I’m sure we’ve all heard the old phrase “Your health is your wealth.” Unfortunately, in the US, this can be meant quite literally.
According to a recent Newsweek article, there are 700,000 medical bankruptcies per annum, and around 22,000 people die of treatable diseases because they can’t afford medical care. Much of the information given regarding medical care in other countries is inaccurate, such as the claim that most British women give birth at home, so I’m not sure how precise those statistics are. However, the fact that there are ANY medical bankruptcies in the US appalls me.
As far as I’m concerned, access to adequate healthcare is a fundamental right, especially in a nation which proclaims itself ‘developed’. I am a US national resident abroad and I rarely comment on matters concerning internal policy. However, the objections to the healthcare reform plans are incredible. I don’t care if you’re Republican or Democrat, rich or poor. Why would anyone wish to deny another person access to affordable healthcare?
If you are fortunate enough to have good insurance, what happens if you lose your job? What about your children? Shouldn’t they be able to afford medical care in the future, regardless of their economic situation?
My mother recently told me an awful story concerning some family friends. This couple worked hard their whole lives, owned their own house, and had a bit of savings put by. In their old age, both of them were quite ill and required long-term care. Now that they are dead, their children are likely to inherit absolutely nothing due to massive outstanding medical bills. How can this be?
And yet there are many who don’t seem to want the system changed. I’m baffled.
Why do you think people are objecting to reform? Is it fear of the unknown? Or is the European (and beyond) idea of healthcare as a right, not a privilege, simply an alien concept to many Americans?
{ 16 comments }
I’m not going to pretend to understand (or sympathize with) the stance against national health care. Basically, there is no such thing as affordable health care these days, and some people can’t even get health insurance. We’ve needed health care reforms for a long time.
I can mildly understand some of the fears about Health Care Reform (HCR) policy based on financial policy. ie – not wanting anything that will increase the national deficit and finding a way to pay for the program that doesn’t bankrupt itself.
BUT – that’s the only thing I can understand. And the people / government officials standing in the way of finding solutions for the financial concerns are doing so for their own ego I believe.
General citizens who HAVE HC and find it objectionable that if HCR goes through, their neighbour might have HC too … I think they’re fuckwads. I think anyone who stands up loud and proud and makes a stance that essentially says, “if you get sick or hurt, you don’t deserve to have the means to get better because you’re poor,” is a low-thinking, selfish, amoral bastard.
I think general citizens who don’t have HC and are objecting to the reforms are weak-minded fools who have leftover rage that either a black man or a democrat won the election and they’re going to do anything they can to discredit the administration.
If you ask me nicely, I’ll tell you what I really think.
DISCLAIMER: The below is just my opinion, based on relatively limited reading/observations..
I am also incredibly biased, as my life would have been pretty crapola without medicare..
I find the opposition to HCR a bit beyond my comprehension, but I was raised poor and reliant on medicare in Australia, and since starting to loosely follow this debate I am happier than ever to be an Australian.
Judging from some of the responses it seems to come from people protecting their own pocket, and the fear they will somehow lose quality in their healthcare system? (the US opposition seems to be running a relatively successful propaganda scare-campaign funded by the insurance industry..)
I think there current system has bred the ideology (?) healthcare as a privilege so that is part of the underpinnings of the debate.
@heidenkind @Venus Vaughn
I accept that there might be legitimate objections to the specific plans put forward, but to reject reform out of hand is incredible.
A friend from the US was visiting me this week. She said she’s fortunate to have decent health coverage through her job. However, her company recently filed Chapter 11 and have been bought out. She has no idea what changes the new owners will implement and suspects the current healthcare package will be one of the first things to go. With people losing jobs left right and centre, having healthcare dependent on your job is just plain wrong. The state has to step up to the plate on this issue.
@Edie
We also didn’t have much money when I was a kid. My mother earned just over the maximum to qualify for free healthcare. Thankfully, our private health insurance wasn’t outrageously expensive and covered my various trips to the hospital with asthma, and so on. The Irish health system is by no means ideal but people are not left bankrupt by medical bills they cannot pay.
The Swiss system is pretty expensive, although not as expensive as what many people have to pay in America. However, if you get sick, things are taken care of, and people who can’t afford the obligatory health insurance payments are subsidized by the state. Being uninsured in Switzerland is not an option.
The scare-campaign in the US pisses me off. It’s totally xenophobic with crap about the British people having bad teeth. My mom’s friend now has rotten stumps in her mouth because she had no insurance in the US and couldn’t afford to go to the dentist. Anyone going on about that are among the lucky few who have decent insurance and want to deny other people the same. With so many people losing their jobs, I’m assuming the number of uninsured and under insured is on the rise. Will the naysayers feel the same way if their jobs and affordable health insurance disappear?
I don’t usually get into these types of discussions because I’m mixed on the whole shebang. What bothers me is the term, “healthcare reform”. The U.S. has some of the best healthcare in the world, it’s simply expensive as hel…er, heck, to paint it with broad brushstrokes. What they’re proposing is not healthcare reform, it’s healthcare affordability, or insurance, reform. Which is fine, I just look at the term too literal. What I do not agree with is MANDATING it. I do not agree with that whatsoever – it violates a U.S. citizen’s basic right of choice. Yes, there are many underinsured or uninsured people in this country, but there is a small handful that choose not to have insurance as well (hey, it’s their health, they can do what they want with it). Again, that’s only my opinion, and even I see the downside of that.
I absolutely think that the system needs to be fixed and get this — I’m registered Republican (maybe more of a liberal conservative, but don’t think of myself as a conservative liberal, if that makes sense). I just don’t agree with forcing it down someone’s throat who opts not to have insurance. If, maybe, they couched it as a public option where you could take it if you so chose to do so, then I’m ok with that.
Just my .02 cents, and it’s usually where I duck out. As I mentioned before, I stay away from these discussions because I’m not usually of the popular opinion. I just cringe when I hear the “mandate” portion of the President’s plan.
@Amy I see where you’re coming from re: obligatory insurance taking away free will. I just don’t know why anyone would choose NOT to pay into an affordable health insurance scheme, thus leaving themselves vulnerable to bankruptcy or major debt.
I guess I see it as the government’s responsibility to ensure everyone has access to adequate and affordable healthcare if they need it.
Understood, Sarah. I guess it’s just a quirk of mine that I don’t like the word “mandate”. Although I think it would be more palatable, for me at least, if they would state it in terms that it’s the government’s responsibility to ensure people have the CHOICE to have adequate and affordable healthcare (heavily borrowing your words here since they’re so very well stated). And honestly, I do know people who choose not to have health insurance but also don’t abuse the system by going to the ER for the smallest thing.
I am a respiratory therapist at the huge local medical center here in town, and what always kills me is seeing people use the ER for doctor’s visits. That’s irresponsible and costly (for both parties). I’m talking things like, “Hey, doc, I’ve had this back pain for five days after I did something to it when I lifted the sofa by myself”. Buddy, that’s what YOUR doctor, or the Urgent/Doctor’s Care office, is for and they’re right down the road. People always tend to look at their own health issues and problems as emergent that need taken care of RIGHT NOW. Reform is happening in those instances now in the guise of payments due upon discharge, and people don’t like it.
What the media is not mentioning is that in instances of life and death, the hospital is REQUIRED to treat you or to transfer you to a hospital that can deal with it if they’re unable to. That’s law. You don’t hear that mentioned in some of the scenarios mentioned by politicians trying to push this.
@Amy
Whew, I tend to get wordy apparently. Sorry about that! And I do want it be mentioned again – I do support the idea that things need to be fixed in this country re: healthcare affordability. But I want that focus to be more on making it more affordable, not in saying that everyone MUST have insurance.
Amy, you mention that there are people who choose to not have insurance, why do you think that is?
In my experience, whenever people opt to not pay for something, it’s usually because money is an issue. If there are any other reasons, I’d be interested in hearing them.
Also Amy, re the whole mandatory thing, don’t all car owners have to have car insurance in the US?
I think the historical argument re the comparisons between the two don’t hold much water, because if one person chooses not to have health insurance, that person is not the only one who is affected if he/she should fall ill. And those people who are afraid of increased payments will eventually have to bear the burden for that uninsured person, one way or the other.
@Amy In the case of an emergency whereby a hospital treats an uninsured patient, who foots the bill? The patient or the state? I’m assuming someone has to pay it. If it’s the state, surely tax payers want everyone to be insured. If a system was in place whereby the rich subsidized the poor, then at least it would be clear for everyone, rather than tax money being used.
I’m by no means claiming any of the three systems I have personal experience of are ideal, but no one need fear the cost of essential medical care. To take Switzerland as an example: they are talking about tweaking the system to discourage people from going to the doctor with very minor ailments which can be treated with over-the-counter medicine. Too many people – especially the elderly – go to the doctor for every twinge. This is costly and pushes everyone’s health insurance premiums up. I like the fact that patients here are sent medical bills directly as we can check to see that they are accurate and it also gives an awareness of how much treatment costs.
@Karen Scott I was going to use the compulsory tax comparison, but your car insurance analogy is more fitting.
@Amy — You say in one post that what kills you is people using the ER for what should have been primary medical care back when it would have been affordable. Then in the next post you say you don’t want a system that makes everyone have insurance. Um, are you not seeing the connection there?
People forgo a trip to a primary care physician because of the absence of insurance. A trip to the ER makes sense when you’ve gotten so sick that it’s clear you really really need a doctor. But preventive health care — meaning both prophylaxis and treatment of minor ailments before they get to be life-threatening — is crucial to cutting health care costs, and until you make everyone have insurance, not everyone will get preventive health care. Even the insurance companies argue this; what they disagree with is the way to bridge the gap for the 30 million people with no health coverage at all, and the additional 15 million who are under-insured and thus also avoiding preventive health care.
I also want to disagree with you (respectfully!) about whether our health care is the best in the world. I think our health care technology is probably unmatched globally, but that’s not the same as health care. Even if you define health care as that which patients are actually receiving (and not, say, the health care all Americans should have access to — which gets us back to health insurance and health economics, and thus away from your point), I’m still not sure it’s better here than elsewhere. And I’m not sure doctors would say it was, either.
From what I understand, the only doctors in the US who are solidly happy with their practices are specialists. Primary care physicians — GPs, gerontologists, internists, OB-GYNs, etc. — are not happy, and the majority of them favor some form of health care reform. That’s the front line of providers; I suspect they have a good perspective on the big picture. As my own internist told me when submitting a request to an insurance company that lied about my symptoms in order to get permission to run a prophylactic diagnostic test, “I don’t practice medicine; I practice insurance.” I really don’t think he believes that’s the very best health care in the world.
@everyone else — I was going to say what frosts my cookies in this debate is the clarion call NOW about the deficit as the reason to block health care reform. Where were all these “deficit-firsters” back in the Bush Administration when the cost of the Iraq war was doubling & tripling the deficit? Health care reform actually has the capacity to save money, both in the national GDP, but also for the government. Will it result in a net reduction of the deficit? It might, but we’re never going to know if we don’t try. And I guarantee no health care reform will cost us more than we can afford down the road — both monetarily and in the moral erosion that comes from watching millions of people die because they couldn’t pay for, and we couldn’t “afford,” universal health coverage.
If there was political will to pay trillions of dollars to fight a morally-questionable war supposedly to free millions of Iraqis from the oppression that was Saddam Hussein, why is there no political will to pay billions of dollars to free millions of Americans from the oppression of living without health insurance?
Karen (I know this is a hot topic for you since I follow your blog too), in the cases i know of re: not having health insurance, in the cases I know of, it’s personal choice AND financial. Personally, I do have health insurance and I can’t imagine not having it, so maybe my views lean towards narrow; but it’s still my opinion that if they choose not to have it, than it’s their free will, however crazy it is. As I mentioned before but followed up so poorly on, I’m mixed on this topic. Simply put, I don’t like the mandate option, and it’s only my opinion. It’s also why I don’t usually enter into these discussions because I know that my opinion could cause inflammatory arguements and, seriously, that’s not what I want. But nooooo, I went and dipped my toe in the pool…*headsmack*, and now I have to try and clarify my earlier thoughts. Oy. This is why I work behind the lines, doing actual patient care, not up there with the muckedy-mucks who have to know the rules, regulations, and bylaws concerning insurances, policies, etc etc etc. (*crossing fingers* that I don’t end up on Page 1 over at Karen’s Place — I respectfully pray, of course)
When I mentioned hospitals being required to treat or transfer you to outside facilities for life threatening issues, it was in response to several comments I’ve heard before (not here); ex: if so-and-so had a heart attack, they’d probably wind up dead because Hospital A wouldn’t treat them for lack of insurance or money. No, they would have to treat your or ship you out to a place that could if it was deemed they couldn’t deal with it. And, yes, I know, the financial fallout from that is what people are talking about.
Let me go another route with this — preexisting conditions. I do like the fact that the Prez has talked about eliminating those, and I’m all for that. In my own simplified inner monologue, I’m thinking GREAT! Finally my mom could go and get her own insurance despite her many health issues instead of relying on my father’s insurance (they’re separated). I’ve always been against the preexisting conditions aspect in health insurance, and wouldn’t it be golden opportunity for the insurance companies to make more money if people could sign up with prior health issues. Even I can see the downside to that, no, they’d lose their tails financially for all the money they’d have to fork out to pay for these preexisting conditions. But still, it would be cool.
I’m hitting submit before I reread this and edit for the 18,000th time…ugh.
Yes! Very well said. I can only hope there are enough people in America who feel this way to push through reform, even if it’s not the specific plan suggested by the Obama administration.
@Amy Our comments must have crossed!
The preexisting conditions clause is also something we have in Switzerland BUT it only applies to supplementary insurance. The obligatory insurance covers everyone regardless of their state of health. The supplementary insurance covers free choice of doctor, hospitals and the option of a semi-private or private room, plus a few other frills. In other words, if you have chronic back problems and your supplementary insurance won’t cover back-related issues, the worst that will happen is that you won’t have your own room in the hospital of your choice. You won’t be out of pocket because of it. As it applies in Switzerland, I think the preexisting conditions clause is fair.
@Magdalen
LOL Magdalen, respectfully disagreeing, I love that phrase – I’m not one to draw claws in conversation and I don’t argue well at all. I’ve honestly seen some pretty freakin’ cool things in my career. Granted, some of the doctors that perform these amazing surgeries and diagnose some of the most outrageous illnesses sometimes lack in the personality category, I’m just sayin’. Governmental regulations and laws have forced some of the best healthcare I’ve seen out there. And this is where I do agree with government stepping in and regulating healthcare, since they’ve already been there in part along the way. Maybe the U.S. doesn’t have THE best healthcare in the world, but we do have SOME OF the best, as mentioned in my first post. Duke is right up the road from me, and they’re doing some pretty cool stuff these days. MUSC in Charleston, SC has a successful transplant program and they literally saved my friend’s father’s life last month when they did a heart transplant back in late July/early August. Piedmont Healthcare over to the west of me has a bang-up neonatal intensive care unit, and so does the hospital I work for here in my own town. So I still do contend that we’re doing alright as a nation in healthcare(I’m excluding healthcare coverage from this statement) advances, technologically as well, but there is always room to grow and improve. Heck, I can’t wait to hear of a facial transplant successfully done on American soil, but of course I wouldn’t wish the circumstances that may lead to its necessity on anyone.
I should’ve clarified in my previous post about people using the ER as doctor’s offices, heck I should’ve been more clear in my first post when I actually said it — I see these people using the ER as their doctor’s office and they HAVE insurance or Medicaid or Medicare. A lot of the rationalization I’ve heard is — they’ll get seen faster and the illness will be taken more seriously if they go to the ER. But, again, at least at the hospitals here in town, they are taking steps to weed the emergent out from the non-emergent by rating the complaints, and if it’s deemed non-emergent, then you’re expected to pay a fee straight up.