Health Care Crisis?
Okay....let's examine this from a common sense point of view. Putting aside politics, red state/blue state, and any conservative/liberal disagreements; regarless of whether you have private health insurance, medicare, medicad and or whether you have any health insurance at all; if you are injured in any way, shape form or fashion, (break a leg jumping rope, cut off a finger playing mumbly peg, get hit in the head by a foul ball, so on and so forth) or suffer a heart attack, stroke, or acute explosive diarrhea, if you go to a hospital emergency room, you'll get treated by the best trained medical personnel in the history of mankind. The quality of care will vary depending on whether you are in Bayou Cleutus, Mississippi or St Louis, Missouri, but you will get the best care available. After the doctors and nurses have stopped the bleeding, sewn you up, set your leg, stabilized your heart rate....whatever....and your life is judged no longer to be in danger, you'll be discharged and informed to do a follow up with your PCP (Primary Care Provider). If you have some form of health insurance (according to 2006 census bureau numbers it's 85% of America)
what follows will be a....ummm....discussion between your insurance provider and the hospital on exactly what will be covered and what percentage they are going to pay for ( depending of course, upon your particular plan) If you don't have insurance....well, you're likely to get a big fat, bill totalling thousands of dollars. You'll either set up a payment plan, declare bankruptcy, or....or you fill out a stack of forms stating you can't pay any of it and it'll be written off. If you happen to be an illegal alien, you won't be asked to pay a dime...but that's another discussion altogther.
Bottom line is...you get treated. So...where is the crisis? Oh....you want to talk about the 15% of America that doesn't have health insurance? Oh, I see. Then...we're talking about a Health INSURANCE issue. Well that's totally different.
According to the Obama Administration and various other sources, the number of uninsured Americans range roughly between 35 and 47 million (depending on whose numbers you trust)
Sounds bad until you begin to break those numbers down. Again, depending on whose numbers you look at, 10 million or so are foreign nationals (read...not American's at all) 10 million are between 18 and 30 and don't buy insurance (but most have cell phones and cable TV, I'll bet) about 15 million are listed as "chronically uninsured" (most for pre-existing conditions) Roughly 10 million qualify for either Medicare or S-Chip, but don't bother to apply, and another 9 to 10 million (a very low estimate) are illegal aliens.
Take away foreign nationals, illegals, people who would rather spend their money on iPods or Comcast, and those that are just too damn lazy to apply for government help at all and...you're left with that "chronically uninsured" list. Where's the crisis?
I'm not setting out to settle the health care/health insurance/health whatever reform debate in one afternoon...just trying to put it into prespective.
Couple of other facts and I'll be done.
You have auto insurance? Pays for a collision, right? Maybe even a rental while your ride is at the body shop? But does it pay for oil change, new tires, tire rotation, blown transmission? Bet it doesn't.
You have home owners insurance? Pays for a fire, right? Wind damage? Probably even pays for a rental/appartment/hotel while your house is being rebuilt after a tornado. But does it pay for new carpet? Paint in the living room? Termite damage? Bet it doesn't.
Hell....join a skydiving club and see if the best State Farm coverage will pay for your broken leg when you land in the trees. Bet it won't.
Last time. Where's the crisis? Where's the reason to scrap health insurance that 85% of Americans have in order to spend a trillion dollars on a government public "option" that will eventually turn into a government single payer plan?
In the words of Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, "Never allow a crisis (itallics added for sarcastic effect) to go to waste. "
posted by jamie dale @ 10:28 AM
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