Why heathcare reform needs to be done . . .
Many of you know my kids have not had a good year with their health. I also have surgery next week, so I'm not helping our healthcare woes either. Now, let me start by stating that I have fairly decent health insurance. It covers most of what we need covered, $1000 deductible, $3 (aff),000 out of pocket family deductible. Now, with everybody's issues this year, we may actually make the family deductible. My kids (before insurance) alone have wracked up over $20,000 in medical bills this year. We definitely are getting our money's worth (finally!).
So why am I worried? Bill's insurance is dependent on his job. This is the worst construction (which is the field he works in) has ever been (according to an article he sent me a while pack) here in Chicago. We keep our fingers crossed at all times here. My biggest concern would be Madison. Seeeeee, with her history, she's pretty much uninsurable if we would have to pick up our own health insurance. Her ketosis acidosis would be considered a preexisting condition that most insurances will most likely not cover or if I could actually find one, the deductible would be so high it may be pointless or we won't be able to afford it. (And yes, I've actually looked into this). Depending on what we find on my surgery next Wednesday, I may or may not fall into the same case too.
Though, is government run medicine the answer? I don't know. My fear is that if the government starts offering up insurance that small companies, like the one my husband works at, will have no incentive to offer insurance. I've heard about the long lines and substandard care in countries with socialized medicine. I don't want that either. I can't offer up anything better than what we have which is clearly broken.
What are your thoughts? What is the right answer?
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=0ee166e8-5559-4abb-93e8-bb9664073356)
3 thoughts on “Why heathcare reform needs to be done . . .”
Leave a Reply
I’m at about the same point you are: I don’t know the solution, but I know it’s not what we’re doing now.
Our insurance situation was a mess last fall. I’d lost my job in September, and I was the one who carried the insurance. By February, my husband had another job with insurance, but not before I walked around in fear for months that something would happen. Our health issues aren’t nearly as severe as your family’s, but with an asthmatic son, one attack leading to hospitalization could have wiped us out. I could have COBRA’ed, but this was before the government was helping out with COBRA and the costs would have been astronomical for us. The only up side would have been staying with the same insurance company and not worrying whether the asthma would have been a pre-existing condition. No kidding: I’ve read stories about kids being rejected for coverage for excessive ear infections. We definitely fall into that category.
I think the solution is going to have to be “all of the above.” I think the government does have a role but I’m not ready to blow up the existing structure. Yes, I’m concerned about the costs. But I’m also concerned about the costs of doing nothing, both in financial and human terms.
I also believe that prescription reform has to be part of the mix, too. Going back to the asthma, it’s a perfectly manageable condition IF you can afford to manage it. When we were without insurance, I was paying $300 a month for those medications alone. We could afford it, plus I knew it was a short-term thing. What about families who can’t afford it, though? They, and we as a society if they wind up in the emergency room as charity care, ultimately pay anyway, and pay a lot more. Meanwhile, drug companies thumb their noses left and right at legislation enacted decades ago and designed to get affordable generics to the market more quickly.
I think the reason healthcare is so expensive is because it is inefficient. If hospitals utilized lean methods and simplified the number of steps to do things from seeing patients to billing, the whole process would be less complicated. And for some reason, the more complicated something is, the more money is lost.
im totally agree with you…..and its a great post.