To be honest, I DID think about how much a Saturday night visit to the ED was going to cost us. Luckily, we had savings to cover the cost, so it was an easy decision that I would take him in to see about his "weird" breathing.
I am rocked to my core every single time I think, if we hadn't had the money for the ED visit co-pay or, that we hadn't had insurance at all, we may have given Alex some Benedryl on Saturday and Sunday night and sent him to bed. Chances are, Alex wouldn't have woken up Monday morning. While the cancer diagnosis was terrible, walking into a bedroom and discovering your child dead is a Hell I hope to never experience.
How many children die or suffer because their parents have to decide between a trip to the doctor, or paying rent that month? We've been told, "Oh, you live in Oregon, so even if you didn't have insurance, Alex would be covered". NOT TRUE. Eric and I make too much money to qualify for many social services, and NO ONE will insure Alex on a private plan with a cancer diagnosis. NO ONE. And, we make nowhere close to the amount of money needed to finance his two year cancer treatment without insurance (which is over $250,000 as of 7/31/09).
Why is our child any more "deserving" of a chance at a full life with the best cancer-treatments available than someone with little or no insurance? The answer is, he's not. He's lucky. We are lucky.
I'm not trying to start another debate on Health Insurance Reform - there is plenty of that. I'm just trying to give you all a personal story on the issue. I can't profess to know the answer to the best way to cover everyone. All I know is that we MUST. Not all children are as lucky as Alex.
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This is a subject that gets my hackels up. I understand that not having insurance is a gamble, but having insurance is also a gamble of the monetary kind.
ReplyDeleteI guess I will start by saying that when my kids were young I would never have dreamed of not having insurance; they are too precious to not protect them in all ways. However, as they have grown into adults, I do not have them covered. Does that make me a bad parent, no because insurance premiums have forced me into clothing, feeding, and providing a roof over their heads vs health. Great country we live in.
I am the only one in my family that actually has insurance and that is only because if I wanted to insure all four of us it would be close to a thousand dollars out of our monthy budget; cant afford that. Therefore, we pay as we go. Example is that Todd had pnemonia and for four hours it cost us well over 2000 dollars. Yes, that is a lot of money, but if I was to ensure all four of us I would have match that in 2 1/2 months and the kicker would have been that the insurance wouldn't have covered even 100%. I still would have paid 20%. Yes that is less, but in the long run insurance is more expensive.
Everything in this country is money based and not enough of for the greater of the good.
Off my soap box.
Grandma Diana's rant: I completely agree with the Haught family that health insurance premium costs are outrageously expensive and beyond the reach of many middle class families. The US spends 16% of its GDP on health care costs, yet we rank way at the bottom for outcomes as determined by the World Health Organization. This is shameful.
ReplyDeleteBut, even more scary for Sara and Eric is that their health insurance policy could be canceled after they reach the life time cap of $2 million dollars within a few years while Alex is still in treatment. What should they do then? Declare bankruptcy and go on public assistance just so they can enroll Alex in the SCHIP program, which lasts only until Alex is 18? How does that benefit society and lower insurance costs? Furthemore, Alex is now branded as having a pre-existing condition, which means he will be ineligible for health insurance as an adult. What is he to do then, use the emergency room for health care? That's not cost-effective, and even more worrisome, emergency rooms do not dispense chemotherapy in the event his cancer returns.
For those who say 'just buy catastrophic insurance' like an HSA, wrong, this doesn't work either. This type of insurance has life-time cap limits and pre-existing conditions, so kind of insurance does not help Sara and Eric.
While health insurance reform is sorely needed, my personal choice is to offer, IN ADDITION to insurance, either a public option, or better yet, a single payer system like Medicare. I'm now on Medicare, and I'm very impressed with how simple and efficient it is (3% overhead vs 25-30% for health insurance companies), and how well the Medicare organization communicates. I also bought private supplemental insurance for a very low price. It seems to me that if we had Medicare for all plus private supplemental health insurance it would be a win-win. Everyone would be covered for basic care (the monthly premium cost for Medicare is $96 per month), and you pay for extras that you want (mine is about $100 per month which includes prescription Part D). If you provide basic care, that gets people out of emergency rooms and lowers those costs that have been passed on to everyone else (about $1000 per year is added on to everyone's health insurance premiums to cover uninsured visits to emergency rooms). Together with computerizing records for more efficient access as well as reducing duplicated tests and procedures, costs should be low enough to include an option like this.
For those who say 'but the public option or single payer is socialism', yep it is, and so is Medicare, because what you paid all those years into the system is not nearly what you draw out later. The difference is picked up by the US tax payer, and that is socialism. Same with Social Security, by the way. And, if you want to get technical, firemen, police, the military (VA hospitals and military medical staff), teachers, city,county,and state employees are all paid by tax payer money, i.e., they are all a form of socialized government supported institutions. I'd personally like to extend Medicare to All, primarily so that my little grandson has access to care all his life, and so that Sara and Eric do not have to endure financial ruin to provide care for him.
End of rant.