Health and Sanity category archive

Via the Booman Tribune.

Country club memberships (emphasis added):

(President) Obama citied recent massive rate hikes by major insurers, and the advice of investment consultants at Goldman Sachs that customers should buy stock in health insurers because it’s easy money – no competition and no price restraints.

“You see, these insurance companies have made a calculation,” Obama said in prepared remarks released by the White House. “They’re OK with people being priced out of health insurance because they’ll still make more by raising premiums on the customers they have. And they will keep doing this for as long as they can get away with it.”

She divorced her husband of over 40 years because he had Alzheimer’s.

It was the only way, after running through all the family’s savings, to make care affordable for him.

Heath care reform is a matter of morality, not a matter of country club memberships for executives.

Our present system is immoral and forces good people to do immoral things to stay alive.

Meanwhile, back in Massachusetts, Roberta still wrestles with her agonizing decision to divorce her husband so he could qualify for Medicaid. “Married couples risk losing nearly everything when one spouse needs long-term care,” explains Hyman Darling, Roberta’s attorney, “and it shouldn’t be that way.”

Roberta has found some peace in the realization that “marriage means more than a piece of paper.” Her love and devotion to Alex have not diminished; she visits him every day in the nursing home, giving him the latest news about their children and sometimes bringing flowers. Totally incapacitated now, both physically and mentally, Alex will never improve or return home. But Roberta is grateful for the time they do have, as well as the peace of mind that comes with knowing her own future is secure. “I’m grateful I still have my home and enough savings so I won’t be dependent on my children,” she says. “But the real question is, why should health care have to end up in the divorce courts? What kind of a system is that?”

Suit:

A federal suit filed today charges the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania with refusing a patient because he lacked health insurance, causing an extended delay in care and then significant damage to his brain.

(snip)

Medical records at Underwood indicate that at 10:54 p.m., Penn said it would take Murray and began to arrange for a helicopter to transport him, according to the complaint. Then at 11:50 p.m., an Underwood nurse wrote that Y. Joseph Woo, a heart surgeon at Penn, called and said they would not take Murray “due to no medical insurance,” the suit alleges.

From FactCheck dot org. As always, follow the link for the full analysis:

McCain says in a new TV ad: “Let’s give every American family a $5,000 refundable tax credit” to buy health insurance.

Sounds good. But McCain failed to mention how existing employer-sponsored health benefits would be affected.

• Employers could no longer deduct the cost of health plans for their workers, which several experts say is likely to cause companies to reduce or eliminate health benefits for their employees.
• Workers would be taxed on the value of any employer-paid health benefits, partially offsetting the $5,000 credit for those now covered by such plans.

The aim of the McCain plan is to reduce health care costs through increased competition, by encouraging individuals to shop around for health insurance and medical care. There are many who favor such an approach, and we take no position on it one way or the other. But McCain’s simplistic ad misleads viewers by promising to give “every American family” a $5,000 benefit while failing to mention what he would also take away.

As I pointed out shortly after I started this blogging thingee, competition and health care are incompatible. Sick people are just not in the position to shop around for health care. They go where their doctors send them and do what their doctors tell them to do.

This could more properly be called the Rich Insurance Company Preservation Proposal.

God help that the rich should fail to get richer, while the middle class and the poor are still there to get poorer.

And anyone who tells you that middle income families can easily find reasonably-priced health insurance on the open market has never had to pay for his or her own health insurance.

My new health insurance policy that I am happy to have and which, frankly, will never be any use to me unless my son or I end up in the hospital (which means I hope it will never be any use to me) is equal to almost half my mortgage payment PITI–more than half my mortgage payment PI–(30 year straight 5.75%) per month.

Recent history has not been kind to working-class Americans, who were down on the economy long before the word recession was uttered.

The main reason: spiraling health-care costs have been whacking away at their wages. Even though workers are producing more, inflation-adjusted median family income has dipped 2.6 percent — or nearly $1,000 annually since 2000.

Employees and employers are getting squeezed by the price of health care. The struggle to control health costs is viewed as crucial to improving wages and living standards for working Americans. Employers are paying more for health care and other benefits, leaving less money for pay increases. Benefits now devour 30.2 percent of employers’ compensation costs, with the remaining money going to wages, the Labor Department reported this month. That is up from 27.4 percent in 2000.

From the Nieman Watchdog:

In recent years several hundred emergency departments (EDs) closed around the U.S., while the total number of patient visits soared. A 2008 study showed waits to see the ED physician increased 36% between 1997 and 2004. The government’s answer: cut funding for urban hospitals, where waits are longest.

Best health care in the world.

Yeah.

Right.

One of the myths propounded by those who oppose any change to the current broken system of health care in the United States is that “we have the best health care in the world.”

We don’t. It’s, like, what? 37th, I think.

Daniel DiRito deconstructs the “best health care in the world” claim over at ASZ.

Providing health care and the profit motive, incompatible. We need to move to a system with a goal of providing health care, not a goal of enriching CEO’s and salespersons (emphasis added):

One of California’s largest for-profit insurers stopped a controversial practice of canceling sick policyholders Friday after a judge ordered Health Net Inc. to pay more than $9 million to a breast cancer patient it dropped in the middle of chemotherapy.

(snip)

State Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner applauded the judge, saying “health insurers simply cannot hold out the promise of insurance for their consumers and then snatch it away just when people need it most. That is illegal, immoral and will not be tolerated.”

Earlier, Health Net had defended its actions, saying it never would have issued Bates a policy in the first place if she had disclosed her true weight and a preexisting heart condition on her application.

Bates said a broker filled out the application while she was styling a client’s hair on a busy day in her shop. She said she answered his questions as best she could.

Bates said she already had insurance and wasn’t in the market until the broker came by and told her that he thought he could get her a lower monthly premium if she switched to Health Net.

At the arbitration hearing, internal company documents were disclosed showing that Health Net had paid employee bonuses for meeting a cancellation quota and for the amount of money saved.

“It’s difficult to imagine a policy more reprehensible than tying bonuses to encourage the rescission of health insurance that keeps the public well and alive,” the judge wrote.

Via Atrios.

After 6 agonizing months of trying to find out what is wrong with our health care system, why we pay twice as much as the rest of the rest of the world but are only ranked 37th in overall care by the world health organization, why 47 million Americans lack any health insurance at all, why the leading cause of bankruptcy has become unpaid medical bills (75% of these people had insurance when they first got ill), why health care costs rise every year at a much higher rate of inflation than any other item in our economy, even than energy and after realizing that all these trends will continue in the future and may get worse, I have come to the conclusion that health care does not belong in the free-market system.

I am not a socialist.

I love the free market system; it has kept all other goods and services within reach of almost all working Americans

Are there 47 million Americans who cannot afford car insurance or the Internet or cable t.v.?

No, because none of the afore-mentioned have doubled in the past 8 years.

One argument that is often voiced in health care’s defense is that new technology has forced prices to rise.

I cannot buy into that, because there has been or should have been other innovations that should have offset that.

All areas of our economy have adopted new technology, but have not had prices soar like health care.

Others mention expensive litigation, but litigation totals only 2% of the total.

Not being able to sue for malpractice would not solve the problem.

The problem is that basically health care is the only area of the free market system where you cannot shop for price.

No one clips coupons or shops the yellow pages for best price for care when they get sick; they just want to get well.

Health care providers can charge any fee they chose, and so they do.

I spent 40 years managing furniture stores.

How wonderful it would have been to have no price comparison to contend with!

I could have tripled my mark up and retired in ten years.

One thing we have found out early in the free market system is monopolies are dangerous to the health of our economy. If one sector, especially a staple like health care, takes too big a piece of the pie, the whole pie is in trouble.

The only solution, as distasteful as it may seem, is some type of European or Canadian plan that covers every one.

Otherwise, there is nothing in our future but pain and suffering.

John Cole at Balloon Juice (emphasis added):

I was talking to a cabbie who I ride with every now and then (some days I don’t take the bus), and remarked that I had not seen him for a while. Apparently he had a mild heart attack over the holidays (he is 61), and was admitted at around midnight on December 21st and released on the 25th. He had a number of procedures, to include having some stents put in, and he just got his bill yesterday:

$65,000.00

I asked him if he had insurance, and he just laughed and said he could never get it, but that is ok, because even if he could, he could not afford it. He’ll never be able to pay the bill, and he has to go back for some more procedures and is heading to the VA to see what can be done.

Our health care system makes no damned sense whatsoever. . . . Something is going to have to give, and quite honestly, I find it amazing that the Republican candidates never even talk about the subject other than to scare people with phrases like “socialized medicine” or “Hillarycare.” The Republican attitude towards health care right now isn’t just stupid, it is grossly irresponsible and negligent.

At any rate, my cab driver friend thanks all you out there with insurance, because believe me, he isn’t paying the bill. You are. And you are a damned fool if you think you aren’t.

Her premium was smaller than the one I was looking at because she was not trying to insure a dependant.

But she can’t afford it any more (emphasis added):

I am a healthy 27-year-old woman with no preexisting medical conditions. I eat healthy, don’t smoke, don’t jump buses on a motorcycle for a living, steer clear of trans fats, and work out four days a week. Heck, I even medaled in my last 5k. I’m also self-employed, so to avoid medical Russian roulette, I buy my own health insurance.

To keep costs reasonable – at least what is considered reasonable in the health insurance game – my plan has a $10,000 deductible. This means that I pay for everything – doctor’s visits, lab tests, prescriptions – out of pocket. The insurance company will start covering anything after I’ve reached the $10,000 mark.

Gee, thanks.

I hate to admit it, but I’ve not gone to the doctor because I couldn’t afford it. I’ve waited out that rattling cough to see if it would go away on its own. I’ve wrapped my hands in bandages to see if my eczema outbreaks, which left open sores on my hands, would self-seal through over-the-counter lotions and perseverance. I’ve even skipped routine tests because to do so would put me, conservatively, $300 more in the hole. I don’t play soccer anymore for fear of what one broken bone could do to my bank account. And I really like soccer.

To put it bluntly: It stinks being underinsured. Health care is my second-highest monthly bill – only to my mortgage – and still I feel like I can’t see the doctor when I’m sick. Still, I pay my bills on time, both to the insurance companies and my doctors. And how am I thanked for it? With another rate hike – up from $373.27 to $429.26 a month for this year.

Well, someone has to pay the insurance company executives’ salaries.

If not I, why not her?

Addendum, Later That Same Day:

Daniel DiRito shows how we’re not getting our money’s worth.

My friend Raymond Krauss has been researching health care and suggests that health care is inherently unsuited to capitalism.

Here is his article:

First and foremost, let me emphasize that, not unlike most Americans, I heartedly agree with Winston Churchill when he said in 1954 that “the inherent ice of Capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings.” A socialist I am not! Capitalism has historically both raised incomes and reduced the cost of goods, allowing for a better standard of living for the masses.

Nevertheless, when it comes to heath care, this has lately not been the case.

Capitalism and competition have not served to reduce the cost of health care, but, in fact, have caused health care costs to rise at an astonishing rate, approximately five times the rate of regular inflation for the past seven years. Even more worrisome is that this trend may worsen in both the future.

To understand why this is happening in our otherwise great economic system of capitalism, I need to draw an analogy between a cup of coffee and health care.

In any American city or town, if you want a hot cup of java on a cold winter morning, capitalism gives you options. Stop at Starbucks for a $5.00 cup of “gourmet” coffee; go a little farther and enjoy a $2.00 cup at Dunkin Donuts (this about health care–we’ll skip the doughnut); of, if the budget is a little tight, stop at MacDonald’s for a pretty good $.69 cup of joe.

All three venues represent major corporations; together they give the consumer choices.

When it comes to health care, the $.69 and the $2.00 cups are not options; Starbucks is the first and last stop. There is no compelling market place pressure to reduce prices in the health care industry. Every health care service strives to be Starbucks.

Furthermore, the nature of health care does not provide economies of scale. The more automobiles that Toyota makes, the lower the manufacturing cost of each unit.

In health care, the more patients a hospital or nursing home, for example, has, the higher the overall cost, with no corresponding decrease in per patient costs: more doctors, more nurses, more technicians, more rooms, more construction, more diagnostic and life-support equipment.

The aging of the baby boomers will only exacerbate this situation. Costs will continue to rise; an increasing percentage of income will be spent on health care.

As consumers divert funds from purchasing goods and services–automobiles, Iphones, houses–to paying for doctors, nurses, tests, hospital rooms, consumers will have less to spend on goods and services to fuel the rest of the economy.

After paying for health care, all we will be able to afford to wake up with is that $.69 cup of coffee, while the other, more expensive coffee-seller face diminishing returns and, ultimately, bankruptcy.

Avoiding this scenario lies in following the steps of other industrialized countries: a comprehensive national health care plan with costs shared by everyone, business and consumers.

Other countries with comparable or, in many cases, better health care pay nowhere near the amount we do, protecting the disposable income of their consumers and helping keep the rest of their economies strong.

The American health care crisis is also becoming more acute as other prices increase. After 70 years, most economists agree that the root cause of the Great Depression was consumers’ insufficient purchasing power. As shown above, high health care costs are eroding consumers’ purchasing power already. Consumer spending accounts for 70% of our economy; it needs to remain there or the illness of Depression will infect out economy.

We are blessed in one way: So many other countries have national health care that we can study them and pick the best options to suit our needs.

A national plan–almost any national plan–will slow the hyper-inflation of health care costs by averaging the costs across the entire populace.

National health care is a tough sell in the United States. We have been so successful in using the free market for almost everything that is is difficult to turn to something that looks more like socialism than capitalism.

But it is time to make the change so as to preserve the rest of our free market economy.

In preparing the article, Raymond read about 10 books. Below are listed his primary sources:

Money Driven Medicine by Maggie Mahar
Heath Care Reform Now by Ge0rge Halvorson
Sick: The Untold Story of American’s Health Care Crisis–and the People Who Pay the Price by Jonathan Cohn
Health Care Melt Down: Confronting the Myths and Fixing Our Failing System by Dr. Robert Lebow and C. Rocky White

Also posted at Kos.

One of the most bogus arguments against a national health care system is that it will lead to “rationing” health care.

Surprise! It’s rationed already.

You got money, you got health care.

Otherwise, otherwise.

Outraged family and friends are blaming a medical insurer’s heel-dragging for the premature death of a California teenager who died awaiting a liver transplant.

Nataline Sarkisyan, a 17-year-old from Glendale, Calif., died Thursday just a few hours after her insurer, Cigna Health Care, approved a procedure it had previously described as “too experimental” and that dozens of Sarkisyan’s supporters protested at the Cigna’s headquarters.

Compassionate Conservatism.

Addendum, 10/11/07:

ASZ.

Atrios.

Jon Swift.

Eugene Robinson on the lies (emphasis added):

To say that George W. Bush spends money like a drunken sailor is to insult every gin-soaked patron of every dockside dive in every dubious port of call. If Bush gets his way, the cost of his wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will soon reach a mind-blowing $600 billion. Despite turning a budget surplus into a huge deficit, the man still hasn’t met a tax cut he doesn’t like. And when the Republicans were in charge of Congress, Bush might as well have signed their pork-stuffed spending bills with a one-word rubber stamp: “Whatever.”

(snip)

Bush’s stated reasons for vetoing the SCHIP bill left even reliable congressional allies — such as Republican Sens. Orrin Hatch of Utah and Charles Grassley of Iowa, both of whom supported the legislation — sputtering in incomprehension. As for me, I don’t know what to call the president’s rationale but a pack of flat-out lies.

I’ve stayed away from this issue because it makes my brain hurt, but, fortunately for me, Jon Swift has cut to the crux of the matter:

If the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the recalls of pet food have taught us anything it is that government cannot save us from ourselves. If people had not depended on FEMA to bail them out in New Orleans or believed that the FDA was making sure pet food was safe, then many lives might have been saved. By putting competent people in positions of power in government agencies, the Clinton Administration fooled people into thinking that government could look out for them. President Bush, however, has forced Americans to become more self-reliant. The people of New Orleans and many pet owners have already learned this important lesson. Now President Bush is bringing his message of tough love to our nation’s children. Those children who have not perished from stupidly eating their toys or succumbed to preventable illnesses will be stronger because of his policies and they will thank him if they manage to become adults.

Factcheck dissects Bush’s lies about SCHIP. Follow the link for the complete, reality-based analysis:

President Bush gave a false description of proposed legislation to expand the 10-year-old federal program to provide health insurance for children in low-income working families.

He said it “would result” in covering children in families with incomes up to $83,000 per year, which isn’t true. The Urban Institute estimated that 70 percent of children who would gain coverage are in families earning half that amount, and the bill contains no requirement for setting income eligibility caps any higher than what’s in the current law.

He also said the program was “meant to help poor children,” when in fact Congress stated that it was meant to expand insurance coverage beyond the poor and to cover millions of “low-income” children who were well above the poverty line. Under current law most states cover children at twice or even three times the official poverty level.

The president also says Congress’ expansion is a step toward government-run health care for all. It’s true that some children and families with private insurance are expected to shift to the government program. But the Congressional Budget Office estimates that such a shift is relatively low considering the number of uninsured these bills would reach.

All the lies.

They do get tiresome.

Addendum, 9/24/2007:

Steve has more.

This article will resonate with anyone who has ever had to take a child to the Emergency Room.