Saturday, 22 August 2009

• Who would God Deny?

  What are your thoughts??????

  With the rising cost of health care and prescriptions many people are caused to go without preventative or immediate care for illnesses they have causing progression of the disease or even worse death. Even if the care is offered the person is denied by their medical insurance if they are lucky enough to have insurance due to their qualifying health questions. We are taught to love our neighbors as our selves and to help our fellow man or woman. So the question is who would God deny? Who is unworthy of life saving medical care?
  

  Some of you may know that March 2007 I was hospitalized with pneumonia. We had insurance (crappy insurance) but of course the insurance doesn't cover everything. The bills started coming in. We called the hospital to set up payments. We were told that they don't do payments. They wanted all the money in one payment. We didn't have that type of money. They had the nerve to tell us we should put it on a credit card. (We don't do credit cards) So they ended up sending us a letter telling us we were banned from the whole network (that is all the drs in this area and the hospital). The bill was sent to collections which were very nice and allowed us to set up payments and the bill was paid off.

  This whole experiences really made me think. It is bad when a person has to sit at home and tell their husband that they could have afforded for the person to died better then going to get help.

  There are many people dying because they can not afford the treatments that they need. There are people loosing everything to pay for the treatments they need. All this is happening here in American.

  One-fifth of all Americans, 48.8 million individuals, were in families spending more than 10% of their family income on healthcare in 2003, an increase of 11.7 million persons since 1996. Of these, 18.7 million (7.3%) were spending more than 20% of family income, a figure normally associated with home ownership. The percent of middle-income Americans (22.7%) spending over 10% of their income on healthcare was almost identical to the percent of low-income Americans (23.7%) on healthcare (JAMA, Dec. 13, 2006).

  Half of all personal bankruptcies are caused by illness or medical bills. The number of medical bankruptcies has increased by 2200% since 1981 (Health Affairs, February, 2005). Two-thirds of people with a medical bill or debt problem went without needed care due to cost (Commonwealth Fund,Aug. 2005).

  Nearly 30% of low and middle-income households with credit card debt cite medical debt as a contributing factor; 69% of those had a major medical expense in the previous three years (Borrowing to Stay Healthy: How Credit Card Debt Is Related to Medical Expenses, Demos,The Access Project, January, 2007)

  Uninsured, national — 46.8 million (15.9% of the population), 2005, up from 45.3 million in 2004. Hispanics highest rate of uninsured – 32.7%; African-Americans, 19.6%; Asians, 17.9%; whites, 15%; children, 11.2%; middle-income ($50k–$75k), 14.1%; work full-time, 17.7% (U.S. Census Bureau). 82 million, or one in three non-elderly Americans, went without health insurance during 2003–2004 (Washington Post, Dec. 13, 2006).

  Lack of health insurance causes 18,000 unnecessary deaths every year (Institute of Medicine, January 14, 2004), the equivalent of six times the number who died in 9/11. (Louisville Courier-Journal, Jan. 30, 2006)

  Underinsured, national — 17.1 million people under 65 in 2003 (JAMA, Dec. 13, 2006). "Underinsured" person defined as someone with health expenses exceeding 10% of his or her income. Among the underinsured, 38% did not fill prescriptions due to cost, 32% went without seeing a doctor when needed, 30% avoided medical tests, treatment or follow-up care. 18% declined care from specialists. 46% reported being contacted by a collection agency about unpaid medical bills. 35% reported changing their lifestyle to cover medical expenses (Health Affairs, June 14, 2005).

  The United States is the only wealthy, industrialized nation that does not have a universal health care system.

  Whether a government mandated system of universal health care should be implemented in the U.S. remains a hotly debated political topic. What are your thoughts?

  Common arguments forwarded by supporters of universal health care systems include:

  * Health care is a basic human right or entitlement.

  * Ensuring the health of all citizens benefits a nation economically.

  * About 60% of the U.S. health care system is already publicly financed with federal and state taxes, property taxes, and tax subsidies - a universal healthcare system would merely replace private/employer spending with taxes. Total spending would go down for individuals and employers.

  * A single payer system could save $286 billion a year in overhead and paperwork. Administrative costs in the U.S. health care system are substantially higher than those in other countries and than in the public sector in the US: one estimate put the total administrative costs at 24 percent of U.S. health care spending.

  * Several studies have shown a majority of taxpayers and citizens across the political divide would prefer a universal healthcare system over the current U.S. system

  * Universal health care would provide for uninsured adults who may forgo treatment needed for chronic health conditions.

  * Wastefulness and inefficiency in the delivery of health care would be reduced.

  * America spends a far higher percentage of GDP on health care than any other country but has worse ratings on such criteria as quality of care, efficiency of care, access to care, safe care, equity, and wait times, according to the Commonwealth Fund.

  * A universal system would align incentives for investment in long term health-care productivity, preventive care, and better management of chronic conditions.

  * The profit motive adversely affects the cost and quality of health care. If managed care programs and their concomitant provider networks are abolished, then doctors would no longer be guaranteed patients solely on the basis of their membership in a provider group and regardless of the quality of care they provide. Theoretically, quality of care would increase as true competition for patients is restored.

  * A 2008 opinion poll of 2,000 US doctors found support for a universal healthcare plan at 59%-32%, which is up from the 49%-40% opinion of physicians in 2002. These numbers include 83% of psychiatrists, 69% of emergency medicine specialists, 65% of pediatricians, 64% of internists, 60% of family physicians and 55% of general surgeons. The reasons given are an inability of doctors to decide patient care and patients who are unable to afford care.

  * According to an estimate by Dr. Marcia Angell roughly 50% of healthcare dollars are spent on healthcare, the rest go to various middlemen and intermediaries. A streamlined, non-profit, universal system would increase the efficiency with which money is spent on healthcare.

  * In countries in Western Europe with public universal health care, private health care is also available, and one may choose to use it if desired. Most of the advantages of private health care continue to be present, see also Two-tier health care.

  * Universal health care and public doctors would protect the right to privacy between insurance companies and patients.

  * Public health care system can be used as independent third party in disputes between employer and employee.

  
  Common arguments forwarded by opponents of universal health care systems include:

  * Health care is not a right. As such, it is not the responsibility of government to provide health care.

  * If universal health care is provided by federally mandated purchase of health insurance, it may be unconstitutional, since the Constitution does not give the federal government this right and reserves all non-mentioned rights to the States or the People.

  * Universal heath care would result in increased wait times, which could result in unnecessary deaths.

  * Unequal access and health disparities still exist in universal health care systems.

  * Universal health care would reduce efficiency because of more bureaucratic oversight and more paperwork, which could lead to fewer doctor-patient visits. Advocates of this argument claim that the performance of administrative duties by doctors results from medical centralization and over-regulation, and may reduce charitable provision of medical services by doctors.

  * Many problems that universal health insurance is meant to solve are presumed caused by limitations on the free market. As such, free market solutions have greater potential to improve care and coverage.

  * The federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act requires hospitals and ambulance services to provide emergency care to anyone regardless of citizenship, legal status or ability to pay. The health care safety net, which includes free medical clinics, charity care, nonprofits and government-run community hospitals, provides necessary care to the uninsured.

  * The widely quoted health care system ranking by the World Health Organization, in which the US system ranked below other countries' universal health care systems, used biased criteria, giving a false sense of those systems' superiority.

  * Empirical evidence on the Medicare single payer-insurance program demonstrates that the cost exceeds the expectations of advocates. As an open-ended entitlement, Medicare does not weigh the benefits of technologies against their costs. Paying physicians on a fee-for-service basis also leads to spending increases. As a result, it is difficult to predict or control Medicare's spending. Large market-based public program such as the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program and CalPERS can provide better coverage than Medicare while still controlling costs as well.

  * Universal health care systems, in an effort to control costs by gaining or enforcing monopsony power, sometimes outlaw medical care paid for by private, individual funds.

  So what are your thoughts? Are you for Universal Health care? Why? Are you against it? Why?
  Do you have insurance? Any insurance horror stories?

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