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Health insurance: Isn't it time we think this thing through?
Half of all bankruptcies are caused by the burden of medical bills. More than three-quarters of these people had health insurance when they first became ill.
By Gary Bryant
I recall the recent clamor for lower drug costs during last year's election campaign. There was a lot of huffing and puffing about stopping the Canadian drug
pipeline. Voter surveys during the '04 election campaign suggested that the most important concerns of Americans at that time were Iraq, the economy, and lower prescription drugs. No one got
excited about healthcare insurance.
We're all pretty busy here in America. We look at health issues as an annoyance. We're surprised and annoyed when we turn forty that we suddenly need glasses. We're
annoyed when we have to take a full day off from work to do a colonoscopy or some other screening procedure. You should be really annoyed to find out that nearly 2 million Americans are financially
ruined each year by medical bankruptcy. Most of these people had health insurance when they became ill.
As long as our relationship with our doctor is minimal: a cholesterol check here, a flu shot there, the health system from our point of view, works pretty
well. But if you're the family bread-winner and you get a recurring cancer or some other long-term health challenge, this can change quickly. First, you discover you can't work. If you're lucky
enough to have disability benefits, you soon discover this just isn't enough to make ends meet. After a few weeks, your accrued vacation is used up, your sick days are used up. The cost of your
treatment and your family's living expenses soon grows into a mountain of debt, and your kids want to know why you're selling the Outback.
In the first in-depth study of medical causes of bankruptcy, researchers at Harvard Law School and Harvard Medical School, supported by a grant from the Robert Wood
Johnson Foundation, discovered that illness led to job loss and job loss led to bankruptcy.
According to Dr. David Himmelstein, the lead author of the study and an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard: "Our study is frightening. Unless you're Bill
Gates, you're just one serious illness away from bankruptcy. Most of the medically bankrupt were average Americans who happened to get sick. Health insurance offered little protection. Families with
coverage faced unaffordable co-payments, deductibles and bills for uncovered items like physical therapy, psychiatric care and prescription drugs. And even the best job-based health insurance often
vanished when prolonged illness caused job loss - precisely when families needed it most. Too often, private health insurance is an umbrella that melts in the rain."
Most workers are fighting to keep their health insurance while employers keep looking for ways to cut them. States are struggling to insure the un-insured and millions of
sick Americans qualify for Medicaid only after their disease (usually cancer) has become life threatening. Folks, healthcare in the United States, is a mess.
We seem to have three choices. First, we can just muddle along as we've been doing, occasionally getting annoyed at the unfairness of the health system and the
over-the-top drug costs. We can always hope the big stuff like brain tumors and lung cancer happens to somebody else.
We can suddenly develop a better sense of self discipline. Starting right now, we should begin saving a little extra each week for a medical emergency fund. This way
we won't have to rely on anyone for financial support to cover our medical emergencies. Use your calculator to figure that one out.
Finally, we just might want to consider universal healthcare. None of us can outrun sickness. Ill people have an effect on all of us. Family, friends, the work
place, and the overall well-being of our communities suffer when we get sick. We share the benefits of a healthy nation, we should also share the costs. It's only fair.
Gary Bryant, a consumer health advocate, is the executive producer of the award winning web resource, BreakThroughDigest.com.
He is also the author of Searching The Web for Health, A Guide to Reliable Medical Information on the
Internet.
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