I happen to be a single mom of a three and a half year old girl and I make around $25,000 a year. This sad little fact qualifies me for state/government assistance with insurance, and all of my medical expenses are paid for by other’s tax dollars. People hoot and holler at me a lot for this, but let me tell you — I would be in the dog house if I didn’t have that. My daughter has hip dysplasia, so she has already been through two surgeries, and we have been going for x-rays, or CT scans every three to six months since she was born. Not to mention the physical therapy appointments, and the regular doctor’s visits. Without even considering my own health care costs, I imagine that I would currently be somewhere around $200,000 in debt or more. And of course, I am employed by a small business that offers health insurance I would only be able to afford if I chose not to buy groceries instead.

So yeah, my health care is technically free, but is it quality care? Sort of. There are only a handful of primary care physicians that take my insurance, my STATE insurance, within an hour’s driving distance from my home. That means that every time I go see my doctor I wait in the packed waiting room on average about 1.5 — 2 hours and then see a doctor for about five minutes. These doctors aren’t interested in talking to me about my diet, exercise, mental health, etc. They pretty much treat my symptoms and send me on my way. I actually get better care from doctors if I go to the ER instead, though I feel at ER’s there is a stigma against me, and generally a sort of prejudice that borders on, like, racism for people with my insurance. We’re the “poor ones,” the “leeches on society.” I get the impression that people think that because I am on state insurance that means that I have a crappy job, if any job at all, that I live in a slum, and probably don’t take very good care of my kid. In general, I feel looked down upon, and I feel that I do not receive the level of good care that patients do who actually pay cash for care or are with private insurance companies.

Now, I am not writing all this so you can hear my complaints and sob story. Quite the contrary. The fact is I can’t complain — whether I’m treated well or not, at least I am treated, at least I don’t have to be afraid of getting sick or afraid of the bills that will come in the mail after my daughter’s four annual CT scans. I guess I commented here to say that as a person who has insurance currently funded by the government that I personally think, in theory, that government run health care isn’t such a bad idea. There is no way I would have the good quality of life I do if I had hundreds of thousands of dollars to owe insurance companies or hospitals — the stress alone of those bills would break my spirit and any faith I have in this country and how it cares for its citizens.

I am not sure what the numbers are for people who are on state/government insurance programs, but seeing that there are nearly 50 million Americans with no coverage whatsoever, I think it is time for the world to see — for our government and all citizens to see — that there are so many of us who struggle every day just to be able to pay rent, pay for day care, to pay for groceries, gas, clothing, you name it — before paying for insurance in case we get sick or get in accidents we can’t prevent, not to mention preventative care. The way things are now, citizens are pretty much being told that health care is not a right, it’s a privilege that is granted to those who can afford it.

So yeah, I think it’s definitely about time that the government steps in and does something for ALL Americans. We’re kind of in sad state of affairs at this point, huh?

Please take a minute to check out some of the following information:
This is a trailer for a documentary about six fast food eating Americans that eat 100% vegan live foods for a month. Medical results are fantastic. By the end of the 30 days they have all cured their type-2 diabetes. WOW…imagine that. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSuqCMld00w&NR=1
Or read about The Truth about Aspartame, MSG, and Excitotoxins here: http://gavintiegirl.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/aspartame_truth.pdf
You want to be really angry at big business watch this. What company has the right to hold the patent on our food supply? All about GMO’s with The World According to Monsanto:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_OJcPKEYDE

There is a lot of educating to do and most people don’t want to listen. Every since I saw the movie The Beautiful Truth: http://thebeautifultruthmovie.com/ I have been awakened and spiraling down the rabbit hole of awareness. I have been sharing this information with everyone I know and even people I don’t know. Some people are open-minded and others don’t want to be told that soy is bad for them because they drink soy milk. And others don’t want to know that there is MSG or hidden MSG in everything they eat and that they will need to read labels better to find chemical free food. They don’t want to know that they have to give up their favorites foods because if they don’t they are poisoning themselves.

Read the truth about MSG and hidden MSG (other names for it) here: http://www.msgtruth.org/

As long as the food supply is poisoned with all these chemicals and genetically modified foods we will continue to be a country of sick people who require more assistance with our health and more drugs than any other country. Other countries have banned MSG and GMO’s. Makes sense that they have better healthcare statistics. I am not going to change the world by sharing this and most of the people that read this blog probably already know about most of this, but if not, please check out some of the links I have provided and make yourself aware and then share this information with others. Our health and the health of our children are really in our own hands and minds. We can’t trust our corporations, the FDA, the AMA, or the government with our health.

Regarding point 3 — are you agreeing with me that mortality rates have more to do with lifestyle than quality of healthcare? I absolutely agree with you that making adjustments to the kind and quality of food we eat, coupled with an increase in activity would go a long way towards increasing mortality rates in the US. It would also decrease overall the cost of healthcare. We spend too much time treating illness and not enough time preventing it.

Regarding point 2 — what is your thought on tort reform? Having been with my wife through three pregnancies, I can certainly attest to the overly cautious nature of hospitals. They take great lengths to avoid getting sued.

At this point I just want to make a comment on the malpractice issue. If we are going to truly get some improvement here we need to set limits. And not limits on the amount a wronged patient can sue for, but the percentage of the settlement or award that the attorneys receive. The biggest reason for the astronomical cost of malpractice insurance, high awards and (good call) “needless tests to cover themselves” are greedy lawyers. Let’s make that part of this discussion. Let’s set limits–not on awards to those that were wronged–but on attorney fees.

I love that you are dealing with this issue. I am lucky enough to be married to a woman who works for a non-profit HMO and I am thrilled with my coverage and my care. But her job is in underwriting and when I hear about the kinds of costs that she has to take into consideration when deciding where the new rates are. More later.

So what?

What are we trying to do here? Lower costs? Or make sure everyone gets care? Or use health insurance as a redistribution mechanism?

The first and most important cost problem is the detachment of consumers from their costs through employer insurance. Since each increment is basically free, people consume more than they really need — excess tests, marginal procedures, etc. And neither they nor their doctors scrutinize the stuff they really need for efficiency of provision. Beginng to solve this is conceptually really easy: start taxing employer provided health benefits.

I don’t think anyone really objects to universal coverage, but the problem starts when you use that as a cover for another agenda. We can get there by rationalizing the cost problem (see above), insisting people get their own insurance, seeing who can’t afford it and subsidizing them. Done, but some people will be larger amounts of their income for health care, and the transparency of the subsidies is politically awkward.

Many will interpret that as a regressive outcome, and will want more subsidies than the electorate likes. So that path will be criticized as costing too much, and proposals to cover everyone through the government. The subsidies for this will be funded by progressive taxation, and less affluent people will have more income after health care. But now we’re back to the care/cost detachment problem, and we’ve got an insensitive bureacracy running things, and the eventual decisions about what care to not provide will be made politically.

This really isn’t a debate about universal coverage. It’s a debate about structuring a marketplace in a manner that gives government power to direct distributions, in the expectation that power will be used to achieve a variety of worthy goals. We’re all better off if we let the markets figure out the prices, and leave the redistributions to the political debate.

It takes me forever to write a serious comment. I make ‘em when I can. Sometimes I’ve got other contributions.

Now, I like the USPS. I think universal delivery is the right concept. Delivering mail to communities that can only reached by mules for $0.44 a letter knits the country together. Fine, good. But a great deal of what they do could be done faster, more reliably, for less.

The first comment is fundamental to the issue– the healthcare BUSINESS