Things are really getting heated in Congress between healthcare providers, Congress, and President Obama's committment to deliver what he promised during his campaign - affordable and accessible healthcare for each American!
We must stay in the race to make this happen and it won't be as painful as you might believe. The key is NOT to become complacent!
In an article by Lawrence Bruce in the Financial Times (FT)
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b2df1bf2-6047-11... President Obama warns the public healthcare that he will impose stiff regulations on the healthcare industry if a public healthcare program is not passed.
When you take into consideration that a public healthcare program will compete with the private insurers, you recognize that there will be an element of checks and balances over cost. Another significant factor is that private insurers would no longer be able to pick just the healthiest of society to insure while turning its back on the poor and needy who live without healthcare coverage, thereby suffering in fear about their own health and those in their family.
President Obama is quoted as saying that private healthcare providers have spent too much time creating ways to take money from people without providing necessary healthcare. Nothing could be further from the truth. As I read letters from over the country from people like you and me who have very moving stories about how healthcare in America has failed them or their families, I wonder how any private healthcare provider can justify collecting premiums at all. It would appear that they have collected enough money already from years gone by, to be the public healthcare program President is pushing for!
Does a public healthcare program defy logic though? Well, if you look at the wisdom of every American being able to have access to affordable healthcare, no! The biggest argument by the priate healthcare insurers according to Mr. Luce, is that a public healthcare program would "dismantle employer-based healthcare coverage." Well, again I view this as a scare tactic of creating a delusion that people would stand to lose their jobs or something greater by having a public healthcare program in effect. Over 50 million people in America today do not have health insurance. Those who do face cruel decisions by healthcare insurers denying coverage for illness and disease such cancer and diabetes to deny claims for treatment, etc. The healthcare insurers have come up with so many codes that even doctors do not know what and how to bill for services. Insurers have become greedy with premiums and skimpy with providing coverage for simple procedures that should be automatic depending on certain illnesses. For example, a person should not have to lose a limb or partial limb due to diabetes when the insurer knows through scientific research that amputation is probable. Instead, insurers will cover insulin, but not amputation citing in many cases that the amputation is "experimental." This makes absolutely no sense to me.
Of course, healthcare providers have all-together different perspective and plan to bilk Americans out of prescription coverage with the latest "donut whole" practice. A donut whole can force the average insured person to spend upwards of $4,500 each year. Why does a private insurer collect so much money in premiums and cannot cover the full cost of medications? Why can't insurers force the drug companies to bring those per pill costs down? The answer is that there is no incentive to advocate for the patient and the profit is too appealing. The result is that Americans lose legs, abandon maintenance medications, or live forever in debt due to a medical tragedy. Where is the logic in this?
In a letter to Congress, Blue Cross and the American Healthcare Insurance Programme opine that a public program would take its built-in advantages to over-take private insurers. Well, at this point do we trust private insurance companies for healthcare? The quality of service has gone down and the private healthcare industry is not advocating for us. The cost of healthcare has skyrocketed and the private healthcare industry has done nothing but keep increasing costs per year. Which program should Americans become stakeholders in: either private or public based on the evidence of the day? What is the logic for not having a public program is the better question to ponder.
Healthcare Reform in America is a serious and emotional issue. It cannot be ignored any more and we cannot pretend that it is alright that we cannot afford to have health insurance. A simple trip to the emergency room could have financially devastating affects for many years. When I delivered my premature son, after 7 months in the neonatal intensive care unit, my husband and I were indebted over $150,000 to the hospital. We had health insurance, but our new baby exceeded the "cap" for each member of the family. I recall asking, "Since our other children are healthy, can their allotted cap roll over to cover the excess of this child?" Of course, I was met with an indignant "No." So, since we were just three years into our marriage, we chose bankruptcy. That shifted our American dream for home ownership out of the picture.
What's your story? Does it defy logic that a public healthcare program is needed in America?
Agnes B. Levine
is the Author of: "Cooling Well Water: A Collection of Work By An
African-American Bipolar Woman" ISBN 13 978-0-9754612-0-4
Available NOW at Amazon.com
Write YOUR Congressperson today at
www.Senate.gov and
www.House.gov and follow the links to your state.
Posted By: agnes levine
Thursday, June 25th 2009 at 8:12AM
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