Dying For Insurance Blog
Hyperbolic Home of The Virtual Patient
Dying For Insurance
Without Mandatory Insurance, eliminating pre-existing conditions will backrupt healthcare
There must be something in the water in Washington that allows for hundreds of lawmakers in both parties to find a way to make a problem worse with thousand page documents.
Considering my last 20 years of experience with insurance companies, it is difficult for me to write a post agreeing with their complaints about the current direction of reform. We must eliminate the pre-existing limitations on obtaining healthcare insurance. But, unless we mandate that all individuals must have insurance, it will increase premiums to a ridiculous level. Without proper controls, we could all decide not to purchase insurance until a medical condition requires it. If the same criteria were applied to car insurance, we could wait until we had an accident and then purchase insurance to cover that accident. As much as we dispise paying for something we don't need, we must begin to pay for something we will need or the premium costs will skyrocket to pay for only those who have diseases.
Recently, I saw a man on television that had a cancerous growth on his lips and jaw that will require well into 6 figures to repair. His jaw will have to be removed, rebuilt and then comes the chemotherapy. This could have been easily corrected early in a doctors office for a few hundred dollars. But he did not have insurance. This is unacceptable regardless of the reasons for his being uninsured.
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"Medical Home" - better coordinated care, cost effective, but some problems.
One thing that has not been addressed by the current healthcare debate is how to keep family physicians in practice and to find a way to encourage more individuals to go into family practice. There must be a more reasonable payment made to physicians for office visits to coordinate care. When we talk about cutting costs in Medicare and Insurance, it always seems that the answer is in paying doctors less than their costs of doing business. Therefore, they are forced to see too many patients, work too many hours to make reasonable compensation and have a life outside of their practice<< MORE >>
Ideas are easy; the problem is with a plan
On the eve of the President's speech to the Joint Session of Congress, it is apparent that we all have been drawn into a contentious debate about nothing. We now have 3 bills out of the House and 2 potential bills out of the Senate. Also, there was a Republican bill in the House that was not voted upon.
This is what happens when no one takes control of getting sides together to get something passed. If the President does not reign in the Liberals and the Republicans allow the hyperbole, nothing will change. Maybe some of you are OK with that, but most Americans believe that Healthcare Reform of some kind is necessary. We just can't agree on how. << MORE >>
This is what happens when no one takes control of getting sides together to get something passed. If the President does not reign in the Liberals and the Republicans allow the hyperbole, nothing will change. Maybe some of you are OK with that, but most Americans believe that Healthcare Reform of some kind is necessary. We just can't agree on how. << MORE >>
Town hall meetings - What would my Grandfather think?
I watched the 200 day report card on President Obama last night and then some of the Town Hall meetings. The current political climate made me realize that my family is similar to the rest of the country. I was fortunate to have a caring family; a mother, grandparents, aunts and uncles that had wildly different political views, yet allowed for my generation to form our own thoughts on current events. Because of that, we had very liberal, very conservative and independent thinkers around the table for holidays. We are today as diverse as the nation, but without the yelling and hyperbole. Because of medical issues and distance, I do not get to see them as much as I want, but every day I think about each one of them and really would enjoy finding out their thoughts on issues. My mother, aunt, brother and sister and some cousins are all that is left who would remember some of those early years and that group covers everything from very conservative to very liberal. So, as I was watching the town hall meetings, I wonder what my grandfather would have thought. << MORE >>
Extreme Smackdown on Cable - the next step to a civilized Health Care solution
I am trying to understand who is to blame for our inability to discuss any subject without anger. It may be our educational system, the wild-west of the Internet or just frustration with our current economic condition. But, until we take the time to encourage and consider original and diverse thought, we are doomed to a litany of forwarded comments from agenda driven websites. If you want to receive hate mail, you only need to express an opinion on anything with which someone, somewhere disagrees. You may agree with 90% of their core beliefs, but unless you accept it all, you are an ignorant (expletive). We are being asked to call or write our members of Congress to either support or reject a bill that has not been completed and will certainly have substantial changes made by next month. << MORE >>
The Politicians have left town - Half-truths are worse than fiction
Republicans:nearly 80% are satisfied with the quality of their health care
Democrats: 85% feel that the health care system needs to be fundamentally changed or completely rebuilt.
We would naturally assume that each are using different methods of polling, or someone isn't telling the truth. These numbers are actually pulled from the same poll using the same group's answers. The politicians are picking only the results that support their own agenda and nothing frustrates me more (except for mimes). If we believe only what we are told, we are as ignorant as our representatives believe. If both are the truth, how can we reach a reasonable solution? Since you asked, here are the real concerns of the American people.
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Do you want Government or Insurance Companies making decisions about your coverage?
A question was presented for viewer's comments and votes on a cable network last month that was simply stated. It was "Would you prefer the Government or Insurance Company between you and your doctor concerning health care procedures?" Not exactly stated, but you get the idea.
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Breaking News: "Healthy people are happier with their Medical Insurance"
With 24 hour news cycles, pundits seem to run out of things to say on any subject. Today, it was noted on network news that healthy people are happier with their medical insurance. I normally try to research what I use to make sure that it is accurate. In this case, unless someone emails me and says, "I never saw that coming," let's all assume that the statement is true and hope that no one was paid much for these words of wisdom. If any news producer is reading this, let me give you a free one for tomorrow. "Those that haven't needed their medical plan for anything in the last 15 years are upset that they paid anything for medical insurance."
Most people are oblivious to the complexities of our insurance system until they are forced to use it for complicated medical problems. We can get to something that works without a tremendous cost if we make some easy choices.<< MORE >>
Keeping what works - Consensus building on solutions to Health Care
There are parts of our Health Care system that are so strange that they defy logic. We really need to all get together and make some policy decisions that we can live with on health care. So, here are just a few decisions we can make to keep a more humane "free market" insurance plan along with what would be a reasonable approach for the government. First order of business: we must decide if health insurance is a right, requirement or a gigantic crap shoot on our future health.<< MORE >>
"If you like your current Bureaucrat, you can keep him."
There are three very vocal groups in the current health care debate: Those who want to do nothing; those who want to do everything and a large group who know changes need to be made, but would like some honest debate. No matter the resulting legislation, we have bureaucrats now and more are coming.<< MORE >>
