected events. What scares me the most is the first person in this article who is in her 60’s with no health care. Just because she hasn’t gotten sick or had an accident doesn’t mean it won’t happen. If you have to go to the hospital and god forbid you die, your leaving your family members with the burden of paying for all of the hospital bills. Times are tough yes, but look at the big picture. Although it might seem expensive today, look at the what ifs, if it were to happen.

I am self-employed in NJ and pay 1200 for 2 adults + 1 child. The rate goes us by 15% every year. This is taking a major toll on my family finances. I pray for national healthcare and hope that someday we will see the light at the end of the tunnel. The insurance companies and the pharmaceuticals are to blame for this high cost. I import my chlosterol drug from India (when friends or family come over) and the cost for a TWO year supply of LIPITOR is about $45. In the US it is $50 per month with my plan. Go figure this out.

I am a Canadian citizen who moved to the US 4 years ago. My wife was crippled by a 3 year wait for orthopedic surgery. My son was hit by a car and his head went through the windshield and he waited 3 hours and got an x-ray, because we were 80 miles from Toronto which was the nearest CT scanner, and my MOm had to get a double mastectomy when she got breast cancer, because no other treatment was available in rural areas. When the government regulates your health, you are nothing. You are no one, and you can not complain to anyone.
No one ever again will restrict my access to medical care, and single payer means just that! It means you can NOT pay for medical treatment, only the government can.
We must stop government medicine

To JE and Lee from Canada:

I agree with much of what you said.
Individuals who want a government one payor system/ socialized medicine (call it what you will) in effect will have to accept rationing of what the government decides are scarce resources. It is already happening in Canada–for years–and in England. I have heard of cases of patients who needed kidney dialysis in Canada or coronary bypass procedures who waited till they died or came across the border to the USA and paid. Their own governement health care system really did not mind if they waited. It is simple–if they die, it is cheaper for the government. I have learned first hand of a female cardiac patient in Great Britan who was hospitalized in the largest hospital in London and because of funding issues the coronary care unit was closed> Can you imagine? This is not a third world country or some tiny rural area in Great Britan. This is the largest hospital in London. She needed a heart valve replaced or she was destined to die. The doctors and medical students did rounds. They walked away from the patient and the senior physician making the decisions declared (and I am quoting from one of the health care people who was right there): “If this woman was a worker and had some usefulness for the state she would probably get this lifesaving surgery. But because she is only a housewife and has no value for the state she will not get this heart surgery and she will die.”
Socialized medicine simple leads to rationing of expensive technology. Still don’t believe me? Ask a few military retirees and their families who have needed an expensive referral or MRI, or needed a more expensive medicine that is not on the VA’s restrictive formulary list.
While the current system needs quite a few changes, we do not need the government in effect dictating our deaths while we patiently wait for approval of a specialty visit or expensive medication. Rationing of health care by the government is already in effect happening via Medicaid and Medicare…we do not need all Americans to be adversely affected in this way.

I am a Canadian physician working in the United States for the last seven years. I worked 13 years in Canada. I was medical director of diagnostic imaging at a hospital serving 250,000 people. Our wait time for MRI was 13 months long and for CT it was 7 months. I knew specialists with two year waiting lists. I government pays for resource like health care, they will inevitably control it. Canada’s system started as merely a single-payer system and morphed into a government controlled system. If you say ice cream is free, people will over consume it. The same is true with health care and therefore the government must imposed rate-limiting steps to its delivery. The same will be true in the U.S. as the government takes over more of health care.

Ryan in Phoenix: You made some excellent points. I agree. People do not realize how expensive heatlth care really is because there is at least one if not two middle men: the employer and the insurance company.

To John from Fairfax, VA: People who go to medical school or some other provider training don’t do so just to be average. They do it because they’re motivated to help others, and they’re motivated to reap the rewards. Both are honest motives for becoming a health care provider and very few people who become providers aren’t motivated by both.

Actually I am not a physician; but I do work in the healthcare field. Having compassion for people is necessary and helpful to a certain extent. However you cannot create laws and establish public policy based on compassion. At some point, bills come due, rent has to be paid and doctors need to be rewarded for their hard work and sacrifice. “Compassion” is a term used by people who want someone else to pay the bill for them. That type of attitude is not sustainable.

Keep in mind there are plenty of doctors who may not want to treat certain patients for a variety of reasons. Patients may be referred to a specialist, placed on a wait list, or simply told that the treatment they need is not available at this clinic or hospital. Happens all the time in Europe. The patient complains to a nameless, faceless bureaucracy and is very often told that some type of treatment or medication is not available to them due to the high cost, or the fact that the patient smokes, or is too fat or too old. How is that for compassion?

Regarding Mr. Albert Hinds remark:
“Access to health care is a right – a Constitutional Right as real as the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

What kind of constitutional interpretation is this?! Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness is a right that we all possess WITHOUT REGARD TO THE EFFORTS (or lack thereof) of any other party. You (and I) have the right to not have their life, liberty or pursuit of happiness INTERFERED with – it certainly does not REQUIRE me to pay anything or make any other kind of effort to PROMOTE your life, liberty or happiness. That’s up to you. I suspect that you only want someone else to help pay for your health care. After all, if you could easily afford any health care available, then I doubt you would make unsupported claims that it is a “Constitutional Right”. How about my Constitutional Right to not degrade my net worth by paying for your health? If you were to ASK me to a contribution, I might well pay something – that’s charity, which I support both philosophically and financially. But call your “government involvement” what it is: an blatant attempt at creating an “entitlement”. Even worse, claim that it is somehow addressed in the Constitution. I will not follow that path to another “entitlement”, and you will get nothing from me but unremitting opposition if you attempt to force me to do so.

The Constitution speaks about the government being able to collect and expend taxes and fee, but it says NOTHING at all (expect in a few cases, such as a standing Navy) about whether any particular expense or program should or should not be funded. It also doesn’t say that citizens have the right to subsidized food, or clothing, or shelter, or Social Security, or a publicly-financed education. In fact, the Constitution doesn’t even envision the kind of large standing Army we have today. Creation of all of these spending programs has been up to Congress and/or State Legislatures, and equally and as easily changed or eliminated by them without recourse to Constitutional Law. You want to lobby for heath care changes? Fine, that’s your right. It is equally my right to lobby against them. Neither of has any claim that the Constitution favors either your desires or my objections. It’s just politics as usual.

I’ve read a lot of comments about doctors, lawyers, insurance companies that are capitolizing on the money to be made in the healthcare industry. I don’t here much reality in most of the comments. The reality is that health care is expensive. We pay car mechanics, plumbers, electricians, painters, etc., sometimes close to $100/hr, but I don’t hear of anyone ranting and raving about their costs. I find it hillarious that we will spend a few hundered dollars on car maintenance without blinking, replace an air conditioner in our home for several thousand dollars, but don’t expect me to pay for an extra inhaler for my kid because I’m not responsible enough to remember to keep it with him when he stays with my x-wife?!?!? I got an idea, if your worried about your childs health (which you should be), go out and buy and inhaler on your own dime!!

The problem with healthcare is that everyone wants something for nothing. Everyone wants “free” healthcare for all. People want access to unlimited services at no cost. Well, someone is going to have to pick up the tab.

Scary thing is, the government encourages the something-for-nothing mentallity by subsidizing employer-based coverage and to a great extent, government entitlement programs (Medicaid/Medicare). Do you realize that most states spend anywhere from 30-50% of state budgets on Medicaid (that does not even included the federally matching dollars)?

People are clueless on this issue. Start scaling back subsitees, force people to face the real cost of healthcare, and let them make informed decisions about what services to purchase. The alternative is for our country to go bankrupt when the baby boomers all start cashing in on Medicare. You think Social Security is a problem, do a little research on Medicare.

Get something for nothing is not what this country was founded on and if we don’t return to some common sense, our country will be in a world of hurt.

I agree with JE and many of the others here who clearly are primary care physicians or physicians posting. Family physicians earn a fraction of what surgical specialists earn for the most part. Medical students come out of college and medical school with massive amounts of debt, and then enter internship and residencies where, if their salaries were calculated per hour, their hourly rates would be laughable. If a young physician chooses to go into a private practice, the overhead costs keep rising and a massive amount of new debt is incurred. I have met an experienced family doctor who was working very hard and finally one day he came home and realized that due to overhead costs and managed care, he brought home $30,000 a year (that is not a misprint,yes, I said 30 thousand dollars a year). Guess what? He sold his practice and quit. I could not blame him for doing so. Imagine what it would be like to have other professionals, say your car mechanic, work under the rules of managed care. No one who loves their car would tolerate it, yet patients tolerate having managed care to take care of their health. Regarding the issue of citizens without health insurance, while there may be a few people who truly cannot afford health insurance, I have met far too many people who buy or lease new cars every 2 or 3 years, and/or smoke cigarettes which cost them $4000 a year and then lament that they cannot afford health coverage. We also are losing $1 billion a year to cover the health care costs of illegal immigrants in this country. I would rather take that money ($1 billion) and use it to help American citizens who truly cannot afford to buy health coverage, or invest it in prevention programs like vaccination programs for the isolated elderly in rural areas, or truly needy children who are Americans. Americans need to make healthy lifestyle choices now if they truly want to extend their lives, and reduce their potential for expensive health costs later. We also have too many lawyers in Congress and not enough physicians.

I am a single father who has 2 boys age’s 9, 11. I have health care coverage for my boys through my x-wife’s employer. While it is good insurance we are informed that they will not pay for 2 inhalers for both of our homes in the event of an asthma attack. The provider (United Healthcare) is the same. My Girlfriend/partner who works in health care came home the other day and told me a story minus the names (HIPPA rules) about a patient that has the same provider (United Healthcare) as my son’s. He was put in the hospital because he weighs 400+ pounds and as you can imagine has health issues because of his weight. He said to her “he does not want help during his stay” and will soon run out of insurance coverage (400 per day) and the “state “will start to pay in a week to ten days. This is very frustrating for me as a father/parent as we will pay for this guy who does not want our help yet they will not pay for an extra inhaler that my son’s need from time to time??!! A life or death potential situation vs. this man lying in bed urinating on himself, cannot get up out of bed without 4 full size football player size guys helping him up, nurses having to give him baths to prevent bed sores, the list is long and while I think he needs help…he says he does not want it. I want this minor medical inhaler which maybe cost $100 in real cost to the insurance (United Healthcare) company every 6 months. I share in that cost due to co-pay yet they refuse. I view this as preventative measure to help avoid an emergency room visit in the middle of the night, which I would think is much more expensive to them. It makes me wonder if these companies cannot see the forest for the trees’.

The rhetoric over Health Care and how to reduce its cost while making Health Insurance available to everyone makes absolutely no sense to me.
Access to health care is a right – a Constitutional Right as real as the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
First, what we call Health Insurance, is not insurance, it is the bulk purchasing of discounted Access to Health Care.
Access to Health Care and its cost is dependent on the leverage you have in purchasing access at a discount. It’s no different than the Super Wal-Mart vs. the local retailer. The local retailer does not have a chance.
The following solution but it will put all Health Care consumers on an equal footing. It may also reduce administrative costs.
INSURANCE
“A contract (policy) in which an individual or entity receives financial protection, or reimbursement, against losses from an insurance company, which pools client’s risks to make payments more affordable, in exchange for a premium.”
1. Redefine the INSURANCE POOL.
All Health Care Insurers must offer coverage to all applicants at the same rate per $1,000.00 of coverage with limited exceptions.
An insurer can limit total exposure only by demographics that model the most current census data, i.e. Number of insured’s by; age group, gender, race/ethnic origin, and statistical distribution covering genetic and pre-existing medical conditions.
Deductibles, coinsurance, and co-pays must be the same for all insured’s with the same level of coverage.
2. All Health Care consumers and/or their insurance providers are billed and pay the same price for the same service from the same provider.
3. Charities and the government involvement should be limited to assisting consumers who cannot afford to pay for insurance in purchasing insurance, and assisting consumers in the payment of deductibles, coinsurance, and co-pays.

As a physician, family man and small business owner, let’s put somethings into reality. As a physician coming out of residency and the fellowship, we are usually about 100K to 300K in debt, while in residency / fellowship the pay is from 40K to 55K. Try to buy a 300K house on that salary? Now you have to open a business or go to work for someone to start paying off that student loan. Depending on the field, the med mal insurance can go up to 300K a year! AS a physician medicare and private insurances has been decreasing or holding steady the reimbursement for almost 10 years. If there is talk about a 1% raise in medicare pay the next year, etc there is a big celebration for we are usually facing cuts. This upcoming year we are faced with a 21% cut. When medicare cuts 21%, all the private insurances will cut 21% as private insurance companies follow medicare guidelines. SO doctors have been paid the same for 10 years from insurances, the only way to make more is to see more people, putting patients and the doctor’s health at risk. BUT as a small business owner, my cost, rent,payroll, health insurance premiums goes up 3% at least to 15% for our company insurance. What other business does not keep up with inflation but costs keep escalating like crazy! I see many post about the benz and porches of doctors, the doctors are working very, very long hours, many more hours on paperwork and notes that the patient does not even see or appreciate.
We do have a shortage of doctors if our system does not change from paying the middle man, the insurance carriers,vs the doctors and nurses that are at the front lines of treating the patient. Doctors are not getting paid more at all, but insurance profits are skyrocketing. Something is not right when doctors have to spend 20 minutes on the phone speaking to a nurse or pharmacist or lawyer about what is the best treatment for a patient. Tort reform, ah yes. The ones that sue the most are the ones that doctors have to wake up at 3am and treat. Imagine treating someone for free, doing the best you can,then they get a sleazy attorney to try to sue you. You will get attorneys to file suits in hopes of a big settlement one day, the more they throw out there, the bigger chances of a big win. In summary, pay the people that do the treating for there is a shortage and will get worse if things don’t change. Put the control of health decisions back in the hands of doctors vs insurance companies. It costs money to run a business and being a doctor is no different, but imagine an intermediary taking a big chunk of your money, call the insurance company. 30% to the worker and 70% to OTHERS.

Periodic premium increase are killer. My family plan just increased 14% effective April. Fortunately, we’re a healthy family and NEVER hit our current deductible of $2,500 per family member per year. I currently pay $1,500 per month for a family of 4. I increased our deductible from 2,500 to 3,500 per member, which lowered our monthly premium from $1,500 to $900/mo. But at age 57, how does this scale for the remainder of my life time and still be able to hang on to health coverage?

Insurance companies are the biggest part of the problem. I recently had an insurance company deny payment for a simple procedure by writing an erroneous response to the doctor’s bill three times 3 weeks apart to delay payment. Their responses had nothing to do with the procedure, just asking for non-applicable information. The doctor just kept telling the insurance company they were not responding to the codes properly and to read the bill more carefully. Three months and several letters from the doctor later they paid the bill. What a waste of the doctor’s time.

Another problem with health care that damages the United States is the concept of pre-existing conditions and non-transferability of insurance between states. I could move to another state and get a much more productive job but I am afraid my pre-existing condition will prohibit me from getting health insurance.

The truth is by every measure of health the United States does not rank above any western nation. It will not survive as a profit only driven system. It is failing. Doctors blame lawyers, everybody blames insurance companines. No one can afford health care for much longer. The truth is medical bills are the primary cause of bankruptsy in this country. Don’t fall for the propogandy from the doctors, lawyers or insurance companines. They are the problem. GREED.

JE, sounds to me like your the type of doctor I would not want to visit or pay a lot of money for.

It appears, from your wrant, that you are strictly in this for the reward/money, and not for the compassion of helping your fellow humans.

No thanks.

Healthcare…where to begin(in no particular order)

1.Doctors – medical school costs to much, doctors charge to much and whether or not a person has insurance should not impact their bill.

2.Drug companies – No incentive to cure anything their only incentive is to give you a pill to take for the rest of your life. Im not a big michael moore fan but loved when the ladies medication that was 120 dollars in the US cost 3 pesos in cuba.

3. Politicians – Just like every thing else in this country this is the real problem, the insurance and drug companies have them in their pocket.

4. lawyers – do i even have to get into this one.

5. Insurance companies – what a sweet deal they have, collect premiums and refuse to pay claims. Also they are basically an oligopoly that controls costs.

Does anyone believe that drug companies would work towards curing anything that would dampen their profits?

We should axe insurance companies. They are middle men who provide no actual medial service except to take in more money than they pay out.

For every payment they deny, that’s added profit to their bottom line.

Net incomes for 2008: UnitedHealth $2,977 Million, Aetna $1,384 Million, Humana $647 Million, Wellpoint $2,490 Million…

The list goes on, but that’s all profits that could have been spent on health care that has been siphoned off the top by the middlemen.

Getting rid of the insurance companies would save us billions while still allowing doctors and nurses to make good money, and lowering the cost of health care to all of us.

I am one of those people called “Self employed” who own their own job. I wash windows, do yard work, and have delusions about being a viable artist.

No surprise, I don’t have any health insurance. Not only that, but work is slim this year, and I am pushing 50. How do I deal with health care? I hope for good health. Luckily for me I work hard for a living and can’t afford to eat out. (Resulting in regular exercise and a good diet.)

But if something bad happens, I will not be able to make good on my responsibility to pay the medical personal that will help me. There is NO WAY a laborer can pay for any serious health care in this nation.

But I do NOT, absolutely do not believe that nationalized health care is the answer. In fact, it will make matters worse. The problem in this nation is NOT that there are some people un-insured, but that the care is too expensive.

Seriously folks, raise your hand if you actually think the government running anything will make it cheaper?

The thing that is “wrong” with health care is something called “price elasticity of demand”. Even very wealthy people respond to price in other cases (homes, cars, yachts, aircraft, jewelry, art, food and drink, clothing, etc.) There is obviously a (even if very small) market for (in today’s dollars) $40 million houses, $10 million yachts, $400k cars and $5k bottles of wine, but what would be the market for a $4 billion house or a $40 million car? Even those who could on paper afford it aren’t likely to buy a $4 billion house – it’s just not “worth” their money.

But if they were terminally ill, with < 6 months to live, I assert that they would almost certainly pay ANY amount for another 30 years of good health.

In short, there is NO upper limit to demand for health care. Health care has an inelastic demand, and so “the system” cannot be “reformed”. Health care WILL be RATIONED – either by PRICE (meaning that some health care will only be available to those who can afford it, which seems to be the main complaint now), or by LAW, because there are only so many tax dollars to go around, but everyone will want far more than taxes will support (heck, people want more of all sorts of things now then taxes will support – does any thinking person believe that demand will DECREASE?), so some people will be “out of luck”. If the law says that you aren’t worth the dollars for a specific treatment, then you suffer, and/or die. Unless you can afford it (even if you have to go abroad), but then there isn’t really a “reformed” system, is there? Rationed by price, or rationed by law (or both) but rationing is NOT going to go away.

The share of our GDP going to health care has been continuously increasing for decades, but those who think it is due (at least primarily) to “the system” are misguided at best. Increasing medical technology increases demand for it, and increased demand spurs new medical technology. Demand is essentially infinite, and medical advancement probably is to.

Health care reform MIGHT work if the public, politicians and the media, if, when presented with a heart-rending story of some tragic infant’s medical conditions(s), stalwartly accepted without complaint and commotion that it wasn’t worth the return-on-investment when the large sum would better be spent on other people.

Right. Like that’s going to happen.

PATIENT EMPOWERMENT:- A doctor can spend 10 minutes with you on a visit , but you spend 24 hours with yourself. All patients should keep records of their healthcare and analyze their health strategies themselves. We can use doctors as helpers and guides, but patient initiative (or the lack thereof) is the biggest factor for the deteriorating healthcare of our country.
Waiting for someone else to manage our health records (and thereby remove waste and improve our health) is NOT going to work. Let us empower ourselves with knowledge of our health and thus help our doctor’s help us better. There are many tools available to facilitate managing health records; one of them is http://www.IdeaTalent.com for workbooks, desktop and online health records.
Let us all START proactively managing our health history to make our doctor’s job easier and health costs will slowly start to stabilize.

I work in the medical field and keenly know how difficult it is for doctors to keep afloat. The best option for our office has been offering a discount for people who pay at the time of service. Since many companies are switching to high-deductible+HSA plans,it saves the insurance company money as well as the patient, and the doctor faces a smaller accounts recieveable.

First is abuse of the system by the users. Consider many illegal immigrants and other indigent using the e-room for routine medical care because there is nothing else available. This usually ends up being free because the debt is never able to be collected. Then there are the folks that qualify as indigent, go to the MD/hospital/clinic and “get taken care of” and then ignore the treatment plan and the changes needed to stay healthy. These folks are a horribly wasteful drain on the system resources.

Second is “Free Trade” or another way of saying it is what ever I charge is fair, don’t think so, look at medical billing, It costs the medical lab 16 bucks for a test that gets billed back at $160 and even greater. Insurance company pays about half and the patient gets to pay the balance. The profit goes somewhere other than back into the system. And there is now a new wrinkle in these procedures, M.D.s are getting involved in the billing and negotiations to the tune of 2-300% increase in billed cost and all perfectly legal.
Add to this mix “Big Pharma” charging exorbitantly obscene amounts for “Intellectual Properties”. A new drug is released that does exactly what the older drug did, just a greater mark-up and with slicker marketing to tell you, the patient, how badly you need this item. And yes, there are newer, more effective drugs developed and available, but only for those that will meet the price.

Somewhere in here we get to the third issue, the plain out and out thieves, they will take your money in premiums and payments/retainers and then find away, legitimate or otherwise to deny a reasonable, legitimate claim or they return a fraction of what was agreed to initially. All so they can have a larger return on investment for the companies officers and stock holders.

And lastly the fourth issue as if all of these others weren’t enough. Add the “ambulance chasers” and our societies mentality of satisfactory service through litigation and the millions awarded by folks on rural juries that have the mentality that “didn’t cost me anything, it’s not my money, they should have been awarded more”.

So here we are now, we, as a society, have the temerity to wonder why the system is broken and to wonder why the costs are so high?!

Yes my family has health insurence. We are self employed and pay high premiums with high deductables. All of us are in exceptional health, eat well, exercise – just to stay healthy and avoid illness. Why doesn’t that part matter? My family gets lumped in with all of those whom don’t take care of themselves – you know who you are, while I pay premiums to pay for your unhealthy ways. I’d be more than happy to have to submit for physicals or whatever to pay less, especially since we have insurance strictly for catastrophic events. This is so frustrating. I wish there was a way to reach someone about ideas for healthcare reform, I’ve got many having worked in medicine for 15 years! Costs just keep going up. For what again? I could go on and on and on….

clearly the one big problem with health care is LAWYERS

The problem with the health care system is it is not operating under a free market principles. People get health coverage from an insurance company or the government. Then, few questions are asked when they go to the doctor and get excessive amounts of tests and/or costly medications when there are cheaper methods available such as more perceptive doctors and generic drugs. The patients don’t know how much it costs. They only know their copay cost. Neither the big insurance company nor the government looks very closely at what hospitals and drug companies are charging because of the massive amounts of data (and possibly crooked deals with the pharmaceutical companies). This kind of non-transparency allows hospitals and drug suppliers to charge ever increasing amounts for their services and products, knowing they will get away with it.

The only way to solve the problem is to force everyone to subscribe to a socialized medical system or eliminating any government involvement (including employer tax breaks) and allow the free market to regulate prices to what people will actually pay.

Both options will decrease medical advancements due to less funding. The government will inevitably limit pay for “high quality” treatments, and under the free market forces, the pocket book will cause most to avoid high priced treatments.

In addition, the general health of this country’s citizens will decrease if either option is chosen. Under our current system, a large portion of the population is receiving high quality medical care. But, both options stated above will decrease participation in world class medical treatment because of aversion to high costs and again, the decrease in funding for research in new innovative treatments.

Thus, we are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Since this country was founded on freedom and free market capitalism, I propose we choose that course. Either way, many people will suffer.

Reading all the comments imply without a doubt that, fixing our healthcare system needs a bold and courageous leader who is not influenced by any lobby.
The problem is multi-fold as follows:

1) AMA regulating the number of doctors and health professionals to artificially maintain the incomes of these professionals way… high!!
200k to $1mil or over for some speacialits.

An engineer with a masters degree who would have spent the same number of years at school may make $70k to $100k on the average across most parts of the country, so, whats the logic in doctors assuming that it is their right to make $250k or higher?
Let AMA allow more doctors to graduate and/or open up for immigration for foreign graduates to come here without restrictions, this will give people more choices and bring down the exorbitant fees one has to pay for health services

2) The Insurance industry is another scam always increasing premiums, reducing coverages, adding more fine prints on pre-existing condition.. it is a joke.
I am a republican, and do not like big govt or interference, but, I would switch to a single payer system in a heartbeat.

3)The pharma companies that spends $millions on reps going to doctors offices, treating them with expensive meals, dinners, outings, vacations, getaways and charge all the overheads to patients in the name of doing more research for better drugs to retain their patents.
Open up the retrictions on imports from Canada and other countries and the prices will automatically drop down.

4) In addition to federal regulations, the states have way too much regulations restricting health professionals from moving across state boundaries.
The state medical boards make it difficult for one doctor to move across states.
There should be one federal standard for licensing a doctor and should be accepted across all states. This will help even out some of the cost descrepencies across state boundaries.

5) On the same lines as bove, in some states, the law prevents opening up standalone surgery centers due to hospital lobby. The same surgery costs less when done in a standalone surgery center vs a hospital because of huge overheads at the hospital. So, patients are at a loss due to our shortsighted protectionist govt. policies

6) Healthcare should be very tightly regulated like any other utility industry and offering a choice of single payer system as a way to fix the cost.

7) Patients should be allowed the flexibility to get the same treatment in any other country, if the cost (inclusive of travel and stay) is far less than what it costs here

The dental care is even more scary, the cost of getting root canal will be enough to be give more pain than the procedure.

We need to think more about prevention than cures in this country. As a chiropractor, I am amazed at the number of patients that wonder why they are in the shape they are in when they obviously have abused their bodies with “junk” they put in their bodies and by not maintaining their bodies with exercise.

It’s not rocket science…we spend more time and energy maintaining our cars than we do our bodies! People need to wake up and realize that we only have this one body and it has got to last.

Also, I have seen in my practice that people are interested in good healthcare unless of course they have to spend money out of their own pocket. In this country, we have somehow come to the conclusion that our health is someone elses financial responsibility.

Does anyone really believe that drug companies would work towards curing illness if it meant hindering profits?

WAKE UP!

I get the feeling that far too many medical doctors go into cosmetic and other “vanity” medical fields, and although I can’t blame them – the pay is great, it leaves far too many patients in need of basic care, which doesn’t pay as well. Tax the Nip/Tuck industry (providers and patients) and use that to help offset basic medical care and make for more family practice/general medicine doctors!

My wife and I are both 62 and are receiving Social Secutity. Of course we are not old enough for Medicare (66 is our eligibility) and have had to purchase andhavpurchasehealth insurance independently. We looked at all the possibilities and settled on a high deductible HSA for about $530 per month. This policy givs us “wellness” care, ie. a physical exam once a year, catastrophic coverage and not much else. We pay everything out-of-pocket for treatments, prescriptions, etc. We had been relying on dividends, and market appreciation with our investments for some of our expenses, however, due to the collapse of the markets, I have taken a job at McDonalds to help us out. I learned recently that I can qualify for health insurance that managers are offered if I stay with them for a year. What a retirement!!

Healthcare has multiple problems – most caused by insurance companies. insurance companies are in business to make money. And they have successfully limited care with some of the following:

1) Lose your job – lose your coverage – have a pre-existing condition – you are never covered again – Does this make sense if the goal is to care for the individual?

2) Seaprate claim forms and procedurtes for each insurance company – this makes it difficult to compare and know what is what. Also increases procesing costs.

3) Divide the population up by subsets to increase the underwriting costs.

4) Keep the state laws that insist we cannot have cross state insurance coverage – costs more for each health insurance ecompany to operate separately in each state and costs more for processing.

5) Items are covered differently. You are covered under one and not the other. Can’t get the latest treatments, etc.

6) The insurance comapny forces lower prices on the suppliers (doctors, hospitals) therefore prices rise to help inflate the costs so that they can negotiate lower costs. Individuals – good luck – you can’t negotiate.

Another factor is litigation and malpractice. The AMA will not publish settlements for the ones that are truly bad. The lawyers have afield day because some doctor doesnt’ run the nth test that they did not deem necessary. Protect the good doctors – get rid of the quacks but reform the tort system and publish all malpractice results.

The AMA also rations doctors with limited medical schools and unreasonable practices for new doctors.

if you apply 5 simple universal rules you can force the issue:

1) One underwirting group – the entire population.

2) Reasonable and customary expenses are set by a central agency and everyone pays the same – no individual or group bargaining.

3) Standardize forms and procedures.

4) Standardize the recommended tests and treatments.

5) Set up a citizens panel that can serve one term to oversee the regulations – make sure that no one on the panel is affiliated with a healthcare provider or company and is not affiliated with any lobbying group. And no lawyers. They can draw on experts and make decisions.

6) Make lobbying illegal – this solves a lot of problems – not just healthcare.

For all of you who think that doctors make too much money: Let’s see you attend a decent University and get the grades that you need to have a chance at getting into medical school (Most medical schools will not accept you if you majored in basketweaving at a community college, by the way). Then get accepted to medical school, go thru 4 more years of intense studying and work, then apply to a residency program which is another 3-8 years. If you do all of that, then you can complain how much a doctor makes! The fact is you have to pay doctors a high salary, otherwise nobody would go thru all that to become a doctor. Believe me you want to pay doctors well because your life depends on it.

Most doctors graduate school with more than 100K in student loans. A large portion of their high income goes to pay taxes; part of their taxes goes to pay for medical care for people who cannot afford their own, remember that… Not to mention the cost of medical equipment these days. I could go on…

Do you know what some doctors pay in malpractice premiums? 70K to 300K per year just in insurance premiums, in some cases. That cost is added on to your bill! You think healthcare is expensive? Go complain to a lawyer and see how much they are concerned.

Certainly our system is not perfect. A lot of money is spent on the administration in hospitals, insurance companies, etc. But in the end, would you rather pay high costs for healthcare… or DIE?

I am 50 and have not had insurance for over a year-voluntarily because every year my premium goes up and my coverage goes down. the problem with American health care, is that it is set up as a money making situation that does not reward having better health. the current system is about a monthly premium and regular prescriptions being filled not about cures. and if you get sick, good luck getting your coverage to pay for it. think about it…the insurance company won’t have profits if they are paying claims. because there is little profit is cures, drug companies would rather sell you a daily dose of antidepressants than develop a cure that causes you to not need to take it anymore. when was the last time there was a new antibiotic discovered?

There is absolutely no incentive to save. We called the County emergency services, who were able to stop my wife’s bleeding. Then I took her in my car to a 24 hour emergency clinic.
The County Ambulance could have brought her only to the official ER at the local hospital. County Services billed me $ 125, which Blue Cross/Blue Shield denied. They would have paid, if the Ambulance drove my wife, but that would have cost $ 1000 more.

Politicians buying votes and campaign contributions

My job, which has been providing my health insurance since 2001, is ending in a few months. As a result I’ve started my own business and I’m now also among the ranks of the self-employed. So I’ve seen this crisis from the point of view of both employee and employer. Now let me tell you what we need to fix it: Competition.

With only a handful of conglomerates offering insurance, employers are over a barrel. It’s not a monopoly yet, but if one company is failing to provide quality service at a reasonable price, I can’t simply switch to another company as I would with, say, my bank. My only options are to not provide insurance (and rely on my spouse’s employer-provided insurance for myself) or pass along the ever-increasing costs to my employee(s) or my customers.

The same is also true for patients. With the family practice all but extinct, patients can no longer seek out the right provider and treatment options for themselves, and instead must go to whoever their insurance company sends them to. It’s never healthy to have your doctor employed by an organization that has a vested financial interest in NOT treating you, as is the case with an H.M.O. Patients literally have no say in their own treatment any more.

And the same is, I’m sure, the lack of competition is bad for doctors and hospitals. With their only hope of getting paid being the government and the big insurance companies who dictate prices and treatment options based on a balance sheet, they’re not able to innovate, find creative ways to provide better service for less money, expand where expansion makes sense, or provide new options to patients based on the latest breakthroughs.

I’m not going to pretend to be an expert in the regulatory nightmare that whittled healthcare choices down so badly over the past couple of decades, but what’s clear to me is that we need first and foremost to get back to a free-market model to reduce the cost of healthcare and improve the available options. Once we’ve done that, then the burden on us to help those who cannot afford healthcare becomes much less, and much more feasible.

Just please, please, don’t try to solve the healthcare crisis with more government. The only model I can think of that’s worse that what we’ve currently got is having all our hospitals all run like the V.A. and our insurance companies all run like the D.M.V.

Many medical students have amassed $200,000 in debt or more by the time they actually become doctors. They have poured their souls into studies and internships while their friends are off in their careers. Six or more years later these docs can actually begin to earn a living. I know a number of medical students and you have to be committed to go through what they go through. Money as a driver would not last long enough. These people are there because they are passionate about what they are doing. Medical School is incredibly hard to get into so these people are the best of the best. They deserve to earn a good living. Would you want anyone but the best of the best to treat you?

There have been many comments about a single payor system. We have that already and can see what is to come under that model. The states have Medicaid and the seniors have Medicare. Many doctors will not take Medicaid, I am told, for 2 reasons: 1. Reimbursement is so low. Plumbers are paid more per hour than family docs. 2. Not all, but too many of these patients just want access to drugs. Some doctors will only take so many Medicare patients. They subsidize the Medicare low re-imbursements with privately insured re-imbursements. Again the amount of re-imbursement for an office visit is half what a plumber gets per hour. If we were to go to a single payor system these docs will attrite out of the system and there will not be enough takers to replace them. Look at the shortages in countries that have single payer systems.

The average family doctor earns about $125,000 per year. This is not enough for what they do and all the phone calls they take after hours and on the weekends and holidays that they never get paid for.

If we want to control our health care costs look around, at yourself and your friends. Who is overweight and who does not eat well or exercise. This is a prime cause of escalating healthcare costs – lack of personal responsibility. The other is the out of control litigation. Fix these two things and we can get somewhere on the cost of healthcare.

As a family physician, it seems we have reached a point where the questions changes from “What is the best medicine?” to “What is the best value?” I recently read that the cost for Menactra (meningitis vaccine) was $5 million to save one life. Our instinct tells us that we should always provide the best medicine, but eventually we will have to begin asking what we can afford as a society.

We do NOT have a healthcare crisis in America, we have a HEALTH CRISIS in America.

Politicians who would convince you of the need to build a bridge where there is no river, want to regulate your health. Sadly, most of them can not even define the problem. I’ve heard many politicians state that we have a healthcare crisis in America. Some say the crisis is that 47 million Americans are uninsured, and some say that half of American bankruptcies are due to medical bills. Neither of these statements is true. The proposals they circulate include compelling Americans to buy a health plan, forcing insurance companies to issue policies to anyone who applies, reducing the amount insurance companies may spend on overhead, forcing certain types of coverage to be offered. In short, they want MORE CONTROL.

We need to ask them, what the healthcare crisis is, how it got that way, and what they plan on doing to fix it. Passing a law forcing us to buy insurance will not change the fact that some of us can not afford to finance our health care. In fact it will cause shortages of providers, as more and more people try to “use” their new healthplans they were forced to buy. Just look at Massachusetts where it can take years to see a doctor for a physical and they are now conducting group appointments. Ask them what their success is in similar programs. For example, California has a mandatory car insurance law, yet 25% of motorists are uninsured, while only 20% don’t have health insurance.

After the killing winter of 1609 in Jamestown, when only 50 out of 600 settlers had survived the winter, Captain John Smith made an edict: He who does not work, does not eat. In 2006 the census bureau reported that 68% of Americans were covered by a private healthplan, and 27% were covered by government medicine. The Tax Foundation says that 41% of Americans today pay NO TAXES. With socialized medicine, that leaves only 59% of the population to pay for healthcare for everyone. And after Obama cuts taxes for 95% of Americans that number will be even lower.

Hold your lawmakers accountable. Remember, this is government by the people, for the people, not government BY the politicians, FOR the politicians. We need to get away from politician love affairs and hold them accountable. Write your lawmakers and remind them of Captain Smith’s edict. Why should 59Americans pay for the healthcare of 100 Americans?

Ayn Rand once said that in a compromise between food and poison, poison always wins. The same holds true in all aspects of our lives, especially in healthcare. Currently 27% of Americans are covered by government medicine, yet they account for 47% of the healthcare tab. The poison of government medicine is already winning. When 59% of Americans pay for everyone, and all comers are issued healthcare, and there is a mad rush for everyone to see a doctor, we will have a shortage of doctors, prices will go up, and many of those 59 Americans will become zero tax payers leaving the burden to an even smaller group.

No one ever talks about the massive drag on our economy caused by our health care system. We simply don’t have efficient allocation of labor when people are afraid to change jobs because they might lose coverage or be the victim of pre-existing conditions clauses. Productivity and incomes suffer because people can more to where they might maximize the use of their talents. Under a universal system you can move freely with no fear or problem in your
health coverage. Universal coverage effectively promotes free enterprise in this way.

We pay $635/mo for health insurance that won’t pay for an annual physical. They will pay for a colonoscopy once every ten years. How’s that when you have a history of colon cancer and/or polyps? Insurance companies need to be charged with RICO. They are crooks. They are swimming in money, but want to put the burden of wellness on the taxpayer who seeks to be well. They should reward Drs whose patients quit smoking, lose weight, lower their cholesterol, etc. But they wont pay for those things. They want us to die as soon as possible by denying medical care and/or treatment. They are reactive not proactive. Right now, they’ve started campaign writing efforts all over the country by writing letters to the editors of newspapers telling the employers to shoulder the burden of “wellness.”

I have Health Care thru my current employer and other Employers over my worklife. The cost keeps increasing.

I believe we need the government and Private companies to contribute to a health care fund which would cover all health care for everyone. WE need to remove the profit form Healthcare inorder for it to work.

By the way, Iam a Liver Transplant recipient, I would not be here if it were not for other very kind people.

There are a lot of different reasons why our health care is so messy.
1. Doctors and nurses do have heavy education costs they “feel” they must pay back. This problem is both caused by and the result of the premium pay in these professions. (Example: Dr have made high salaries compared with other technically educated workers – so universities charge medical students ridiculously high tuition – so a Doctor feels he must “make” more. etc etc. This is encouraged by an educational system which teaches med students they are “worth more” – than engineers, scientists, etc) Solution? Lots needs to change – the attitude which says Drs are “worth more” – or more deserving. The which says attitude which says “Drs make more thus we should extract more from them – in the form of tuition – selling them fancy cars, houses, cloths, etc. The attitude which says “I as a Dr deserve more”.
2. For all the scare talk about “national medical care is nasty” Our “insurance is regulated state by state ” system is a wide open door for Insurance companies to play games which rip off a huge chunk of unearned money. Medicare (for old people) is really NOT transportable because the supplementary policies you need with it (pharmacies and supplements) are set up to mess up even the direct Medicare participation – by the time a new medical office has figured out how to tip toe through the messy exchanges between companies NO ONE pays the bill except the insured because the “claim is past date”! (Example – a vaccine given by a pharmacist is covered by my “drug” policy but the same vaccine given in a doctor’s office costs over $180! out of pocket).
3. Your first contributor is correct. Uncalled for and heroic “doctoring” are ridiculously expensive and cause unnecessary suffering. HOWEVER, they are difficult to escape because it is more profitable to impose heroic measures (and expensive, poisonous medicines) on people by coning them into believing that Drs really can cure anything (even dying) than it is to face up to the fact that death starts when we are born.

I am a retired physician after 55 years of practice, working 16-18 hour days 6 days a week. You,too, could have a comfortable income if you got off your butt and worked two eight-hour jobs. Lawyers and polititions and businessmen are the BIG earners. Lawyers get 1/3 to 1/2 of the settlement of a case, often in the millions. What is a life worth? Often the pay in emergencies is zero and the chance of being sued is high. I propose a medical care withholding tax just like we have for income tax, Medicare, and Social Security. In this way we ALL share the cost of medical care. How many people who spend a lot of money on booze and tobacco complain that they have no medical insurance? Also, a little birth-control would prevent the sob-sister single mothers who live in
charity shelters with their half dozen babies and no husband(s) in sight. This country was built on hard work, not welfare. Nuf sed.

I work at an insurance company and after reading this the solution is for people to action on their on healthcare. People do not pay attention to the type of health insurance they have until the need to use it and then they are shocked when they have a deducible. If people would be more proactive with their healthcare the system would not be able to take advantage of their lack of knowledge.

The vast majority of healthcare dollars goes to the technology, pharmaceudical, and insurance industries. A minor fraction goes to pay the people who provide the care which includes physicians, nurses, physical therapists, etc….. Theya re just ones that take the blame because they are easy to target. These industires know this and sit back reaping billions watching someone else take the blame. When someone gets charged 50k for cardiac bypass surgery, all the healthcare providers share 10% of that cost. The rest goes to the hospital and industry. So stop blaming the healthcare professionals for the increase in cost of medical care as they account for a miniscule part of the cost of healthcare.

The biggest problem with the healthcare system, both medical and dental, is the system is set up to disadvantage non insured people. Why would a doctor charge 2 patients differently for the same exact service simply because one has insurance? This is discrimination. I can understand that a Dr has the right to charge any fee he/she wants for a service in our capitalistic society. However, they should not be allowed to charge patient X $120 for a 10 minute office visit, and patient B $30 copay, plus the insurance contribution of say $35, totaling $65 for the same amount of time. This is unconstitutional and obviously prejudiced.

It is critical taht we begin to take care of ourselves and that providers do more to help us take better care of ourselves. Why should myself and my healthy family pay the same for insurance as those who do not take care of themselves? Healthcare organizations must also begin to find the waste in their processes. Healthcare was “fat and happy” for a lot of years. how often did healthcare get affected by economic troubles? They are now, and they must start to act like other businesses now and run like a business.

There are many problems with healthcare. First, direct-to-consumer advertising. People always complain about the cost of medications. If drug companies would remove these commercials, money would be saved by not paying for these commercials. ANother issue is the lawsuits. Everyday I see commercials by lawyers stating “if you have taken drug x, call our office …”. These law suits contribute to the rising costs of healthcare. Companies absorb the costs of these lawsuits and pass it right back to the consumer.
Another issue is the sheer lack of personal responsibility for one’s own healthcare. People continue to smoke, eat unhealthy diets, gain pounds, drink to excess, etc, then add more medications to the daily routine and complain about the cost. Nobody ever complains about the cost of the cigaretts, cost of the unhealthy diet, cost of ethanol, cost of gaining weight. But the cost of the medications used to treat the resulting effects (cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hypertension, etc) is often the first complaint … “medications are so expensive”.

$17,000 Per Year is out of control….

I work for a Fortune 500 IT company and have a 90/10 split coverage of the bill. Meaning I have to pay 400 month out of my paycheck plus 600 family deductable and still responsible for 10% of the Hospital payment.

The billing errors from my childs birth and wifes test are out of control.

They need a method for estimating procedures and understanding comparison of standard procedures between hospitals.

The problem. The same person, receiving the same care at different points in their lives, are charged differently based on whether insurance is paying or the patient is paying.

On insurance (pregnancy covered), I paid approx $5,000 in copays for the birth of my daughter.
I also paid approx $900/month insurance premiums.
Off insurance (pregnancy not covered) and paying in cash, I paid $5,000 for the birth of my son.
Both were born in the same hospital by the same doctors.

People who have been laid off through no fault of their own and lost their livliehood have enough problems let alone affording health care. Cobra coverage costs are outrageous. Some people are enslaved to a job because of heatlh care costs. Health care is a right not a privledge. Good health should be rewarded and incentives put in place. Also, allow people to buy into Medicare at 55 or even 62. This country can do much better.

I am 24 years old,trying to go school to become a Chiropractor. I have $15000 in student loans. Recently I broke my leg. I have no insurance. The bills are $30000 for my leg. I will have to declair bankruptcy. That will keep me from getting anymore loans for school. Having no insurance has destroyed my life. It’s time for an armed revolution.

I’m so tired of hearing the old rhetoric “the us has the finest health care system in the world” (as implied in many of the comments here, as well as major news sites.

These people have obviously never traveled outside the US. On a trip in Mexico recently, I had to take a friend to a clinic there for food poisoning. I was shocked at the quality of both the physicians and the nursing staff. It would make the typical US healthcare patient cry.

Most of the individual health policies sold in the US are complete junk. They are full of so many loopholes and exclusions they basically provide a legal stop-loss to any significant claims – and at the insurer’s whim.

Single payer is the way to go. Let YS citizens purchase such a plan if they so desire. If private insurance can do such a better job at lower cost, then people are free to purchase that instead.

Free up the markets for health care and insurance. Take away the government road blocks. It used to be everyone paid out of pocket for little stuff (the things you could predict like routine doctor visits) and carried insurance for unexpected hospital stays.

Divide the costs rationally and allow the market players compete for your dollar. The prices will come down. Things like Minute Clinic are an excellent example.

If any public money is used it should only be towards guiding people towards healthier lifestyles. Oh, and not forcing… if someone wants to eat themselves to death that is on them.

My wife and I have health insurance coverage through our employers, and are both young and lucky enough not to have suffered any major health issues so far. I work in the property/casualty insurance industry, and even I don’t understand how the current health care system got to this condition. Health care costs have outpaced inflation for most of my adult life, and I think the reasons are simple and the solutions are not.

Opponents of government healthcare insist that the free market is the better way to keep costs down, but the free market only works when consumers are educated and empowered to make choices based on cost/benefit. For those people who have insurance through work, we do not have a choice of health insurance provider. Since the health insurance provider usually provides a list of “in-network” healthcare providers, the medical consumer has limited choices off the bat. For the remaining choices we do have, we cannot choose based on cost, because the healthcare provider does not make that information available – in fact, they base what they charge on what the insurance company will pay!! How can this be called a free market?
Of course, there is also the issue of doctors ordering “CYA” tests to avoid liability – that has to be dealt with as well (perhaps by having special courts to deal just with medical issues).

I wish I had more options at work – for example, how about a high deductible plan? Let me pay out of pocket the first few thousand in health costs, and provide true “insurance” coverage for catastrophic (excess of deductible) health costs? Why do I have to pay the insurance company $200 in premiums so they can send my doctor $100 to pay for my annual visit (pocketing the remaining $100 for expenses and profit – I could just write my doctor a check, it would cost me $.20).

The problem with healthcare is we want it all. If a new procedure is developed that costs $1 million but can add three months to my mother’s life I want it. If a new drug costs $200 billion to develop but can make my knee hurt less I want it. Furthermore, if I can’t afford these expensive items someone should pay the price for me. No private payer, government, or anyone else can support a system like that.

I have medical insurance through my company but actual cost of visits and treatment is much less than my monthly insurance premium. I look at the medical claims that were filed for me and if I could pay what my provider pays then I would not need insurance. All I would need is a safety net for major medical which could be provided easily by the government. My daughter and her husband have had 3 children without insurance. My daughter negotiates the costs of all visits and treatments. They are perfectly happy without insurance and their medical costs are problaby less than what they would be with insurance. I have a good friend who is an emergency room surgeon. He says 70% of the people he sees could have gone to the clinic but choose to abuse their insurance sitting in the emergency room to get a day off of work. It seems like health insurance is increasing the cost of health care. It is also contributing to the waste and corruption.

James,

Insurance companies use credit scoring because irresponsible people are more likely to have low credit, and are also more likely to wreck their car or fail to take care of routine home maintenence that leads to fire or water damage.

It’s absolutely fair to charge more to people who are a greater risk!

People don’t want personal responsibility. They want the government to take care of everything.

The fact of the matter is that we are to blame for the cost of our health care because we insist on insurance which covers every little thing, and we have let the government cover way too much – roughly 1/3 of Americans have their health insurance paid for by the government!

1/3 of the “uninsured” are young people who would rather spend $150/month on partying rather than getting health insurance. Another 40-50% of the “uninsured” are in households making $75K or more per year.

One last comment on Free Market concepts… We don’t have free market concepts in this industry – it is a manipulated market at best, which is why it is in the mess it is… As of matter of fact, we are seeing the fantastic outcomes of unfettered free market enterprise in the collapse of our financial systems – if you don’t put controls on the market, it eventually becomes populated by individuals / firms that control the market… We need a balance between free and fair market, with appropriate gov controls to prevent wholesale market manipulation…

Having recently had the opportunity to witness the health care system in action with my 79 year old father, I concur with one of the other observers that a significant portion of health care $$’s are wasted in administrating the numerous health care plans and meeting insurance requirements… The poor guy has 4 books the size of Phila phone books that list all the do’s / don’t’s, requirements of both his Medicare and supplemental plans… What a freakin mess…! It’s obvious to anyone with common sense this info overload is designed to obfuscate info to generate ‘fall through the crack’ revenue streams…

We need to simplify and streamline the whole insurance process.

The only way to do that is to nationalize health care, create 6 or 8 major zones for admin purposes, have everything be administered the same way across all zones, and get the buying power of the USA behind this.

All the direct service providers should be compensated well for the services they provide.

We should nationalize the education for Dr’s and other medical providers so they can get their post grad education and training for free in conjunction with them working the first 5 years out of med school at a structured flat rate of say $55K for RN’s, and $135K for Dr’s – a nice living until they can make market rate, and no $300K student loans hanging over their heads.

For the past 40 years, our healthcare system has been allowed to transform into a system of bait and switch…

And while we are at it, why can Canada purchase all the drugs that are sold down here at 1/5 to 1/2 the cost of what they are sold for in the US…? Like why are we subsidizing the big pharma’s.

I think what we all have seen with the recent collapse in the Finance sector that there are many exec’s receiving huge comp who do not deserve it… They all inbreed across each others board of directors, supporting the making outlandish salaries, bonus, perks, and pensions (wink wink, nod, nod)… This is also true in all industries, including health care and big pharma…

If we cut the total comp of the top 20% of all these companies to 50% of what they make, the cost savings would amount to the ability to knock 20% off the top of all price points…

This coupled with the other suggestions noted would reduce the cost to ‘deliver ‘ health care in this country by 50% to 60%…

How can we continue a health care system that doesn’t do preventative care and you lose your house if you need a transplant? A Single payer system of American design is needed. Not likely with the insurance lobby in Washington. Money should not determine your family survival rate!

I agree that universities need to turn out more doctors. Right now doctors are in short supply, so they can charge higher fees. AMA is doing a disservice to the people by limiting the number of doctors.

20 years ago, when I went to a hospital, the doctors were rtying to help me with my diseases and I didn’t need to pay for a dime.

Now I go to a hospital (or a clinic) the office managers/hospital administrators (and doctors, of course insurance companies) try to get every penny they can get from my pocket and give me the lowest cost treatment they could imagine.

That’s because the greed get into the system. That’s why the capitalism in its current version won’t work. That’s why we need to reform this damn system

I have been in the health insurance business for 30+ years and am suffering through the current levels of premiums.I am not a blinded supporter of decisions insurance companies make,and Im certainly not a fan of the Pharmaceutical companies and their lobby.My state ranks #1 in per capita prescriptions The largest contributer to this was a pooorly regulated staewide insurance program for the uninsured called TennCare.The program came within months of breaking our state.During this time I had hundreds of people who were offered insurance with the employer paying 90% of the premium decline coverage because they were on Tenncare.They couldnt pay 10-15 dollars a month because they were saddled with two car notes, a boat note, and a large house note–non of which they could afford. I am all for a program for the uninsurable destitute and cobra for those laid off, wich is a far smaller number than 40 million. I beiieve we have gotten our blessings mixed up with our entitlements,and I know for sure the Government cant monitor itself , much less socialized medicine

The big problem is the Private Insurance Companies. 1) They keep charging higher and higher premiums to guarantee their FAT CAT profits, and 2) they either slightly raise, hold, or even cut the fees they pay doctors. More and more doctors are getting tired of this, and are chosing to be “out of network”, which means that we have to pay more out of pocket.

The INSURANCE COMPANIES (Blue Cross, Cigna, Humana, United HealthCare, Coventry, etc.) ALL play the patient off against the doctor, and take profits from both by playing the middle and having the patient/doctor focus on each other.

They are crooked. United HealthCare just had a settlement/verdict against them in the $$millions for cheating doctors and patients. United HealthCare operated a price-fixing database that other insurance companies used, that amounted to ANTI-TRUST activities.

In real dollars (adjusted for inflation), Americans are paying more in premiums to their insurance companies and getting poorer care, because in many cases, the insurance companies DIRECT the physicians on the procedures that they can use.

Cancer patient? In certain instances, the insurance companies “Quality Initiave” department of nurses, pharmacists (and sometimes doctors) tell your doctor what treatments will be covered. If they are not a covered treatment, the insurance will not pay. This puts both the doctor and the patient in a bind. In other cases (HMO’s) there have been examples where the insurance plan implicitly if not overtly indicated to the doctor what treatment(s) needed to be performed.

Most of the uninsured are illegal aliens, and middle class choosing big houses and cars? Get real or, even better, get some facts!

Our healthcare system makes us the laughing stock of the industrialized world. Here are some of the major issues with the system:

* The system is designed to maximize profits, not healthcare outcomes. Does every hospital in the area need GE’s latest multi-million dollar scanner? Should a single dose of some drugs cost thousands of dollars? Only if the producers of these products want multi-billion dollar profits! I’m all for profits, but not without any constraints.

* Americans have unrealistic expectations of and accept little responsibility for their healthcare. If you smoke, are 200 lbs overweight and never see a Dr. until you’re grabbing your chest due to a coronary, should we, as a society, spend $1.5MM saving your life? How many procedures should we do to save your 97 grandmother? We have an important role in maintaining our health AND we must accept that we ALL die … it’s part of the cycle of life.

* I have NEVER seen any research that shows that it’s cheaper to deny people preventative care. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Wellness cover is crucial.

* Tort system reform is critical. As a physician friend of mine says … “there’s no cost to me of ordering a test I may think is unnecessary, but there’s a huge potential liability for me of not ordering the test.”

* For the posters that suggested that laws that require hospitals to serve the critically ill and injured are part of the problem, I’d be MORE than willing to eliminate the laws if we can dump all of the corpses and TB cases off at your house! There is a public benefit to having a healthy population … similar to the public benefit of having an educated population and water free of mercury … so spare us the “socialism” arguement … we haven’t lived in a purely capitalist society in well over 100 years.

Stop the ideological rhetoric, from BOTH sides, and SOLVE the problem! We ALL need to chip in/sacrifice to solve this problem.

These posts sound like many would be campaign for liberty supporters. Free Markets, individual liberty & personal responsibility, sound money and a non-interventionists foreign policy are the core principles.

We have a health care problem because health care is expensive. It isn’t the doctors’ fault, they deserve the money they make. Many Americans choose to live a lifestyle that negatively affects their health, and that drives up the cost for everyone in the long run. Yet, they don’t want to have to pay for the drugs and doctor visits they need due to their own choices.

Those who are down on their luck should have a way to get health coverage through the government, but in order to afford it, we all need to start making better decisions. More government involvement and universal coverage will only do one thing — make the whole problem WORSE!

Sadly enough as we achieve major break through’ in science and technology the fewer the number of people that we can really benefit from these. As we transition form say glass tube TVs to plasma and LCD the number of people able to buy the new system is reduced. Not everyone can afford to go out and buy the top of the line computer every six months, even though some do. People in the poorer nations keep falling behind in access to the top of the line technologies( as a percent of the aggregate).

Those of us living in the countries with “money”, real as in the oil rich nations or say China or Japan are affected to a lesser extent than the people and even the governments of the poorer nations.

The worst is the situation in this regards as it applies to the field of medicine. Where as we in the advanced nations have the luxury to worry about our sexual performances, people and especially children have to worry about access to clean water, basic hygiene and immunizations against the childhood diseases.

But pardon me, I am not here talking about the vast inequities of health care between the poor and the rich nations. The problem is how to provide, equal and quality, healthcare for all in a free market economy. In a perfect world we would all be taken care of, health wise , from cradle to the grave but we do not live in a perfect world.

Healthcare with the insurance plans, or health care with the government as a sole provider is above all rife with corruption and over charges and restrictions and gimmicks and scams. It is by its own nature, a competition to see who can beat whom out of most of their money. It is full of over charges, wasteful procedures and medications, as long as someone has money in their pocket the rest will try to take it from them. First the insurance company wants to make money by cutting down on care, the doctors and the hospitals are in struggle for their lives to see how they can get more money from the insurance company or Medicare/ Medicaid or whatever other till with money in it. Insurance companies in turn raise the premiums and the doctors and the hospitals in turn raise their fees, and so on it will go till everyone is broke.

Let us then realize that the government and the doctors and the insurance companies and the politicians (Democrats and Republicans), they are all lying to us. Well, because they know that we are stupid.

There are among the conservatives who think that everyone should buy their own insurance and we know that they are all full of sh**. As I told you when I talked about the money and the economy, that how much a person must make in hourly wages so he/she can buy their own health insurance and save for their own retirement and for their children’s education, (I guess it would be like eighty dollars per hour? J/k). Liberals on the other hand tell us don’t worry the government should pay for all health care and that they will tax the rich, they also equally full of **it. The reality is that we don’t, no one and no government has the money to pay for all the healthcare for everyone in all situations. And now what you don’t want to hear, THE HEALTH CARE SHOULD BE, IT MUST BE RATIONED.

Right now, Liberals and Conservatives, Republicans and the Democrats all tell you that they are looking out for our best interests in the healthcare, they are all lying. If the idea of the Democrats is that the government can tax the rich to pay for everyone’s health care, they know, they must know that that would be impossible, we can not tax the rich or the otherwise enough to provide everything available in medicine for everyone in need. The Republicans lie that it is possible for everyone to buy their own insurance, even thru their employers. The premium cost of a full coverage policy for everyone will be prohibitive. Also when we establish laws so that a hospital must provide care for the indigent the cost of medicine rises the most for those that can ill afford it for themselves in the first place. Why should the working poor and the middle class have to bare the same cost of providing care for those who can not afford to pay for it.

We know, in general the poor are also less healthy, they smoke, they spend food monies on alcohol and tobacco, they eat greasy foods and exercise less, and receive less preventive health care. As a result they get sicker and are prone to chronic diseases that are costly to treat.

We also know that the do gooders on the left and on the right want everyone to live for ever, but there are difference, but the total net result of their ideas is that the country will be broke in short order. If the liberals want to preserve the abortion right and euthanasia ( great ideas that can save money , honestly), they also want everything for the disabled from cradle to grave, from special education classes for one suffering from cerebral palsy, to equal access to everything for the mentally retarded and the crazies, a heart or kidney transplant for someone on the death row, it matters not whose money. On the other hand the conservatives who want to ban abortions, would have the patients with cerebral palsy and brain damage kept alive indefinitely, but at whose expense? They have no clue so long as they don’t have to pay taxes. Both the Liberals and the conservatives are always willing to differ payments for all expenses to someone else, to a pie in the sky account in the future when the money will be growing in the trees. The truth is that as a nation, we are always willing to burn our house down to keep our hands warm.

Being ethical and moral is easy when it is not your own money, I guess. But with the healthcare today, and with the technologies that we have each one of us could easily become a six million dollar man, or a woman, for you politically correct ones. Do we really need to spend millions taking care of Terry Schiavo’, or people laying in the nursing homes, half dead and unaware? or force people to have babies they don’t really want, only to provide jobs for the social workers and the police and the nurses. Whatever happened to the common sense?

As I mentioned about the corruption, the doctors, who are partners in various hospitals and MRI and X-ray and lab corporations are not beyond requiring multiple tests and procedure. The patients and their relatives who think everyone must live forever want every possible and improbable effort to be made to “save” the patient (of course the insurance or the Medicare or the Medicaid will foot the bill). Insurance companies wanting to deny charges for procedures that may be sometimes absolutely needed for proper care, and raising premiums much as possible, they all contribute to the rise in healthcare.

The drug companies are also guilty, so long as people believe that being with the Lord is not all that important, that catching aids or herpes or hepatitis is not so bad, or that obesity or the heart disease can always be cured by a pill, that we need not monitor our behavior and stay healthy, the drug companies are willing to oblige. Yes we have pills for this and shots for that, but mostly unproven, drug therapy is not called by its real name, “chemo therapy”. Many of these drugs have so many side effects that one may end up sicker and require more and more medicines, but that is just extra money in the pockets of the drug companies.

But can we as a society keep footing the bill? When we don’t want higher wages, or provide employee health benefits, or to pay more in taxes. Is it not simple then to just announce that we can no longer afford to have everyone here trying to live for ever? Say if you have an alcohol problem, and a liver disease, and then you end up in a bad wreck e will just go ahead and not waste money on you? Or say if you are seventy and have high blood sugar, and have had an amputation, and then you fall in to a comma we will just have to let you move on? Like sort of a triage? Well that will be the truth soon enough.

Health care should be not-for-profit.

There is a conflict of interest when you have health companies who are publicly traded as they have a fiduciary responsibility to generate a return-on-investment to sharedholders. They have to increase profits.

Those “profits” come from our health insurance premiums. They can either increase the premiums or reduce payment for care in order to generate profits.

That’s the conflict of interest. Get rid of the shareholders.

Second, there should be a set price. Why should insurance companies be able to negotiate low rates (they claim to bring in larger number of customers?) such that patients not in group plans have to pay much higher amounts for the same service.

Doctor’s don’t have multiple patients in the same room or in surgery at the same time? Why are the rates different? And then presently they have to factor in the excessive profits and the excessive CEO pay for these health companies who do nothing to add to the quality of care. Nothing. The US no longer has the best health care in the world. Greed has destroyed it.

Universal health care, single-payer system, is the only way to go. Let us have a direct relationship with the health care providers. Let them make the decisions and earn a good wage for their incredible skills and care.

Before my experiences with socialized medicine, I was completely convinced that it was the best way, and the only viable alternative to what we currently have. I have experience with systems in multiple countries, and I was always impressed how quick and responsive the systems were for minor medical problems. They were quick, helpful, made house calls, and were affordable (a day in the ER after food poisoning = $53).

Unfortunately, non-routine care is not so great in most countries. After spending several weeks in a cancer ward as a parent was dying, I could not believe what I saw. Lighting and water were intermittent at best, there was no toilet paper, and meals were minimal to the point where we brought in food for our family member. The doctors and nurses were top notch, but without equipment and medicine, there is little they can do.

I am convinced that the US is able to find a compromise between the two systems that can incorporate the best of both worlds. We must remember though, that people always want lower taxes and seldom consider what they forgo by pushing for a smaller payment. The more that we put into the hands of the government, the less we will be willing to accept in the form of higher taxes. Some type of hybrid system is probably the best solution.

I cover myself only,my husband is on county helathcare,and while I believe thnigs could be better it should start with the ins company not the government I do not want the government in any other portion of my life. I beleive also the more you communicate with your US & State representatives

The biggest problem with our modern health care “system” is that it was not designed, but rather evolved. The forces that shaped it’s evolution were the insurance industry, government, litigation, and pharma companies. Notice how patients, doctors, nurses, and clinical scientists are not the one’s directing the system, but rather reacting to it. The current system cannot be fixed because it’s goal is profit/costs rather than promoting the health and happiness of it’s customers and employees.
The way to fix the system is to design a new one. This starts with changing medical education. Primary care physicians (PCPs) are outdated and not useful for what society needs. PCPs are compelled to refer patients to specialists because of the legal liability associated with treating patients on thier own. If something goes bad and a law suit ensues, the PCP will always lose for not refering the patient.. ALWAYS! What the PCP can handle on thier own is relatively minor for the amount of training they have recieved. Because tort reform will never work (the gov is almost all lawyers!), the only way is to remove the liability by improving the training for PCPs. Currently ~1-2% of graduating medical students go into primary care (clearly it is a miserable job… numbers don’t lie). This trend needs to change for a new system to work. If the training was improved for PCPs (i.e. longer residency, in more varied areas), they could offer more care and at a lower cost than specialists. We need PCPs to become handymen rather than home inspectors. A home inspector will tell you what’s wrong, charge you for it and then refer you to the plumber, carpenter, etc to get it fixed. A handy man can look at a problem and then do some plumbing, electrical, painting, etc and really only can’t do the job unless things get really complicated.

If we would go to a socialized health care system the following would happen:
a. more severe shortage of drs and nurses
b. research on drugs and new medical equipment would dry up
c. rationing of health care
d. long waiting times for routine and even needed care
that is enough for me to say no and do the following:
a. Tort reform
b. open up the market
c. monitor medicare and medicaid–huge waste
d. require all to purchase medical coverage–at least catastrophic.

I’ve been thru the medical merry-go-round with and without insurance. If you have insurance they will run any test they can to make more money, and if you don’t they will charge you more than if you did have insurance to also make money off of you. I’d rather die than take another rider.

I work in Healthcare and have paid attention to President Bush President Obama make the comments ” We Need healthcare Reform In America”. Everyone including I agree with this statement. Healthcare in Americ cost too much. Everyone automatically assumes it’s the Hospitals at the core of the problem. Everyone needs to understand the high cost of Healthcare starts with Insurance Co’s, Large Medical Equipment Co’s, and the large pharmacy companies. The Congress and Senate’s support of these industries over time has pushed up the cost of Healthcare.

A high deductible plan is accessible to anyone. Less than $150 per month. If you get the sniffles you will have to pay the doctor 50 bucks. You’re still ahead THOUSANDS over what you would pay for full coverage. In the mean time, you are taken care of if you get cancer or have to goto the ER. Why would anyone pay a thousand a month for healthcare? The out of pocket maximum for high deductible plans is $5000. MAXIMUM. Your wife is on statins for cholesterol…EAT HEALTHIER AND GET OFF THEM. Popping a pill and charging the insurer isn’t the solution to health problems. This quick fix attitude is what is killing our healthcare system.

As an ICU nurse in a large midwestern university hospital, I have seen some interesting things regarding the allocation of resources, and have some questions:
1) Why do we spend public money for high-cost procedures on people who have no intention of changing their health habits? Example: paying for a mitral valve replacement for a current, intractable meth addict.
2) Why do we not spend public money on proven programs for early disease intervention, but instead we spend public money on treating the disease after it has progressed? Example: diabetes mellitus, type 2.
3) Why do we continue to subsidize treatment for individuals who are willfully non-compliant with treatment regimens, diet plans and exercise recommendations? Ex: Patient with heart failure who refuses to follow low salt/low fat diet, take their meds, and exercise, ends up in the hospital on average every 4-6 weeks.

I am grateful that I have health insurance through my employer, but the cost continues to rise every year. Meanwhile, the above-mentioned cases get their “health insurance” for free, merely by falling under the category of medically indigent (for many reasons). I eat right, exercise, take my meds, and still have to pay thousands for an emergency appendectomy. The meth addict pays nothing for a new heart valve, and will be back next month for something else, all the costs of which are absorbed by the state and the hospital.

How is this right? How is this fair?

Whatever happened to personal responsibility?

Let me ask you this. How much of the Health Care Industry is NOT doctors and hospitals? 60%, 70%. There is your answer on whats wrong with this industry. Thats where my premiums are going, in somebody’s pocket. Thats why my premiums are going up 30% a year. DO AWAY WITH ALL THE OVERHEAD!

And yet none of you will protest.

Your being RIPPED OFF by Insurance companies Credit Scooring you for home and Auto Insurance that is now Illeagal in 5 states.

Healthcare Companies are completly ripping people off and paying nurses 180K a year and doctors 600K a year, I am in the medical staffing business.
You can hardly buy a home without being fleeced by banks and mortugage companies.

We are in the ERA OF CORRUPTION and until you stop crying and start organizing and protesting, your gonna keep being ripped off.

What will it take for americans to get off their fat butts and protest a Hospitals Rates or and Insurance company credit scooring all of you.

AS LONG AS YOU STAY DEVIDED, YOU WILL BE PRAYED UPON FINANCIALLY..

How come tax dollars go towards fire, police services but not hospital services. If I am attacked in my home and the police respond, they don’t hand me a bill for “services rendered” when they leave. What would the country be like if someone’s house were burning and they said “I can’t afford to have the fire dept. come put it out”; that would be a sad day.

Last year at age 64 my contributions and my employer’s contributions to my retirement savings account totaled $20,000. Now I am on Medicare, but my retirement medical insurance still costs me $369 per month for me. This is much more than other people pay for coverage that “appears” equal to mine. The difference is that my plan actually PAYS, while cheaper plans look for ways to deny coverage. We are in this mess of insurance not paying because other plans had to be dumbed down so that people can afford the premiums. Until we control medical costs there is no way to get affordable insurance that freally pays and universal health coverage in this country.

I work for a Fortune 500 company, and have had its company health plan for 8 years.

– The health care I recieve is marginal when cost is considered. Premiums have increased yearly at a rate of 10-15 %, while the company contribution has decreased.

– Even with coverage, I have no idea what my out of pocket expenses will be for, say, an ER visit due to a traumatic injury (i have been to an ER for a broken collar bone and sprained knee).

– If I am referred to a physician by an ER, and that Dr. does not accept my health plan. I’m on my own, I have to start looking around for a different specialist for follow up care.

– I have a problem with my left ankle that was first treated by a podiatrist over 10 years ago, then by an orthopedist, who simply recommended orthopedic inserts for my shoes. In spite of 2 visits to specialists, the condition is unresolved and has slowly worsened.

– I have had a physician refuse to refill a prescription because I had not scheduled a “follow up” appointment every 3 months. While I don’t doubt the merit of some follow up appointments, the practice of refusing to fill a long standing prescription in ths manner is outrageous.

– Practices that have evolved in “for profit” healthcare had simply raised the cost, and reduced the quality and effectiveness of care. Much has been said about the large number of people living without insurance. However, for those with insurance, the quality of care vs. cost has become an outrage. The insurance industry needs heave regulation in this area because its profiteering has reduced the quality of life in America.

Free Markets should be the force that has more influence on the price & cost of health care, not more big government intervention. The same goes for our monetary policy.

I have been contributing 10-15k each year on health insurance; our family aggregate annual medical expense are 1-2k. It makes me wonder why the hell am I paying so much at the expense of my other needes. Most people are paying 10-20% of their salary to healthcare industry (looks like a mandated tax). It will be interesting to see if all healthy individuals below 50 years age do not insure for next couple of years – what will happen…. it will shake up the health care (ponzi) scam for sure.

The US has the highest cancer survival rates of any country. Longer wait times and lower quality is what you can look forward to if we go to a “single-payer” system.

Any third-pary payer system drives costs up because of the increased paperwork and insulation from market forces.

Want proof? Just look at what has happened to the cost of health care – it has increased faster than inflation. But what about cosmetic procedures that are not covered by insurance? They have increased with inflation, or even decreased (e.g. laser eye surgery).

The answer isn’t to separate health care and market forces – it’s to put more market forces back into health care by having insurance that only covers big losses (i.e. high deductible) and health savings accounts.

I cn not believe how many narrow minded opinions there are on this post~!!!!! I understand that the average reader here is middle to upper class, but come on get your noises out of the sky and think ….The American Healthcare system is a wreck! And why? Because a docter feels no obligation to mankind but for the BUCK! What kind of doctor turns away the sick? I don’t think ive ever read that the oath doctors take says help everyone except the one’s who are poor. I don’t think everyone takes advantage just because (I know there are plenty that do) they can.
And the pay a Doctor makes? Come on there is something wrong when you have a doctor who makes 300k a year, drives his porsche and eats at the club on Sundays, while you have a 20 year old soldier making 27K while fighting for that doc’s right to live the good life.
Face it, the only people ever against social medicine, are the doctors, and insurers who make all the money. If Health care was socialized then it would weed out all of the not so good doctors who are just in it for the money, and make way for truely skilled doctors who are in it for the rtight reasons, to help people. For all you skeptics watch “Sicko” a m. myers film. Universal healthcare does work, would save the country billions, and we could move a little closer to the top on the best healthcare list. A doctor can be paid a nice waige and live comfortably either way why not be noble? Oh wait character comes into play then……

1. Healthcare is a misnomer. We are really talking about disease-care. Healthcare is wellness activity. We are not talking about Yoga,Tai Chi, and gym memberships here.

1. 20% of patients are responsible for 80% of disease-care expenditures.

2. 80% of the Medicare dollar is spent during the last 30 days of life, largely because the American people continue to live under the delusion that death is optional. Prolonging misery through futile care is not a credible goal, death with comfort and dignity is.
3. Most of the expensive diseases are caused or substantially contributed to by personal behavior choices, such as smoking, alcohol, and obesity.
4.Disease care economics implies a fixed box, where unhealthy choices should be taxed at a level to pay for all of the consequences, including taxing high-calorie, low nutrition food(junk food)
5. Provide catastrophic FEHBP model coverage for the 20% whose chronic diseases are responsible for 80% of the costs.
6.Empower bioethics committees to counsel families to decrease futile care that only prolongs misery. Experienced physicians know when a patient is dying. Decreasing futile care by only half would give society 40% of the Medicare dollar for more worthwhile pursuits, such as vaccinations and coverage for infants and children.
7. Tort reform has been mentioned elsewhere. Other countries limit or disallow contingency fees for lawyers and have far lower medical costs.Remove the financial incentive(contingency fees, where the lawyer gets up to half of what the injured patient gets) to sue, leave it intact to pursue true negligence, and our medical costs will begin to look more like England, Japan, Germany, and Canada.Then we can begin to compare the differences between the US and other countries’ medical costs.

By the way (as a followup), I lived in Sweden for 3 years and the health care system there was terrible, partly due to a shortage of doctors. As ridiculously priced as the US system is (more market forces are needed to bring down prices), I don’t want to go back to the socialized Swedish-style system. Preventative medicine is well done there, but if you have any real problems, forget about getting help.

The problems with US health care as I see it:

1. There is no free market. Ever try to call a doctor before making an appointment and get price information? I have and have found it impossible.

2. Employer-provided health insurance. Your employer doesn’t care if you have good insurance. A better solution would be to increase salaries by the amount the employer spends on health care and let people use the money to shop for their own insurance.

3. The AMA is a problem. It restricts the number of medical school positions, makes it too difficult for foreign educated doctors to practice, and restricts what nurse-practitioners can do.

4. Regulations require you to pay for an expensive doctor visit for simple things that could be diagnosed by computer, including getting prescriptions for antibiotics for an ear infection (a problem I recently had).

5. Malpractice lawsuits are frequently irrational. If there is a 20% chance of death with an operation, a resulting death needn’t mean malpractice occurred. It is too easy to win a malpractice lawsuit.

These are the first things that come to mind, but I could go on….

How rude to assume we are all in your groups of people who don’t have health insurance.
I don’t have health insurance. I am a teacher but they have me cut down to half time and half time people don’t get insurance.
I am divorced after 25 years, he cheated and lost his family by his choice, I live in a studio apartment, drive a 11 year old car and no middle class “excesses” as you want to think we do.
My son is uninsured because he got laid off from Catapillar so he lives day to day just like me.
We don’t have health insurance because a “few” have to have it all. Medicine was a field you got into to help mankind I thought, now it is to get rich and drive a Benz. Not everyone can be rich and until we learn that we have to have a country that is fair to everyone who wants to work hard nothing will get better.

Health care has alot more problems then just the INSURANCE INDUSTRY, you have doctors that what to save there bottom line. Your have drug company’s that what to make more money. These company’s and doctors have bought out our government many time over. There is no fixing it, we have left the problem alone for to long. The only way you could help is if a government INSURANCE plan is made. nothing else will work most of these company’s are on the fortune 500 list. There will no allow there bottom line to get smaller. The last thing that no one thought about is that medical technology has been growing so fast bec people what to make money that is it. If you take that away you will find that our top of the line tech will slowly be gone. we have failed with our health care, and it will never get fixed/

I apologize for the Americans who bought the 46 million people in America don’t have health insurance campaign. Truth be told, and you can see for yourself via the census website. Most of this 46 million people fall under the following categories:

Illegal aliens
Choose NOT to insure
Middle Class who choose to have a big house and big car over medical insurance

And finally, people who are truely too poor to afford it.

Doctors and nurses deserve the pay they get. Thousands of hours and dollars went to their training and education. Would you rather have the average Joe as your doctor, who could potentially wing the education because there will be a shortage of doctors if their pay is regulated? Or someone who has the desire to work their butt off in school, live poor for 10+ years, and have a successful outcome while properly treating your mother?

The government’s can never turn a pateint away law doesn’t help either. Nor does people going in and then not paying their bills. The money has to be made up someplace. Just like credit card rates are so high, because people scam the system.

No one goes into business with the goal of loosing money.

my employer is closing shop and with it our groups health plan. i wanted to skip cobra and get something more permanent, like an individual health plan. i’ve been turned down by every insurer that writes in our state. all because my wife has moderately elevated cholesterol, which she treats it with a statin. i envy all of you who are medically insurable and can bitch about how expensive health insurance is! the next time you read about how many people are without insurance, remember all us that insurance companies won’t touch. to get true reform we need to get those congressional assholes off of the health plan they’ve provided for themselves and experience what average americans do.

When I went freelance three years ago I could have kept my health insurance under COBRA for 18 months. But that would have cost literally more than my mortgage every month, and at the time I could least afford it.

The only health care I’ve had since is an abscessed tooth I had pulled before it could make my head explode. Paid the dentist cash.

On a different note, I find it interesting that all the posters commenting here that single-payer is Socialism and therefore bad have absolutely no facts, examples or anecdotes to back up their statements. They have been brainwashed.

There are so many things wrong with the collapsing American health care that I could write a book. In fact I am, but not here.

There are two basic problems:

First, the average American eats the worst diet in the civilized world. He or she hardly moves, much less exercise. This makes us the most overweight and obese nation on Earth. We have skyrocketing diabetes and other diseases as a result. Compared to Europe, and Japan we are really sick. As the baby boomers approach older age and medicare, America may become one big nursing home. No system Socialized or private will be able to handle this without massive increases in allocation of GDP to avoid bankruptcy.

Second, is that we have a profit driven “fixit” mentality and economic machinery. There is big money in drugs that cover up symptoms, but little money in preventing illness in the first place. We have overused and abused “fix it” procedures. The worst example of which is probably Angioplasty. This is quite important during a heart attack or unstable angina, but of limited value for routine angina or partial artery blockage. No study has ever shown routine angioplasties to save lives. Yet, hundreds of billions of dollars are spent on these. Patients must be told that there are drug and lifestyle change alternatives that should be tried first. Patients must also realize that Cardiologists are selling something they will make big money on. In the nations with socialized medicine where doctors are paid a good salary, there is no incentive to sell costly procedures first. This is only one of many abuses.

We must change our ways or go the way of the Roman Empire.

The problem with health care insurance is that people expect too much from it.

Does your home owner’s insurance cover changing the furnace filter or painting the walls? Does your car insurance cover oil changes or new tires?

We expect health insurance to cover every little thing, and then wonder why it (and health care) is so expensive. WAKE UP.

A few years ago, I was self-employed. I was able to purchase a high deductible policy for my family of 4 for only $152/month. I could then save additional money in a medical savings account to cover expenses prior to the deductible. If you are health and paying $1650/month for insurance, then you haven’t done your homework.

Part of the problem is the pharmaceutical industry’s high cost for brand name drugs. Twice I’ve been prescribed medications that cost over $120 per month because my insurance doesn’t cover them. I’ve wound up perchasing those same drugs from India or Canada where they average $20 per month.

I think it is time we see a healthcare revolution so that the industry and humanity advances in the US, in line with the rest of the developed world. We are appalling far behind on this and it is getting ridiculous. Politicians are complaining with rage regarding bankers pay but a low income family will still be unable to pay for care for an ill relative. This is not a low income issue infact middle income and upper income families can no longer afford healthcare. Lets take the real debate to Obama and demand change where its needed: our lives. And also place restrictions on hospitals, med, pharmas like the government is so aggressively pursuing in finance.

The reason our health care system is broken is because it was never designed to provide health care. It was created from the ground up to provide profits to insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, and administrative providers that push paper around. Take a look around at countries that provide solid health care for their citizens. They do not use insurance companies. They self insure and create a not for profit system that pays for itself. We pay double the amount that Canadians pay and have holes in which almost 50 milliion people don’t have coverage. Wake up! We must remodel this useless mess from the ground up.

I have good insurance through my job but my grown son does not and is not likely to get it via a job. The solution is to control costs and implement a single payer system that does not involve insurance companies. Citizens must pay a portion of the cost for each doctor visit, hospitalization and prescription. Why should an insurance company profit from such a vital service such as health care? With a single payer system we could track all pharmacy purchases and doctor visits and prevent abuse. The system must include both young and healthy and older and sicker folks. We should ONLY include U.S. citizens in this program. The states’ Medicaid receipients should be in this new system and pay NOTHING as they are the poorest and/or disabled. If we strictly control the costs for pharmacy and hospital visits then we can afford to do it!

The problem with health care is that government keeps meddling in it. Every time that government mandates some new insurance coverage, premiums have to go up to cover it. And why do we need insurance coverage for minor doctor visits anyway? Insurance is for catastrophic occurrences and is supposed to cover us to prevent financial ruin. It is absurd to take out insurance to cover minor medical visits that should only cost $20 or $30.

the premium for a modest policy (with sizable deductables) for my family of 3 very healthy members was $1650.00 / month last year, and i’m sure it will increase 10-15% this year again: it increased over 50% in a year a few years ago. this is a total rip-off by everyone involved: doctors, pharma industry, medical industry, insurance business, subcontracting service industry. i pray everyday that they all go to hell and enjoy a slow eternal burning.

My experience is that if you are self employed you cannot get reasonably priced health insurance unless you have a very high deductible. And that means that you are paying out of pocket for all medical services throughout the year. I don’t go for regular checkups because I don’t want my insurance to raise my costs or drop me from the plan. Also can’t afford the annual check-up. So my medical insurance is for catastrophe only.
I have a friend who has a medical problem and her insurance is $1000. per month and she has a high deductible and must pay for an annual MRI yearly out of pocket. She is looking for employment because of her medical costs but the employer she is interviewing with currently has a pre-existing clause so her insurance costs will probably still be very high.
I don’t know how to fix the problem, but I think it is unfair that only people who work for the government of are employed by large companies get good insurance and medical plans. They are the only ones who have the leverage to deal with the insurance companies.

Health insurance is a joke…I mean the cost of health insurance is a joke…Revamping this problem should be the number priority moving forward.

By the way, you can upload your story here too Healthazon.com
Shawn

The Problem in the US with high cost is tha we have been a Country of Sue Happy people. Limit the settlements and reduce the Mal practice Insurance and keep the cost. Down.

We do not want Obamas Plan for Socialized Medicine! When Medicine is Free people will take advantage of that. Go to the clinic for a cold while someone with a serious problem will have to wait!

Free Medical may sound good but it will not be free! We will pay for it!

The biggest problem with American health care is also the biggest problem facing the rest of the country:

THE INSURANCE INDUSTRY IS A SCAM.

Insurers are in the business of selling products they have no intention of backing up.

With health insurance, everything that takes more than a co-pay and an office visit gets denied as a pre-existing condition or experimental treatment.

But the problem extends well beyond health care. When have you ever had an auto insurance claim paid that made you whole and didn’t cost more in higher rates (or get you dropped)?

After Katrina and Rita, the insurers send adjusters to the Gulf Coast to deny claims by saying the damage was from wind, not floods.

California had earthquakes and fires, so many insurers stopped selling earthquake and fire insurance.

AIG is the biggest boondoggle of all. They sold insurance (credit default swaps) to banks knowing they could never pay the claims.

As a country we need to stop listening to the insurance industry propaganda and switch to nationwide single-payer health insurance as soon as possible. It is the only hope to bring costs down and extend coverage to everyone, like the rest of the civilized world does.

And if private insurers get forced out of the health care marketplace, maybe the warning will force them to start doing other lines of business ethically.

Solutions: Preventative care should be 100% covered (this includes yearly checkups, vaccines, etc.) regardless of your plan. Large medical procedures (organ transplants) should be subsidized by the federal government, IF WE insist that that the government must play a role. No “limited medical benefits” if you switch employers. We also need tort reform. Lawsuits should show “gross negligence”.

This is so complex I don’t even think the brightest minds can figure it out. Here’s my two cents. For one, medical technology has come leaps and bounds and continues to advance. One of the problems are the inventors of this great technology and selling their patton. Then it’s up to the corporation who bought the rights to the patton to recoupe their investment. So they skyrocket the price for this technology to fill their greedy little pockets. This goes for prescription drugs, medical equipment, ect. I don’t believe it’s just greedy healthcare providers. Most of us did not go into healthcare to become rich. As a healthcare provider, I spent alot of money and time for my skills and derserve to be rewarded. Not to be rewarded in excess, but adequate compensation.

That’s only the tip of the iceberg. Bottom line, is everyone is out for themselves. And yes, that means you, news media. You are paid by how many people watch your news and therefore paid by sponsors who will get the most exposure to sell their products through advertising. So, everyone is to blame. Is there a solution? In my opinion, NO! We can reform all day long and yet spend more of my tax money debating this in our corrupt gov’t system.

There is too much money spent on transactions and not direct patient care. 1 out of every 3 dollars goes to the insurance industry. Due to the direction of Medicare, physicians are paid for transactions and not health outcomes. There should be a tax on fast food and subsidies on healthly foods. It is much cheaper to eat poorly. The behavior of Americans needs to changes, we have to be accountable too!

Unfortunately fraud is a big problem in healthcare. I’ve worked in healthcare for forty years, most of the time as an orthotist/prosthetist (we make braces and artificial limbs). Most of these very expensive devices are paid for by insurance with Medicare and Medicaid paying the majority of the cost. But insurance companies are very poor at detecting fraud. In my industry I would estimate that somewhere between 25-50% of the total cost to insurance companies is fraud and other questionable practices. It seems that it is easier for the insurers just to raise premiums than stop the fraud. If you write letters to the insurers regarding the fraud they won’t even answer your letters. Government healthcare isn’t the answer, (Medicare/Medicaid) because it happens right under their noses now and they do very little to stop it. Powerful healthcare lobbies have it their way in Congress and the general public pays the bills.

There will always be problems with healthcare. However it could get worse across the board if the government runs out and trys to use the same half baked solutions that they have used trying to stimulate the economy regardless of the consequences or the waste.

One of the simplest and most likely to have to most immediate impact would be addressing frivolous lawsuits against doctors who performed their job to the best of their ability and within accepted standard medical procedures. Unfortunately this is the least likely thing to get fixed since the vast majority of politicians in Washington, including our President, are lawyers and lawyers besides having a warped view of right and wrong also tend to look out for number one. You have to really love when guys like Senator Kennedy and others are all for universal healthcare when they know for a fact that when overall quality of coverage declines for those of us who have health coverage now that they will still be able to get the best healthcare that their dirty money can buy. For all their desire to get everyone covered they continually fail to address the fact that healthcare should come before a brand new car, cable television, cel phones, and all the creature comforts that so many people seem to think are their just dues and not just luxuries. They also fail to even bring up any sort of responsible lifestyle requirement in order to qualify for their “wonderful” healthcare plan since they wouldn’t want to dare to require a change in lifestyle in exchange for a expensive boondoggle like healthcare….

At the end of the day it is just a shame that our government isn’t spending more time preaching preparation, planning, and responsibility and less time handing out cash for just about anything you can imagine.

We spend 15% of the GDP on Health care, while leaving out 47 million of citizens without coverage. All other G8 countries spend only 7% of their GDP on Health care and they have universal coverage. We are 24th in the world in morbidity and mortality statistics according to WHO ( Just above Cuba !!).

Only way to get out of this health care fiasco is:
1) Improve Primary Care services ( who will be the gate keepers ) for specialty referral, and long term care.

2) Tort reform – prevent frivolous lawsuits. Allow the doctors /Hospitals to counter sue if it is a frivolous lawsuit.

3) Streamline medical insurance industry. Make it illegal to give bonuses to those who reject insurance claims (conflict of interest). Get rid of the third parties to cut costs.

4) Universal Health care. Which will allow all citizens to have preventive care, so that they would not end up costing more to the tax payers once they have a catastrophic illness.

I have had insurance from large corporations, from my own business and now an individual plan. I have seen it from all perspectives.

Problems:

1. Insurance companies deny coverage for pre-existing conditions thus limiting the coverage and requiring individuals to take much of the risk while they make the profits.

2. Insurance companies refuse coverage or charge unaffordable premiums for comprehensive coverage.

3. Insurance companies overrule doctors decisions on treatment and drugs.

4. Insurance companies are determining the medical care individuals receive or don’t receive and make massive profits thus depriving the overall medical system of needed money. The end result of this is that as a nation we are paying too much money for the quality of care we receive, and the quality of care in this country is much lower than other insuctralized countries by many metrics.

5. The United States does not have a medical care system, it has a medical care market. It is effective only for the companies in the market and not for the country as a whole. We need a medical care system, that is logical, effective and addresses individuals needs. We do not need a medical care market the is most effective and productive only for the companies selling insurance and equipment.

Government Socialism of Health Care will result in decreased service of health care for all and the elimination of private health care. Companies won’t be able to afford paying for private health care and the government programs. Just like the reason that companies no longer fund pensions, is because companies could not afford to pay for pensions and social security. Therefore, companies no longer provide pensions.

What’s wrong with health care? Unbridled greed – doctors, lawyers, insurance companies, drug companies, hospitals, bill collectors…
The system enables it.

The problem with Health Care is that the government and the general population do not know the basics of the problem. Their seems to be a disproportionate share of focus on pharmaceutical costs, which are only ~12% of the total healthcare dollar, and less of a focus on the big ticket items like hopsitalization and phycian billing which make up ~70% of costs. The facts of the situation are that you could give away pharmaceuticals for free and you would still have an insurmaountable problem because, (1) pharmaceutical costs on average are low and will get lower, and (2)newer pharmaceutical technologies produce therapies and drugs that are more cost effective than the current course of therapy which may requre a lengthy hospital stay and/or physician interaction.

The country needs to look more at physician practices and hospital services in the following ways: We need a system that rewards the general practicioner better than the specialist; the trend now is to refer patient meetings to specialists that come with a higher price tag when much of what a specialist does can be handled through the primary care physician. We do not have to reduce the amount we pay the specialist….we simply need to increase the amount we reimburse to primary care doctors in exchange for greater patient responsibility (then supply and demand will work things out). With regards to hospitals, we need to create a system where services are optimal for a specific geographic area. Current reimbursement schemes require all hopsitals to have the latest and greatest MRI, imaging equipment etc. when it would be more cost effective if fewer hopsitals handled the services related to those types of departments in a geographic area (more volume, less cost = more cost effectiveness).

Stay away from Pharma, they are part of the solution, not the problem.

Whats wrong with health care?

Too many people “working” in the health care system.

At my doctors office there at least a dozen people behind the counter answering phones and doing paperwork.

At the hospital there are more people behind the counters at the nurse stations and reception areas than there are patients.

Its not just one place either, I’ve had two major surgeries in the past 3 years.And all the places I had to go for tests and everything else had piles of people “working”.

I’m sorry, but I saw a lot of people just taking up space and not really doing much of anything.Labor is expensive.

My health care coverage cost me over 300 dollars a month. I hardly use it except for chronic conditions. I am never sick and never go to the doctor unless it is for a physical or maintenance. I am trying to ween myself off if two drugs I think I don’t need so I can get my third as a generic and reduce my plan to coverage. I feel I could have a new car with all I pay with heath coverage.

The problem are the rising costs of health care for everyone, and in my view, this rise is partly due to administrative, legal and regulatory reasons, but mostly due to excess iveprofits at every level along the chain.

Health care should be very strictly regulated, from fixed salaries for doctors and hospital workers to reasonable costs of medical schools. The main savings would come from axing the middle men, the insurance companies altogether, or allowing them to only make a fixed percent of profit while having regulated salaries as well.

The only drawback in my view would be that 1) such a change would mean a lot of pain in the short term since health is currently (and sadly) the number one industry in this country which means many people make a living from it; (these jobs though are only the result of an inefficient system and excess profits in the first place) 2) there would be less money for R&D which is the only serious drawback in my view.

Peter

I have health insurance at work, and am feeling very fortunate. However, it seems that the health care system has been carefully designed by the same people who designed our financial system. It all revolves around raking in huge amounts of cash for somebody, but certainly not me. When the baby boomers were kids, crowding doctors’ waiting rooms, the system seemed to work pretty good. Why all the drama now?

I am a health care worker in a municipal hospital in Brooklyn, New York. I have been in this field for 29 years of my life as an ultrasonographer.
I can ssure you most of what is wrong with medicine is its profit-driven nature. The HMO’s right off the top take 20% of the healthcare dollar compared to 6-7 % for government-run Medicare. That is 13-14% of the healthcre budget going to Wall Street instead of the working class that needs it. The drug companies are totally rapacious taking another 10-12% of the health care budget. over half of that 5-6% is waste- going to shareholders and advertising campaigns to get the public and physicians to demand many of their dangerous and ineffective products. So
I have identified already 18% of health care dollars that could be saved by eliminating HMO’s and using a
more efficient government administered
single payer system. Yes the mythology is private industry is more efficient, the reality is that they are bloodsuckers. About 5% of health care costs by providers could be cut if medical information was universally shared , eliminating duplication of diagnostic exams. That would be about 3% of the total health care budget. Health care workers are NOT overpaid and are NOT the ripping off the public. Our work is very stressful and is often done in an understaffed environment, because Wall ST is ripping off so much of the
healthcare dollars. Hopsital adminstrations are top heavy with staff and salary while those who provide the care are pressured to provide care under the stop watch, which leads to our lowered morale, stress, and mistakes which can lead to poor outcomes for patients. The media which is whore to the billion dollar corporations that provide its revenue never really focuses on these truths. Instead you give all the publicity to the politicians’ plans . Obama’s plan will lead to rationing of health care as it provides no additional funding to train more doctors, nurses, and technical staff to care for the 50 millions uninsured who will be brought under the health care umbrella. Yet no cuts in the military budget, no they increase it with more troops and funds for the oil-pipeline war in Afghanistan and the soon to come invasion of Sudan to plunder their oil and throw out the Chinese oil companies.

What health insurance? I cant afford it! I’d like to see congress & senate have to buy their own health insurance, then they would get an eye opener! I for one will be voting against every scum bag in office!

To cover my family I pay about $7,200 per year for “catastrophic coverage” insurance which means, unless I accidentally chop my arm off they don’t pay anything. Last year because of various typical child illnesses we paid $12k for out of pocket in doctor visits and medicine. Insurance paid none of this. That is not a sustainable proposition, another year like that will be the undoing of our business. In fact, the inability of small business in America to have access to good inexpensive healthcare is the biggest contributor to the economic mess we’re in right now.

I too am on retiree health care. Very expensive-$1500 per month for me and spouse. There is no “solution” to the increasing cost of health care. It will continue to climb every year as new technology, new medicines, come on the market. But we can reduce the rate of increase by stressing healthy lifestyles/preventative medicine. Maybe provide a reward(tax credit?) for taking care of your health.

I am a registered nurse certified as an asthma educator. I’m not working because there is no insurance coverage for educating patients about their asthma, thus no jobs in my specialty.

I had been working for a disease management company. What a ripoff! Employers bought what they thought was a service to reduce the health expenses of their employees. In reality, the company cooked the books, put nurses on the phones without checking to see if they were knowledgeable about the chronic diseases they were “managing”, and churned out numbers to keep getting lucrative contracts.

I am caring for two family members who have no health insurance and are recovering from substance abuse. These are great kids who could be contributing members of society, given some help. It costs many hundreds of dollars a month to see a doctor and get the medication they need. My husband and I are getting tapped out.

We are all, sooner or later, adrift on our own in this country.

We need to make our delivery system much more efficient then it is today. One only has to watch what an elderly sick parent goes through to understand why our healthcare costs so much and yet produces only average results. Our healthcare system (used loosely) is so disparate that the patient and their family are required to act as the information hub for all of the medical disciplines caring for the patient. I also have never seen an industry that is so tied to paper and so resistant to technology then the healthcare field. I am not talking about medical equipment but technology to help in the clinical diagnosis and patient record management process. I think it’s great that Obama has put funds in the recovery plan to fund a central records database, but even with that, we still have a long, long way to go.

I read in some article other day, There are restrictions on hospitals on how many doctors can do residency each year. There is no scarcity of people interested in becoming doctors but these restrictions imposed on hospitals is what keeps number of new physicians low, which in turn keeps the demand high. Physicians can earn mind-boggling salaries and thus resulting in high medical-care costs. To fix the health-care issue, these politically imposed limits on hospitals will have to be taken care of.

Insurance is complicated, I tried to compare my policy with my girlfriends to see who had better coverage and you just can’t do it. We need to standardize the basic coverage and then pay for add-ons much like car insurance. Coverage should be divided by sex and there teired by age to provide basic preventive care and coverage. So a woman’s coverage would cover birth control and mamagrams while a man’s coverage would cover maybe prostate exams and ED. We need reduce or move un-insured or under-insured person out of Emergency rooms and into doctors offices and clinics to reduce costs. Illegals who recieve care would have thier home countries bill for the services. Next we need to find ways to limit lawsuits or cap payouts so the insurance cost can be reduced. One way might be to split the injury costs b/t the patient’s and doctor’s insurance especially if the patient’s insurance limits doctor choices like HMOs.
All employers should have to help cover employee’s insurance by providing what I call BHIP (Basic Health Insurance Policy) which covers only the most basic things and catostrophic illness or injury, all this should be done through private insurers with the guidelines set by the Feds. Since all basic plans would be identical one could compare prices easily and go with the best deal. Low income workers would have there share picked up in whole or part by the govnmt. and a small part by the employer.
So lets say the BHIP policy was $100 per month, the employer chips in $25 the employee or govt pays the rest. The employer should get healthier and more productive employees, costs overall should drop since everyone is shopping the same plans, and no new govt mess to cause waste or dumb spending.
Employees can only opt-out but if they require treatment that would have been covered under the plan they will have to pay it back no matter what, no forgiveness of it, the employer would pay the $25 into a pot.

I have health care through my employer. It costs me about $300.00 per month and the deductibles are so high that I really can’t use it. There are several test that I need done for my back and I simply avoid them because I can’t afford them. I can’t afford the $500.00 deductible per person here in the house and then the 20% cost of ‘reasonable and customary’ which becomes more like 40% of say an MRI… It’s all such a joke!

Yes I have health insurance and it covers most of my needs but I pay for it. We recently switched to a new plan that is 80/20 from an old plan that used a company sponsored Health savings account(HSA)due to our company’s change of ownership. The HSA is the model I see that will help control costs in the future. I liked that plan. The company put $2700 in an account that you used to pay your health care with a high deductable. If you don’t use the money it rolls over and keeps building like a 401K for healthcare. Once you have enough to cover the deductable your healthcare is covered 100%. It also caused you to be more careful on your healthcare spending and maintain a healthy lifestyle. Couple this with wide reaching tort reform and standardizing on health care forms and processes to submit claims and you can take a lot out of the system. What we don’t want to do is devise a government run system like what is being proposed. That would bring everyones healthcare down to the lowest common denominator. Having grown up on the border with Canada I can tell you that rationed healthcare is not a good thing. The most obvious case in point is the recent death of the actress Natasia Richardson. It is no accident that a life flight helicopter was not available in Quebec. Those things are a luxury that is availble on a limited basis under a rationed govenment system. In all of Canada there are 5 MRI machines. Needless to say, if you want an MRI you have a long wait to get one. That wait could cost you your life. Universal heath care is great in the first couple years, until cost containment takes over and limits the systems ability to provide you with the services you might need on a timely basis. Or worse yet, make the decision weather you should recieve the service at all.

The American healthcare system consumes 2.5 trillion dollars each year, a number that is larger than the French economy. Health care reform has received increased press because of Barrack Obama, yet each of us feel health care’s increasing impact to our expendable income, but why is healthcare so expensive and growing faster than the cost of living?

The average citizen may believe that doctors and hospitals are unfairly profiting, but were that true hospitals wouldn’t be closing or physician practicing moving due to increasing malpractice insurance. In 2008 California health insurance companies spent 6 billion dollars on administrative costs and earned 4.3 billion dollars in profits. Clearly, the insurance companies are the financial winners.

Insurance company profits are sizable, but lack of universal coverage and technological inefficiencies are the largest factors contributing to our expenses.

It is anticipated that by 2010 fifty million citizens will be without health coverage. These are citizens that can’t afford the coverage and those that choose not to purchase it. Americans without employer sponsored plans must afford a mortgage sized expense or put it to the back-burner because paying for heat, food and shelter are more immediate. Many in this group are left destitute after catastrophic injuries, and represent the lion-share of unreimbursed revenues for hospitals and physician practices.

When physicians re-order tests because results from the same text conducted elsewhere are inaccessible, we are increasing the cost of care. Because of antiquated technology clinicians may have no access to critical information trapped on your paper medical records. Electronic medical records exist, but a majority of American hospitals still rely on paper. This inability to access information accounts for the majority of medical errors and duplication of services. How can an ER physician know of a latex allergy when you’re unconscious and there is no access to your primary physician or chart?

The government has committed considerable resources to focus on the adoption of information standards which will support national health information organizations. These organizations will collect medical data from every clinician you visit, and then make that information available to any authorized clinician wherever that information is needed. This type of organization will save billions in unnecessary expenses, but more importantly will increase the quality of care for all Americans.

Which of these two issues do we tackle first? Do we invest money in universal insurance when we know the money is being wasted on an inefficient system? Or do we deny citizens health coverage while we fix a broken system? Fixing the system is an enormous endeavor and it will take years to accomplish.

The good news is that the conversation is well under way and we have no choice but to fix the problem. By applying pressure to our representatives and focusing on our own health, every American is an active participant in this process. Adopt health eating habits at home and in our schools. There is no one answer or quick fix, but I am confident we are well on our way.

We need comprehensive care for all citizens. Insurance companies continue to get rich, while simulataneously burdening citizens and private businesses with insane costs. I realize that social medicine has its disadvantages as well, but what other alternatives do we have? Higher taxes would come with socialized medicine, but when you factor in the cost to businesses and the more money we could keep in our paychecks, then I am fairly confident that in the end it would cost less for everyone. Lets stop making insurance companies and lawyers rich while millions of americans suffer because they can not afford to see a doctor to treat the simplest of ailments.

Health care costs are inflated by too much government subsidies. There isn’t a doctor out there that knows the actual true cost of a procedure or service. We should be able to shop doctors like we shop mechanics.

Most, if not all of our problems are directly related to our monetary policy under the Federal Reserve. The fed calibrates monetarily how much time people have to surrender to live, it is the policy creator and executer & it’s all controlled by international private bankers.

To hell with the Federal Reserve & may the R3VOLUTION ignite the masses to demand American Economic Freedom!

Long term slution.
1. Genuine Tort reform. Remove the burden.
2. Physicians do perform excessive and
medically unnecessary tests.
3.Guideline based investigations and
treatment should be mandatory.
4.More and more health insurance
coverage is not the ultimate answer.

Ofcourse these real issues will not
be rasied since the politicians are all lawyers, Physicians also have stong
lobbies. Hospitals rake in so much money.
If you drive around any town/city
the two most beautiful buildings are
1.Hospital 2. Funeral homes.

So do you want real reform or just
band aid solutions, your choice.

Yes, I have private health insurance, … it’s quiet normal here . . . but they had the cheek to charge 22% more this time. I really don’t know if I can afford it any more. I’m a self funded retiree and things are getting worse and worse.

Yes, I have private health insurance, it’s quiet normal here . . . but they had the cheek to increase the premiums by 22%. I really don’t know if I can afford to keep paying. I’m a self funded retiree. Things are getting worse and worse.