Healthcare

I got a forwarded email today that said "free our healthcare now" It basically said no free healthcare should be provided, but that the government is hijacking our healthcare system by trying to institute nationalized healthcare.
I want to be able to chose my doctor - pay what I can afford, chose my insurance company, and have no waits, no denials and all that other stuff too - but the only insurance I can get is what is offered from Drason's work - and we have looked into buying insurance privately- our current insurance isn't affordable (about $350.00 a month) - the in network doctors stink, the co pays and deductibles are outrageous, my RX's aren't covered - one medicine that Mason needed was $348.00 - we couldn't afford to have it filled! So while I would LOVE to have all of the things on that website's list - the fact is that the only countries who actually have that stuff are Canada, France, Sweden and most of Europe.
The US has the HIGHEST infant mortality rate and the LOWEST life expectancy of most of the western world, on top of all that our doctor's are the best paid and we have the most mal-practice suits.
At Faith Mission, where Drason works, they have uninsured people dropped off by cab drivers in front of the mission almost weekly. They are the poorest of the poor - they should be covered by any number government of programs - but hospitals are so money hungry they treat them as minimally as possible - if at all - stick them in a cab, dressed in only a hospital gown, and dump them on the side of the road -many of them are hardly able to stand or walk - very few are able to coherently give their name and any information about themselves or their condition.
When I worked at C***** Medical in Columbus, I was taught how to manipulate insurance plans, provide cheap off brand diabetic supplies, and coach people into begging their insurance companies to pay for it. I can not tell you how many old ladies I spoke to on the phone that had Medicare part A, B, and D(Medicare part D is actually privitized - so it isn't really medicare - gov't run - it is run by insurance companies), and their very necessary diabetic meter and test strips, which SHOULD have been covered in their part D plans, were not covered and cost them several hundred dollars a month. So the old ladies asked me - a sales person - if they could take their blood sugar 1 time a day instead of 3 times a day. We were asked this so often that there was an employee handbook chapter that told us how to handle this. Here is how we were expected to respond - we call the doctor's office for them- explain the insurance coverage to the nurses - who can sometimes give them free supplies - but who more often then not we either talk to the doctor and explain the insurance coverage, or the nurses talk to the doctor's. The result was always the same - the doctor's change the orders to test once a day instead of the three times a day that is needed. The old ladies ask me if this is ok, if this will be good enough. We were actually given scripted responses so that we could lead them to believe that it was ok, without legally acting as a medical services provider - needless to say I quit that job after about 3 months - I could not "sell" the medical supplies to the patients and pretend that I didn't know they were getting completely ripped off. I was constantly put in a position that required me to negotiate a compromise between the medical care required and the medical care that the insurance company would pay for- or that the patient could afford.
The point is this - I don't know what the answer is to these problems - but our health care system is extremely broken. Some say lawsuits cause the cost - but even the insurance companies estimate this to be only 1/2 of one percent of the actual cost of health care, personally I think it is the companies themselves that are causing the problems - take it that my experience with insurance companies has not been good -but it is my experience that these people are out to make money - and a lot of it!
Many Christian people I know are very much against any nationalized healthcare - be that as it may - The following was taken from the CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
"Washington - President Obama has indicated he wants a healthcare bill on his desk sometime around October, before we worry about timetables, however, we as a nation have to answer two very fundamental questions.
First, should all Americans be entitled to healthcare in the same way we respond to other basic needs such as education, police, and fire protection? Second, if we are to provide quality healthcare to all, how do we accomplish that in the most cost-effective way?
The answer to the first question is pretty clear, and one of the reasons that Barack Obama was elected president. Most Americans believe that all of us should have healthcare coverage, and that nobody should be left out of the system. The real debate is how we accomplish that goal in an affordable and sustainable way.
To me, the evidence is overwhelming that we must end the private insurance company domination of healthcare in our country and move toward a publicly funded, single-payer, Medicare-for-all approach.
Our current private health insurance system is the most costly, wasteful, complicated, and bureaucratic in the world. But in America, the people who have to navigate that maze are the lucky ones. Today, 46 million people have no health insurance and even more are underinsured with high deductibles and co-payments. At a time when 60 million people, including many with insurance, do not have access to a medical home base, more than 18,000 Americans die every year from preventable illnesses. That is six times the number who died in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Despite the fact that we spend almost twice as much per person on healthcare as any other country, our healthcare outcomes lag behind many other nations. According to the World Health Organization, the United States ranks 37th in terms of health system performance and we are far behind many other countries in terms of such important indices as infant mortality, life expectancy, and preventable deaths.
The main reason we get such bad results is that the function of private health insurance companies is not to provide quality healthcare for all, but to make huge profits for those who own the companies. With thousands of different health benefit programs designed to maximize profits, private health insurance companies spend an incredible 30 percent of each healthcare dollar on administration and billing, exorbitant CEO compensation packages, advertising, lobbying, and campaign contributions. Public programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and the department of Veterans Affairs are administered for far less.
In recent years, while we have experienced an acute shortage of primary healthcare doctors as well as nurses and dentists, we are paying for a huge increase in healthcare bureaucrats and bill collectors. Over the past three decades, the number of administrative personnel has grown by 25 times the number of physicians.
While healthcare costs are soaring, it should surprise no one that profits of private health insurance companies are more than keeping pace.
From 2003 to 2007, the combined profits of the nation's major health insurance companies increased by 170 percent. And, while more and more Americans are losing their jobs and health insurance, the top executives in the industry are receiving lavish compensation packages.
It's not just William McGuire, the former head of United Health, who several years ago accumulated stock options worth an estimated $1.6 billion, or Cigna CEO Edward Hanway who made more than $120 million in the past five years. The reality is that CEO compensation for the top health insurance companies now averages $14.2 million.
The president has been supportive of a public option – a plan that people could opt into if they are uninsured or don't like their private coverage. But the situation is extremely fluid. How do you get to the root of a problem when you fail to take on the private health industry?
The time is now for our nation to address the most profound moral and economic issue we face. The time is now for our country to join the rest of the industrialized world and provide cost-effective, comprehensive, quality healthcare to every man, woman, and child in our country. The time is now to take on the powerful special interests in the insurance and pharmaceutical industries and pass a single-payer national healthcare program.
Bernie Sanders is an independent senator for Vermont and a member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee."