Posted by Racer on February 18, 2004, at 23:04:59
In reply to Re: Um... » Racer, posted by socialdeviantjeff on February 18, 2004, at 20:28:10
We've got a similar situation regarding the almost-economically-viable part. Let's see, I can't get insurance because I've both taken anti-depressants and have been involuntarily held in a psychiatric institution. Once the first insurance company denied my application to pay them a large sum of money each month for the priviledge of being able to see a doctor at all (no one around here takes the uninsured, except the county, which is another story I'll be getting to in this post), none of the other insurance companies would even start the application. The first question was, "Have you ever been denied health insurance for any reason?" Once you say, "yes", forget it.
Now, in our state (Confusion a/k/a California), the state does offer a form of insurance to those with the means to pay for it (well over four times the Blue Cross rates, by the way), but there's more than a two year wait to get into that system. Then there's CA's version of Medicaid, Medical. That system is so well run there are websites devoted to the studies about how difficult it is to navigate their system. Oh, yeah, and I would only qualify if I were on disability. Then, even if I had disability, every few months, you have to go to the Medical office -- no doing it via post, let alone electronically -- and reapply. If you manage to do all this, there are very, very few private doctors, hospitals, or medical centers that will accept you, anyway.
The county, of course, will cover some of the bills for some services. The problem, of course, is that they base the income requirements on something other than average housing prices in this area. My husband is currently earning about 2/3 of our mortgage, so the county says our share of cost is x%. This happened to me before, in another county, in a program that had income levels restrictions that meant I could only receive $560 per month from any source while being covered. The problem? My very moderate for the area rent was $850, but the program insisted that during any month I received that much money, every cent over that magic number had to be paid to them. Now, if I managed to earn enough to cover the entire cost of the treatment *and* still pay my rent, they would still have taken every penny over it. They had one number, and that was it.
So, I'm a recovering accountant with a lot of business management experience. I know how that happens. I know that someone, somewhere, was trying to do good, by making some sort of program available, and used averages in order to make it as fair as possible. Unfortunately, this world isn't that fair -- you gotta take into account the variance of regional costs of living. The current system doesn't.
Yes, I am in favor of some form of single payer health care. No, I'm not a radical leftie -- I'm more ambidextrous. Some of the restrictions that are chafing me now make a lot of sense to me: when we have so many people with so little, what little my husband and I do have really is priviledge. That I'm afraid I'm going to die because I don't have access to health care doesn't affect the world, it really only affects my perception of it. Those same low income restrictions that make it so difficult for me to find care also mean that more people can receive *something* rather than nothing.
By the way, I'm currently putting off a mammogram to check on some suspicious lumps in my breast that a doctor found during my last gyn visit. If I can put it off until my husband is working again, I can get it covered under whatever insurance he gets. If he's not covered by my next birthday, other programs for older women will start to kick in. I'm scared. At the same time, I know that there are probably uninsured women in this community who are a lot sicker than I am, and there's only one program in the area for non-older women. I've already talked to someone there, and when I heard what limited resources they have, I told her to forget it -- I'd wait.
Sorry, rambling on again. I guess the only real point I was trying to make is that the system is trying to do good, but the crack is in its very foundation: For-Profit Health Insurance, answerable to the shareholders, not the "customers."
poster:Racer
thread:312786
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20040209/msgs/315431.html