This week I found a website I had not visited before, and I'm sure I will be utilizing a lot in the months to come. It seems like a fairly obvious place to start looking at health care issues, www.barackobama.com , but for whatever reason I just took a look at it this week, and found a couple of interesting things.
First, there is an issue that is addressed that goes a little something like this:
* Requires large employers to cover their employees and individuals who can afford it to buy insurance so everyone shares in the responsibility of reform.
Now to me this is saying that all people who can afford to buy health care insurance HAVE to buy health care insurance. This concerns me for two reasons. First, on paper we have an ample income, however on paper we don't have a Vectren bill that skyrockets to $800 a month, dance classes, gas for the vehicles, car insurance, homeowner's insurance, and whatever else the government says doesn't count in our monthly expenditures. On paper we have money to burn, in reality, not so much.
Another little item is that the plan:
* Creates a new insurance marketplace — the Exchange — that allows people without insurance and small businesses to compare plans and buy insurance at competitive prices.
ummmmm, what? Was I wrong in thinking that health care reform was for all of us who didn't have it because we couldn't afford it, but we still have to buy it? I thought the socialized health care system was all about using a 'free' socialized health care system, much like the one in England and other countries, (which doesn't cost the English a pence out of pocket, other than taxes). So, we are supposed to pay for the insurance, plus pay more in taxes, plus be told where to go, what we can have done, and there will be limits to procedures, etc.? Am I the only one who has a problem with this?
Since I don't want to be the bearer of everything gloomy and doomy, and since I am trying very hard to support the President of the United States, I have found comething positive:
* Orders immediate medical malpractice reform projects that could help doctors focus on putting their patients first, not on practicing defensive medicine.
I completely agree there needs to be medical malpractice reform, as I have said in previous postings. It would be a great thing for the doctors to worry about their patient's rather than how much they think their patient's will sue them for if they say or do the wrong thing.
On another website, www.healthreform.gov , the issue of passing on the debt of people who don't pay to the people who do in the form of a tax. This brings to mind a story. In 2003 my husband and I were blessed with twins. Miami Valley Hospital, in all it's wisdom, double charged us for everything. I can see charging for two babies in the N.I.C.U., but two delivery charges, two room charges, two ultrasound charges, double everything. Well, needless to say we only paid half of what we were told we owed. The insurance company denied the charges, and when I asked for proof of the charges they charges of course they couldn't give us any. These charges, and charges like them, are part of what is being added in taxes to others accounts. These are the kinds of things that need to be changed in the healthcare system, the kinds of things that need to be address and resolved, and the issues that need reform.
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I think one of the biggest concerns many people have about the proposed health care reform is what affordable really means. I would agree that something needs to be done. There are way too many people who simply cannot afford medical insurance, even though they really want to have it. The cost is just too much to even be a realistic possibility. So when we hear that it is possible the new reforms will include mandatory purchase of insurance it is a little scary. Especially since the government "assistance" with covering the cost may be in the form of tax credits at the end of the year. Not much help when you have to pay for it before you get the credit!
ReplyDeleteI know a lot of people who are extremely upset about the "reformed" health care plan. It is good to know that there are websites out there to help decipher the 1400 page bill that is in the House finance committee that half of congress has not read. I agree though that many argue as to what is considered affordable. These congressional officers that make $125,000 a year do not understand what affordable means to the average american.
ReplyDeleteWe will be forced to pay an ADDITIONAL $2,000 a year (we pay premiums out of every check already)because we elected to have coverage through an employer!!! Talk about baloney! Our plan costs my husband's employer more than what is allowed for a company to pay(?) for a family of five, so we have to pay MORE for that privilege. How does that make sense? The company is based in England, so they worry about what American politicians do way before the average American thinks about it.Needless to say, I am appalled that anyone thinks the government knows how to manage our healthcare. Medicare and Medicaid cannot stay solvent. The American health care industry is bigger than the entire economy of England--and Congress thinks it can whip out a program that will work in less than a year?!Needless to say I am worried.
ReplyDeleteChristine Walker
10/24/09