The Truth About Our Health Care System, and Why I Support a One Payer Government System

Day in and Day out I listen to Rush Limbaugh speak of half-truths and speak of what could be, instead of what is. When we talk about health care reform, I think it is important to understand the current situation; recently I was in the ER at a hospital, where I spent most of my time in a room without assistance. The total cost was around $4000.00. If I had insurance I would have paid $100.00 for the facility, however it might not have paid all the cost associated with the visit. Recently insurance companies have demanded most diagnostic procedures require authorization to see if they are medically necessary, even if an authorization occurs they use something called a disclaimer, meaning they don't have to pay for the procedure if they change their mind. Even if you think the insurance made a mistake and messed up by refusing to give authorization for something that was necessary and it caused complications, possibly even death and you think the insurance company is at fault and you want to take them to court, think again, most insurance companies have added in the insurance contracts you sign with your employer something called an arbitration clause, meaning you are prohibited from taking the insurance company to court.

What bothers me about the Rush Limbaugh's of this world, is they base their comments on fiction, or something that doesn't apply. For example he uses Canada for an example, yet the last time I checked we live in the United States eh? Why does our system have to be like someone else's universal health care system? Why can't we have our own universal health care system that is better than any other Country? Rush is really good at telling the stories of people waiting in lines and dying in Canada, according to him, Canada is lucky they have anyone alive at all. Think about this, we spend the most on health care in the world, and our results aren't very good in relation to it. In fact we rank 37^th. Rush also fails to tell the story of people dying here in America from wrong prescriptions (leading causes of death in medicine), or a poor decision from a Doctor or Nurse, or the thousands that are refused authorization from insurance companies. I had a boss that had a daughter and the physician asked the insurance for authorization for her home medical device to make sure she was safe, the insurance denied it, stating it was not "medical necessary", and she died the next day. I watched my boss suffer from the loss of her nineteen year old daughter because of negligence of an insurance company, unfortunately in my line of work; I almost see it daily in some way or form. I guess it is easy for so many to have an opinion, but how many actually work in the field?

Then there is the argument that the government can't possibly run something so big, look at the postal service Rush states. Sorry Rush to be a spoiler of bad news. The postal service is hurting because we require them to deliver the mail, rather it be one letter of a thousand. I seriously doubt the internet and cell phones will disrupt the medical field like it has the postal service, your ideology, is not only unjust, but stupid to the core.

Let's also look at the Death panel. One person exclaimed to me "I don't want the government involved when I'm near death". Have you ever heard of Medicare? Which most people are on at time of death. Medicare is often involved when a person gets older and often needs to receive things like home health or hospice care near the end of their life. Each agency must be held to certain standards, thus to ensure you the patient proper care, but to help in the death process as well.

Rush at this point would argue that Medicare is a poor example, because it is going broke. Well Rush, it wouldn't go broke if we would stop borrowing from it to pay off foreign debt and help pay for the two wars we are currently fighting (Afghan and Iraq). Our Medicare system would also be better if instead of importing junk and exporting our jobs, if we brought more jobs back to the States, so people could pay into their Medicare system. I would agree with you that we should close the borders the best we can, what good is it to import people and export jobs at the same time. No economy can sustain that negligence over time.

The one thing that you haven't brought up Mr. Limbaugh, is that health care has been the most stable employment while in recession. If there is any argument of keeping health care the same, it would be this, however we are finding higher deductibles and co-pays, with higher out of pocket and specific limitations on services received, meanwhile we have seen CEO salaries rise within the insurance industry. CEOs making 124.8 Million a year, 1.3 Billion dollar bonus in one year. What's interesting about this particular insurance company are their payments to contracted agencies. Almost every insurance company makes some sort of contract with facilities and doctors offices. But this one particular insurance company is famous for under paying their contracted rate, they deny claims so often people often give up attempting to collect. They use something called customary and reasonable, in their analysis; meaning what rates should be in your area. They often use some sort of pricing company, however this one insurance company owns the pricing company it uses. Don't think I didn't notice this CEO gave the maximum amount to John McCain's campaign. I also noticed that next to energy and oil; that no other industry did better than the insurance industry under Bush.

The argument that the providers of medical care will not make enough money; is hardly a great argument since many insurance companies have lowered the payment of services. Many medical providers have stopped dealing with several insurance companies because of this. Then you point out that people will not be able to afford healthcare; that it is an "added tax", and it will limit choices. Well rarely in my employment have I ever been offered more than one insurance, sometimes two and certainly there is different coverage, better coverage cost more money, while the other plans offer cheaper cost to the insurance, but higher deductibles and co-pays. I also want to point out that many hospitals write off a huge amount of charity, because people don't have insurance, and this increases the amount charged to everyone, but let's not forget that Doctors also want to be well off in the financial circumstances of their life, so they tend to increase their cost to satisfy this craving for more is better than it's enough approach. If we had a universal healthcare system, our State taxes could decrease; Medicaid takes up huge amounts of the State's budget in some instances almost fifty percent. By having Universal healthcare, we would eliminate ¾ of Medicaid. We could lower taxes and also apply some of that money to things like education, since colleges are starting to cost people more than they can afford, unless you are rich. In some states education went up sixty percent this last year. Do we really need a country full of stupid people? For example one person said the reason other countries have lower medicine prices is because the United States produces all medicine and we pay higher cost so they can have cheaper cost. But let's be straight about something, almost all research in our drug industry is paid for by government grants with your tax money. I also want to point out, that there are other drug manufactures outside the United States (many). If there is any argument for better education, this guy would be a prime example of needing it.

I also hear that we can't allow the United States to become socialist, yet it is okay for companies to pay millions in lobby money and almost any Corporation to have more influence over our government than the average citizen? Or be bailed out when things get tough, while taking huge executive vacation trips on our money? Don't forget those wonderful bonuses so many of them receive. So let's supply more money to the rich, while screwing the average American, is that what we are about? What if I told you there are positives within almost every system if you look hard enough, including socialist. What if we decided to not have police unless you pay for their service, how about a fire department, a forest service to put out wild fires, roads to be built, or ambulances, how about the FDA or FDIC or air traffic control? Aren't those socialist? How about social security, just think how well your wonderful stocks would have done in the crashes of the past, if you only had money from that you thought, or what if you stuffed in your mattress full of lifelong savings, but then you were robbed, don't worry about catching the robber, you forgot to pay for your private police office, and don't forget the military, I guess you would be responsible in the need of defense, which probably wouldn't do very well. Let's get rid of public education, instead make it private, and let the rich feed off it only, while the majority suffers. Don't worry about Ceo salaries because they have a golden parachute for their pension, unlike most of us, you can complain later after you lose your pension and the company you worked for stole it, please remember that's just good business.

If you argue that you pay taxes which cover these services you are right, not all these services were run by government at one time, some didn't exist at all, and some were private that became government ran because we felt it was something all of us needed even if it was "Socialist" in principle, the fire dept, being one of them, others like Medicare for example was invented by government, before that, you fended for yourself. Since I work in healthcare, I can tell you that Medicare is the most efficient of all coverage. Rarely do you wait for payment, they are least likely to deny any service, especially when it is medically necessary, and they don't have arbitration clauses. How about that?

If you want to compare universal healthcare, you must realize the United States is the only industrial Nation not to have it. I can also tell you that our wonderful current system has all sorts of problems, for example did you realize that the United States has around 700,000 bankruptciesa year based on medical cost? The majority of these cases, the people had insurance. Have you ever heard of insurance companies rescinding insurance? It happens all the time, in fact two such companies got in trouble by States for rescinding insurance of over a thousand people, with no legitimate reason according to the court. I guess that court thing, must be socialist as well, so it doesn't really apply. The insurance commission in each state has seen a huge increase in complaints from not only members of insurance, but providers as well.

Rush Limbaugh also attacks the theory of when to pay, that if you are healthy you shouldn't have to pay for those who aren't. What do you think you do now? You still pay no matter what, you pay more when you go to the doctor, but let's look at reality. If you are sick and can't keep a job, or afford cobra in order to pay for insurance than what? Probably when you need insurance the most, is the time you can no longer afford to use it, because you can't afford the premiums. Please remember that when insurance pays any claim they consider it a loss, they give bonuses for not paying claims, how sick is that? (No pun intended).

I want to go back to comparing us to Canada, because there is a huge amount of countries that it works better than England and Canada, I can think of Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, and Taiwan which I like the best of those listed, but there are many more.

The problem with guys like Rush Limbaugh is they don't realize the majority of Americans aren't rich white males. The truth is that if Rush didn't have insurance, he still could afford his bills. Most of us aren't that lucky. I don't like the far right, because they are out of touch with reality, they often base their strategy of a lion in the room that may or may not be there, just like the far left, most is based on fear rather than fact. Short term thinking with longer term consequences and plain and simple denial of how things really are. I don't think Capitalism is bad, in fact I think it necessary, but I have trouble believing Ceo's etc, when they make statements "Americans don't want to make shoes". When shoe production was here, there was never a shortage of workers. Somewhere I realized that if you want a company to do what is right, you will be waiting a while, their morals are only based on how much money can they make, and how fast can they get it, no matter the cost, including healthcare insurance companies. They have limited liability and use it for their advantage in almost everything they do. If a person were to do it, it would be a crime, if a company does it, it's a mistake. For instance I had an insurance company take money from my checking account for someone else's policy, I have argued this over and over to no avail, they refuse to give my money back. If some individual did it, it would be theft, but a company, it's a mistake. I actually stand a better chance of getting my money back if it was a person stealing, because of victim compensation, than I would this company.

I suggested when President Obama first got into office, we need Universal Healthcare, I didn't recommend keeping insurance companies part of the process, because they have done so many dirty things in the industry, what was going to make them change?, and in my medical experience, I find those insurance companies with government contracts, least effective for medical necessity. Many of these companies take the place of Medicaid, or Labor and Industry, but I've also seen an increase in cost for Prescription/Medicare private plans to those insured. I noticed most plans have raised patient's co-pays by ten dollars, and many of them require authorization for simple procedures that wouldn't be required under Medicare. One company denied authorization for a child needing occupational therapy because they stated "What does a kid need to work for?" Do we really need people that dumb making decisions about medical necessity? For those who don't know what occupational therapy is, it includes therapy to help people use motor skills because something physical is keeping them from it. For example, having them be able to bathe or change clothes, often associated with physical limitations, Occupational Therapy works on getting the best results for what limitations they have so they can manage their life the best they can. Often it is combined with physical therapy to help through the rough time. So in case that person is reading this (which I doubt), occupational therapy has nothing to do with getting a job, however I think a twelve year old kid, might be better at deciding an authorization than you are!

To say I'm disappointed with how the healthcare reform act has been gutted; would be an understatement. I realize that the insurance industry along with the medical field is contributing huge sums of money to keep the healthcare bill from being what it was designed to do; I also believe that most Americans are ignorant enough to believe false rumors about what is contained in it. Things like population control etc. It is simple fantasy created from right wing wacko's. Does any country in the world have more cognitive distortions than the people of the U.S.? Doubt it. Those in power use those distortions for personal gain, power, and control, such the case regarding this bill. I guess my biggest argument for government control, is that I don't believe it will be there to create money, unlike the insurance industry, and I think that is the biggest factor in my decision of why we need this change.