Some people are old enough to get away with being blunt!
Just a taste of this:
Folks, let me tell you something about healthcare and health insurance. There are a couple of ways to make a buck in the game. One way is to systematically deny coverage to anyone with a propensity to get sick as evidenced by past occurrences. The other way is to spread the risk over the largest population possible effectively minimizing the impact of the most risky. But there is one way for sure to lose a buck – keep increasing the number of people who can’t pay their bill. It’s really quite simple. A public option means insurance companies will report profits using language like “impressive” and “satisfactory” rather than “awesome” and ”a buttload of moolah!”
Supposedly the CEO of the health insurance company that I use has a several million dollar/year salary, plus $95 million in stock options. But I don't even know what stock options are, so what does that mean to me? But it must be legal, because the attorney general of my state won a lawsuit against this company and already got them to clean up their act. How many people who get their applications rejected for pre-existing conditions would that cover?
And talk about pre-existing conditions.... a good friend's child had strep throat, about a year after switching insurance companies, due to a change of employment. Well, guess what? The child had had strep throat in the past, so they declared it a pre-existing condition and rejected the claim. Strep throat, dear claims examiner, is not a chronic condition normally, so it really can't be a pre-existing condition in the general meaning of that terminology.
My friend's employer (major health care delivery organization, meaning clinics and hospitals) deleted her department. She was hired by an independent small company. She doesn't earn health insurance there, so she is paying for COBRA coverage, meaning, paying independently for her previous insurance. She can't afford to let it go, given that she really does have a pre-existing condition, namely, two cancers that were cured. The premiums she pays now are HALF of her entire SALARY. She is a health care professional, so her pay isn't peanuts. What to do? Her husband may take on a part time job just to pay for the insurance.
you are telling the truth, P.S.! keep it coming!
ReplyDeleteA friend of mine who although he is on social security still works at a part-time job. When his last full-time job ended, he wanted/needed to keep the insurance he had through that job so he ended up paying $432 a month for the insurance -in addition to the $96 a month he was paying for medicare! (Had to get a part-time job to be able to afford that premium.)
ReplyDeleteWhat amazes me is that there are people who still don't believe there is a crisis in this country, that we drastically need reform of health card and especially insurance! I had one guy scoff at me about health care costs/insurance, etc., saying that doctors/hospitals can't turn you away if you can't pay. That is only partially true. But if you can't pay -no insurance, etc. -that doesn't stop them from coming after you for payment by whatever means possible. Or better yet, tell that idea to a friend of mine and his now late wife both had to have liver transplants and thought they did have SS and medicare, the extra amount not covered and the meds required after the fact created the need to remortgage their previously paid for home, not once, but three times until six months after the wife died, he ended up losing the home in a foreclosure. But of course, there is no need for any reform, is there?
Keep writing on this the way you do and maybe -even if your message only reaches through to one person, it will have been worth the effort.
Peace.