Too broke for health care: why you can't afford insurance

the myth continues with the politicians saying Medicare Part D is great. Last year I spent 2000 dollard for the entire year. So far through July the entire costs has been over 2, 000. Hope November comes soon so we can get rid of the incumbents.

get the Republicans out..............Bill had health care for us..maybe hiluray will

I am 55. My wife is 58 with extsting asthma. I am self employed. Try on the $1345.00 per month and not even have the asthma covered with a $2500. deductable. What did and what do we do? Moved to Lake Tahoe, started excercising every day. We both lost weight and the wife quite taking three inhalers. Had to get some skin cancer taken off my nose and the doc was nice. His policy is: insurance='s $2100. Medicare ='s $1650. and cash was a $1000. Yep, I could drop dead from a heart attack. Hope I do. I would not want to see the hospital bill to save me. Do the math. 80% insurance coverage. You pay 20% ='s $405. + co=pay (3visits @ $35.) 105 + monthly premimun + deductable ? $500. A insured still pays the doc more than a cash patient.The average insured/employed person is not getting any real deal.

I am a self-employed business 59 year old business woman. I have been working on a year long government contract, so thankfully I was able to purchase my own health insurance ($300 per month).

I had a severe diverticulitis attack in February 2006 which required emergency colostomy surgery ($31,000). In May, I had another surgery to reconnect the colon ($38,000) and then two weeks after that I ended up back in the hospital for 16 days ($32,000) due to a serious infection. Thank god I had insurance! In addition, to the 72 days of work I missed during my recuperation periods, I still have to pay close to $5000.00 in medical bills - but it could be much worse. I've gone through a complete lifestyle change to stay healthy.

When I was miserable with pain in the hospital, I was also suffering from the worry of the financial consequences, which is some ways was worse than the physical pain.

People shouldn't have to worry about being able to afford quality healthcare. I can't imagine what I would have done had I not been covered.

I run the client relations department for an internet based health insurance agency that does the shopping for thousands of uninsured Americans across the country every day. Our licensed agents shop for the best plan from the top insurance companies only (none of those rip-off discount plans out there, thank you)that fits our customers needs. Log onto the site www.iinsureonline.com

In many ways I have given up on this countries concern about the health and well being of its citizens. Our governmental representatives talk about doing something yet continue to receive the best medical services avaiable at no cost and accept polictical donations from drug companies, medical lobbies and malpractice attorney's. Does anyone really believe help is just over the horizon? I think not!!!!

Sarah, I have a questions about your rant on the fat and happy health insurance companies. One, are you on crack, or did you have a labotomy? Ever think of putting some factual info in your blog? If anything your paycheck is being frittered away to big oil companies. Insurance companies are heavily regulated so as not to make too much or too little money, thereby insuring the risk of policyholders who have a major health issue. The problem with insurance rates is compounded by many things. The worst is the litigation system. Mega million dollar awards have skyrocketed in the last 5 years. That causes malpractice rates to go up which causes doctors to practice "defensive" medicine. In other words, doctors order batteries of tests for patients they otherwise wouldn't just to cover themselves for lawsuits. Now a $100 Dr. vists becomes a $3000 claim. Other problems include the epidemic of obesity in the USA. Today, 1 in 3 Americans is obese which leads to hypertension, diabetes, and other things which Doctors prescribe costly medications for. As for national healthcare...give me a break. Do you really want the government to be in charge of your healthcare??? In Canada, you can wait 5 months for a CAT scan. How's that for healthcare? The insurance is doing just fine in the USA, thank you.

Health care should be run as a nonprofit organization. We are accepting insurance as a profit business, which means that they pay back pennies on the dollar. Have not heard what is a profitable business. 95+ for the dollar or which means what cost them (insurance) is five cent or less to take care of you. I guess we like it in _____ because we dont do nothing about it and they are enjoying it.

It is indeed a strange country we live in. All men are created equal, but not according to healthcare that's available. We had the "pay it yourself" insurance experience too. The insurance cost nearly double our actual medical expenses until we got really sick. Then we could no longer maintain the monthly insurance payments, and they dropped us. Somewhat ironic, we got poisoned by a big companies cost cutting tactics. There was no accountability, every corporations dream.

Why is wall street happy? If they had customer service you could call, it would be overseas where they can hire 5 workers for the cost of one US job. Or the reverse, you get one US customer service worker who has 5 people's workload, and you're pressing all the digits on your phone in replies to the computer generated pre-screen questions, probably in (their) hopes you'll just give in and hang up before you talk to a real person.

Big business is going well, but maybe for the wrong reasons. Entire industries are being shipped out of the US, and people like the Waldens apparently need billions to have a their slice of America, while we need second mortgages and credit cards to shop in their stores.

Why health care is so high is speculative here. Maybe in part to new amazing potential treatments that cost millions to develop, made really in the hopes the inventor can retire in luxury...and help a few people on the side.

Same with many of our miracle drugs. It costs about $10.00 to have sex with your spouse, $4.00 to shut down and sleep, and the of list of mostly artificially created needs would be too long to site; so many physical and mental stress related illnesses can be tracked back to making a dollar.

Fortunately there's a pill for about anything, though few cures; the most profitable drugs are designed to be endless treatments. The bottom line is, it's the bottom line that's monitored first, and our health is starting to run second as a nation.


Insurance peddlers might try to tell you it's all those frivolous lawsuits driving up your insurance. Thanks to Bush's hard work at tort reform, effectively reducing liability for medical mistakes and mal-practice, and his 100,000,000,000 a year war in Iraq, supposedly to protect us from something, I would feel safer in Iraq than in a hospital tonight...not that I can afford either.

You kind of came out of left field at me with this one Sarah... I'll do my best.

First: If we pull the dollar signs out of the way for just a moment, can we agree that as a nation we have some of the best health care practitioners in the world working here for us? Honestly now, aren't our doctors the best? For the most part, I think they are. So, the problem isn't the level of care.

Then what IS the problem? Health care costs too high?
In some respects yes. Which begs the question...WHY?

Insurance companies are PARTIALLY to blame. Before the last "crash" of the stock market, insurance companies made a major portion of their profit not from premiums but from stock investments. They were good at it. They would take your REASONABLE premiums and invest wisely and "turn" that money in compound cycles that would generate bushels of cash. That's how they got wealthy. They did good and they deserved everything they got.

When the market fell (and I forget what year it was), the insurance companies lost BIG. They had to do something to prevent a system crash. They had no choice but to come to the work force and solicit more cash. There was nothing to stop them, it worked and we kept quiet. Because major firms tend to rotate top executives at a pretty quick pace, what happened was that the folks who remembered how insurance companies USED TO make their profits were moved out of position by the time the stock market could resupport the old processes. So, the new gaurd has used the new process to uphold the old profit margins and growth patterns. One problem, the new process has been to come and get the money from us. Now, it threatens to trash us all.

Add to this voracious need for profit an ever growing population of attorneys. Now, I dislike attorneys as much as the next guy. But, the fact is that we need them... and there are some good ones out there. They need money just like the rest of us. It's not their fault that injuries are the best field for them to plow. Their work just happens to intersect with insurance and doctors. They didn't plan it that way. It is what it is and it costs what it costs. The insurance companies pay it... and they come get the money from us.

Pharmacuticals play a major part... I ain't even going into that. It's a whole problem in itself. We'll leave it for another day.

Inflation, and the inability of the wage scale to keep up with it has probably played the biggest part.

When I joined the work force, in 1980, inflation was running about 4%. I think it has averaged that since then. My pay increases have averaged 2 to 3 percent annually in that time period. What that means is that for every $10.00 I made in 1980, I'm making $9.80 now, but everything costs more. I know, it's a rough lesson in back street economics but what's a guy to do?

My solutions? HAH! that's a tall order to fill!

Tell the insurance companies to get their profits from stocks like they used to. Increased competition among insurers. Premium caps for us, litigation caps for attorneys, and liability caps for doctors might help some.
Force food manufacturers to process food for nutrition rather than for handling and shelf life would help also.
Require legislators to pay THEIR health insurance out of pocket... THAT would help a lot!

Institutionalize health care? Not on your life! Socialistic medicine benefits no one. It never has and it never will. The day the doctors can no longer profit from being good at what they do is the day I ask God to take me home!

I could write more, but really, I have to get to bed.
I have a chiropractor's appointment in the morning.

Take a hint... I'm healthy as a horse! (wink, wink)

Love to ALL!

Gary

Can a Canadian participate in this discussion?
I am very thankfull for our medicare system. People still complain though and I admit there are problems which need to be addressed. Our premiums are a little over $1000 a year in this province for a family who have an income over $20,000 a year- below that its a sliding scale with no premiums for some- unemployed pay nothing. Same treatment to all. Some provinces have no premiums- included in taxes. Pharmacare has a deductable per year depending on income- about 10% but varies.
Some of my American friends seem to think we can't choose our doctors . Not true. I've had both hips and a knee replaced and a lung removed due to cancer. Top surgeons. My cash payouts may have amounted to a few hundred dollars. No hospital bills. Our problems are fixable- with the political will. That is often lacking though.
Profit should not be made on the misfortune of oothers.