As I was perusing my FB feed this morning in my daily ritual of social media-ing before starting my day, I came across an article a friend had shared by New York Magazine entitled "The Republican Plot to Kill Obamacare." It was a short blurb describing a number of Republican and/or conservative groups that are actively trying to tear Obamacare down before it gets fully raised up. It was short and sweet and in my mind, depicted Republicans/conservatives as petulant crybabies who are now throwing a huge tantrum because they didn't get their way. In my own personal experience with liberals, especially those involved in the media, this is pretty typical: they turn to name-calling and tit-for-tat because laying out a logical and intelligent side to their argument seems to be out of their scope of ability.
Sorry if this offends. Also, if you are a liberal and can lay out a logical and intelligent side to an argument, I would love to talk to you. About anything. It would be a blessed and appreciated change. Finally, before the bloodletting begins, I would like to point out that I do not consider myself a Republican or align myself with their party. Conservative? Fairly. But as of late, I find myself siding heavily with the Libertarian party. I did not vote for Mitt Romney in 2012. (I didn't vote for Obama either.) But I did vote.
Anyway. This was not meant to be a post about party vs. party, nor is it meant to start any fights. It's about Obamacare.
Now, I will be the first to admit that the amount of in-depth research I have done into Obamacare is not a whole lot. I haven't tracked down and read the pages upon pages of the actual bill. I haven't read word for word every detail that the bill entails. But I have done a bit and I've talked to a number of people in the medical field who have read the pages upon pages and have a pretty solid understanding of how it's going to affect them, their jobs and the field within which they work.
Obamacare is going to made health insurance accessible to everyone, even poor folks like me. Great! The first problem is, just like with auto insurance now, the insurance that will be a financial option for a lot of people may not be the best insurance available. The coverage may be limited, deductibles could potentially be higher, that insurance may not be accepted by certain practitioners. Insurance is now "affordable," yes, but is it worth it?
For example: the last company my husband worked for offered medical benefits to their employees. We got a nice little package explaining the costs and the coverage. What we found when we did the math is that the cost of the insurance was no cheaper than paying for everything out of pocket should it happen within a year's time. The monthly premium for a family of four was somewhere between $300 and $400 (which is 20% of his monthly income). That premium covered within a single year: 2 doctors' visits (per person, each of which had a co-pay), 1(one) 24-hour period hospital stay (total), 2 ER visits (total), 1 ambulance ride (total), and a co-pay for every prescription. Anything above and beyond that, we would pay for out-of-pocket. This year, alone, Chaz has spent five days in the hospital, there have been 3 ER visits, the girls have been to the pediatrician numerous times and we've each had at least one prescription we've had to have filled. If we had "taken advantage" of the wonderful health care that Chaz's employer so graciously offered us, we'd have paid at the very least $3,600 in the year, for the coverage alone, plus the out-of-pocket costs for everything that went above and beyond what the insurance covered.
Who's to say that the insurance offered by the Affordable Care Act won't be the same? Heavy deductibles, limited coverage, small networks. Now...maybe it won't be. We'll have to see. But somehow I doubt that the insurance that will be available to me, my family and people like us, will be as nice and comfortable as the health care that the rich and famous have access to. (Or the government, for that matter, who offers us this plan and lauds its benefits to the sky, but isn't bound by its rules. So, it's good enough for us but not good enough for them? Yeah, that makes me feel real good about it.) Because overall, this, like anything else, is a money-making scheme. The insurance companies provide a service for a price. The higher the price, the better the service. You get what you pay for. Insurance companies are being forced to provide "affordable" insurance. This to me, reads cheap. You pay for cheap insurance, you get cheap coverage. I guess we'll have to see how it plays out. And if I'm wrong, I will gladly admit it, because it will mean that Obamacare is working and no matter who put it into motion, if more people can afford good and proper medical care, that is what's important. I just don't believe it yet.
The second problem with this whole thing is that it limits the medical practitioners in what they can do. A friend of mine is one of the supervisors in the ER at the hospital that my family uses. He's had to get pretty up-close and personal with the new laws. And he (being an Obama supporter) does not support this change to our healthcare. He doesn't believe it will work.
Here's a scenario: when a person walks into the ER with certain symptoms, say, chest pains, doctors usually want to run a certain set of tests. These usually include certain cardio tests to check the person's heart, but can also include tests that check the lungs, the blood and other things. In the past, doctors have been able to run any or all of these tests based on their own knowledge and discretion so that they can get a fuller picture of what may or may not be going on and so they don't miss anything and open themselves up to malpractice suits.
Hospitals, unlike private practices, are required to accept any and all insurances. Under this new health care plan, practitioners will be limited in what tests they can run based on the insurance the patient has. If a person comes in with chest pains and has awesome insurance that covers everything, great! But if a person comes in with chest pains and affordable insurance under this plan, doctors are told to run certain chest pain specific tests and nothing else--because that's what the insurance covers. And you know, it's supposed to be affordable. Medical tests that aren't covered under insurance aren't affordable. And if what's wrong with said person actually becomes clear under the covered tests, again, great! But what if it isn't? What if what's wrong is something that isn't typical and can only be discovered by a test that isn't covered? What if that person suffers complications or even dies because the proper treatment for his condition wasn't covered by the affordable health care that the government has required him to have?
Doctors are now open to more malpractice suits, which is going to make more doctors head for the hills. They are going to go into private practice, where they have some level of control over what they can do. Their offices will accept the insurances that cover whatever treatments they may or may not want to do and they will not accept insurances that my limit their ability to practice. And what does that leave those of us stuck with "affordable" aka cheap medical insurance? Cheap medical care.
My family is currently on the medical card because we, like so many, cannot afford private health insurance. When it comes to the kids, this isn't much of an issue because all pediatricians are required by the government to accept the medical card as a form of insurance. So I can take my girls to a good doctor that I know and trust where they get good care.
My husband and me? Well, we're limited to the fairly small number of doctors in the area that actually accept the medical card.
Before I got married, when I was still on my parents' insurance, my doctor was awesome. There was never a time when she didn't spend at least a half hour in the room with me, no matter what was going on. She took her own vitals, she asked her own questions. She did a thorough exam and covered all her bases. She ran tests as she saw fit. She didn't leave anything to chance. And she's like that with all of her patients. I know, I used to work in her office for a short time, as did my mother (for a much longer time).
My doctor now probably sees fifty to a hundred patients a day. I went to see her for chronic back and neck pain after my car accident. She was in the exam room with me for five minutes. She was rushed and detached. She prescribed me some high dose ibruprofen, recommended physical therapy and told me to have a nice day. When I went back six weeks later for a "follow-up" and told her the ibruprofen wasn't making a difference, and that I'd used up the 20 physical therapy sessions that the medical card covers per year and I was still in considerable pain, she basically shrugged and told me I'd just have to learn to live with the pain. There wasn't much else she could do. Again, she was in the room for less than five minutes.
This is the difference between good medical care and affordable medical care. Why would anyone want to pay for affordable health care that they may try like hell not to use because it's crappy? Not too long ago I had a pretty bad sinus infection. I called my doctor's office for an appointment. They couldn't get me in for two weeks and the receptionist, with no sympathy whatsoever, basically told me to suck it up. I called a number of doctor's offices that didn't accept the medical card and was looking at anywhere between $85 and $160 for just the doctor's visit. I ended up going to the ER because I was in so much pain and that was the only place that wouldn't break me. Now, I try as hard as I can to not call my doctor's office. I do suck it up. Because it's not worth the half hour drive to get five minutes and no results. Why would I want to pay a monthly fee for a "service" that I try like hell not to use, because it's crappy?
This is what I fear Obamacare is going to do. It's going to force people to start paying for a service that may not be worth their time, effort and money to pay for. Because it's limited. On paper, it looks like an excellent idea. I just don't see it working in practice.
I suppose only time will tell.
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