It’s Everyone

No mis-perception here!I’m lucky enough to have Medicare plus a BC/BS supplement. Long story cut short – this is the best coverage I’ve had in my life, at a much better price than any coverage I’ve had since the mid 80′s.So, no convincing needed here!

Well being self-employed and a diabetic, I don’t have insurance. I have called around before and got quotes. To get coverage that amounts to anything would cost me about $300 a month and then they don’t cover diabetic testing supplies, so add another $100+ onto the monthly bill. So instead I go with programs offered by different pharmaceutical companies, hospitals and retailers (ie: WalMart’s $4 drug program). That’s enough to get me by and then I just pay out of pocket to people like my doctor.

I hear you. I think anyone that has private insurance and has been polled as “happy with their current coverage” almost certainly has not used it for anything beyond preventative care, check-ups and a new pair of glasses and the like. You are absolutely right. At some point, those happily provided for pollees will have to make a more serious claim and then will be introduced to the private health care system’s denial of coverage shell game. There will be endless forms, phone call after phone call where each time the problem has to be explained over and over again, being told no two or three times until they finally get a maybe.There has to be a serious public option, with no trigger, where everyone is covered no matter their medical history.

I’ve benefitted from employee-sponsored health insurance all my career (20+ years). Still, every five years or so I “have to” switch jobs. So far, I seem to land on my feet within some months, but during that time I have to pay the COBRA extortion fee. I don’t dare NOT pay it, because my wife’s existing conditions MUST be covered if they are going to be covered once I get back onto a company health plan. The fee is huge, like a second mortgage payment, and doubly painful during my no-income period.Second point – The quality of my health care has been ebbing away. Partly this is because my employer is forced to reduce costs with less comprehensive plans, but also because my providers are swamped, paper-chasing bureaucrats with short attention spans. My care feels “third world”. And yet I’m on the inside, looking out at those that don’t. I know that I could easily be one of the 40 million without care.Yes, this issue is about everyone. I vote for a single payer system, or at a minimum, the public option. I’m willing to pay my fair share of tax for it, but we need everyone covered.

I have insurance through my employer and I dare not complain.Yet, in the last two years I have had two students in my classes that have had cancer. Each of them had to carry a full course load, five classes, in order to keep their student health insurance. If they fell below, they could not get other insurance because of their pre-existing conditions.These teenagers who were undergoing cancer treatments were scrambling to barely pass their classes while undergoing treatment for cancer. It was heartbreaking. The faculty did the most that we could to give them extensions on their work but it inevitably piled up.This is inexcusable. There poor kids should have been resting, recovering and healing. What a terrible way to learn early that our country does not give a crap about them.Before you ask, most of my students are not supported by their parents in any way shape or form and are trying to improve their lives on their own.

I got insurance again in Feb – I was thrilled. The premium is about $750/mo (my employer pays 70% of that) In the last four weeks I’ve spent more than $600 in co-pays. Hospitalization? $500/day co-pay for the 1st 5 days. I’m still better off having insurance than not having it – we can see a doctor if we need to – but financially? not so much…

Adding – I have 2 kids who will be in college in another state come Sept. My insurance will no longer cover them because they’ll be out of state so for both of them I’ll have to purchase additional insurance, at a cost of close to $5K.And I’m one of the lucky ones who isn’t faced with a catastrophic illness

Some of the stories that I’ve read here have gotten me thinking that maybe the reason I haven’t worked in 8 years is because hiring me might make small businesses insurance rates go up due to my pre-existing condition.I don’t lack for skills, learning new technology and professionalism. Plus I get things done. I worked from 1968 – June 4, 2001, save for two weeks when I struck by a car (I was a pedestrian).From 1981 on I was deaf (post-lingually) and I never had a hard time finding work. So is it really this economy? Or is it because the health care mafia’s racket pointed a gun at small businesses? I’d really like to know.And the best way to find out: public option health care. Can you imagine the HUGE boost it would give to the economy if we had public health care? Man! I know my partner would hire this particular person with amazing skills and yet she can’t because that person took a job that she hates only for the health care benefits.We’re talking about a revolutionary shot to small businesses. It would be the perfect antidote to globalism which got us in this mess.

I have what’s considered a high-end plan with Blue Cross or whatever they’re called this week. I pay mightily for the privilege – over a grand a month. That’s not taking into account a $3000 deductible, within which any prophylactic prescription drugs are included. That means, really, that I pay $300+ for my asthma inhalers till I hit that deductible, which I generally do around November. Of course, the deductible zeros out again come January, so really, I’m paying $15000 a year for an occasional doctor visit, maybe some antibiotics, ten asthma inhalers, and the alleged security of having good coverage should something really shitty go down, health-wise.But, as I did last year, I went through several weeks of drowning dreams because I was about $500 short of the deductible at the beginning of December. I waited till January to get another inhaler so it wouldn’t be $300 thrown into the ether.Nobody should have to wait to get a prescription, at least not for that goddmned stupid reason.Public option, puh-leeze.

Yes, it’s for everyone. I have insurance. I pay more for insurance than I do for taxes and I STILL have to put off procedures because I can’t afford the copays and deductibles.Our system is not just immoral, but dumb. It needs to be fixed.