I NOW KNOW HOW MUCH I’M WORTH.

I NOW KNOW HOW MUCH I’M WORTH.

(The Health Culture, Victor R. Fuchs, David Leonhardt)

(Froma Harrop, Mother Jones, Patrick Caldwell, Frazer Chronicle)

Why do Americans need universal health care…..hell that’s easy, I’ve got close to 3,000 reasons why it’s needed. My open heart bypass procedure came with a price-tag of $149,413.00, wow; I never knew that I was worth that much. However there’s a fly in the ointment, I’ve gotta come up with three grand to cover my part, ugh…..and I’m on a fixed income.

My wife had two implants so that she could hear; the price-tag for her was in excess of $200,000 of which we had to pay zero…..thank God for health insurance. She was working, I was working, we were making decent money, and if need be I could take extra hours for an unforeseen bill, but there wasn’t any.

Fast forward six years to my five bypass surgery, and we have a $3,000 bill, and I can’t pick up extra hours to help cover the charges. And obviously we have decent health coverage because we’ll only have to cough up the $3,000 grand.

I’m not really complaining, I’m just kind of confused, why should a senior citizens have to worry about covering an unforeseen medical bill, it’s kind of like Aaron Rogers getting blindsided by some 320 pound defense tackle…..it knocked the wind out of you, and it takes several minutes to get the cobwebs out of your helmet. I knew my hospital stay was going to cost me, I just wasn’t sure how much, and I sure as hell didn’t know that the surgery was going to cost me $150,000.

 

HELP ME…..I’M POOR

A $3,000 medical bill would make most of the people that I know say ouch, and maybe a few other words that I can’t list here because this blog is geared towards pre-teens and those folks who make at least one trip to their choice of church to seek redemption for their sins from the previous weeks weaknesses.

I know several people who simply couldn’t pay a $3,000 hospital bill or $300 for that matter, they’d simply not have the operation, and I assume would cast their lot with a higher power. But that just shouldn’t happen in the United States in 2013. After all, we send men to the moon, and space vehicles to Mars to gather information for our space programs.

I’m not going to get into the war thing, or our foreign policy, or how we give money to other countries whether for political or humanitarian reasons. You regular readers know how I feel about our giveaway attitude that hopefully will ensure obedience and support from the recipients of our benevolent practices.

I’m just wondering when, as a country, we’ll start taking care of our own…..and I am not preaching isolationism. I may not agree with a one world society, but powers way higher than me have dictated that is the way that we’ll go, and at least at the present time, it’ll be how we roll.

But at the present time, somehow we need to address the 45,000,000 uninsured, and the other 30,000,000 that are underinsured. I have a friend who, along with his wife,  isn’t all that well, physically, and there health insurance costs close to $15,000 a year, and they have a $5,000 deductable, to me that isn’t much insurance. I call good insurance a warm and fuzzy contract with an insurer, a contract that benefits the insured every single time he needs to use it.

What our insurance plans have done is ass-backwards, old people need the good coverage for little or no charge what-so-ever, while young people pay out of the bucket because they can get that extra job, or work additional hours to pay high premiums. I know, I know, it’ll never happen, but writing it and thinking it give me that warm and fuzzy feeling.

WHY THE U.S. DOESEN’T HAVE UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE

Most high-income countries today have some form of national health insurance, why is the United States different, what stands in the way? One issue might be that U.S. health care is much more expensive than other countries, the U.S. lacks an egalitarian ethos (an equality shared trait). While the U.S. government is a major consumer of health care resources, it fails to use its bargaining power to obtain lower prices.

Health care in the United States is much more expensive than in other countries, Americans spend as much as 55% more than the next highest country. If you look at the average cost of health care in the 42 European countries that belong to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, (OECD) the U.S. spends 200% more.

The OECD is an interesting world organization with 42 member countries, the organization was established on December 14, 1960, and yes, the United States was one of the founding members. It was intended as a place to bring the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development membership, and the developing world together as a forum where countries come to share their mutual experiences of economic and social development policies. The object is to help makers find policy solutions to stimulate growth and improve living conditions in developing and emerging countries.

The organization was suggested by President John F. Kennedy and is based in Paris, France. The member countries are represented at the Ambassadorial level on a governing board which oversees the design and implementation of bi-annual work programmers.

I had absolutely no idea that such an organization existed, what a great idea for solving some of the problems of the world, a sit-down and conversation with some of the worlds thorny problems…..but with regards to health care (at least in the United States) it hasn’t worked.

Why does the United States spend as much as 200% more for medical care than the member countries of the OECD, one reason might be that the U.S. is held hostage by special interest groups! The political structure of our political system, including the role of primary elections, long and expensive campaigns that separate powers. The numerous congressional committees, subcommittees with overlapping authority, and the need for a supermajority in the Senate in order to pass meaningful legislation, ugh, no wonder we never get much accomplished.

Most of the countries that make up the OECD membership countries have a greater equality of access to health care and also pay for health care in a more progressive way. In the countries that have a universal health care program in place, the service is paid for by taxes on income, sales tax, or some other form of taxation that’s proportional to income.

Other countries use its bargaining power to obtain better health care rates, the OECD membership with a universal health care plan control 70 to 90% of health care expenditures; this fact creates bargaining power that helps to control costs.

BELIEVE IT OR NOT

Without exception, every time the U.S. moves towards some sort of a universal health care plan, the naysayers come out of the woodwork with the same tired arguments, wrapped up in the laisez-faire attitudes of tradition that celebrates individuality and risk-taking. Not having health insurance in today’s society couldn’t be called anything other than risk taking.

The other attitude is the progressive tradition that says people have a right to minimize their standard of living; have time off from work, and an education for their kids. These attitudes make for a nation of mini-entrepreneurs, and progressivism has helped make prosperity a mass-market phenomenon. Others view any kind of a universal health care program akin to a threat to Capitalism.

I’m fortunate that I have my wife, through her shrewd planning we have a health care plan that is better than most. She set aside a percentage of her bi-weekly paycheck for our golden years. That money now pays for a pretty damn good health care plan. I pay $104 a month for a portion of Medicare…..but that’s it.

I am convinced that the health care plan that President Obama has crafted is not an answer to the inequity that we face as a nation with health care, in fact, it may be a joke. The Obama plan actually makes it illegal not to have health insurance of some sort. I think that everybody should have health care, or if they don’t, they’ll have absolutely no access to any kind of coverage…..except a burial service for free, paid for by the taxpayers.

OBAMACARE A TERRIBLE CRUEL OPTION

I was hopeful in the beginning that the Affordable Care Act that the Obama administration came up with would craft itself into what other countries enjoyed with regards to their health insurance. I was wrong, I wasn’t mislead, I chose to look at the plan with kind of “rose colored glasses” and that is always a mistake.

What I was looking for was taxpayer involvement; I initially was looking for a universal tax that would cover everybody’s health problems. It might not have been equal, some people would have paid more because they earned more…..but everybody would have health coverage.

The Obama plan couldn’t have been further from that idea, I always had trouble with Obama care because it would continue dealing with the insurance companies, and pretty much, you can’t deal with them. They’ve been dictating for years the level of coverage, and have kept advancing the rate of pay for different procedures, why would they deal, it’s their game, and they make the rules as the game is played.

It has to be an either or option, you either buy your health insurance from an insurance company, and pay a portion of your insurance premium to help cover those without a plan…..or you pay an additional tax for health care from the government, and you eliminate the insurance companies…..guess which way we’ll be going…..can you say “things are going to remain the same?”

HAVE A NICE DAY!