I cannot find enough coherent discussion of the healthcare bill (h b 3200). Television segments of 6 or 7 minutes don't provide enough time for the interviewees to get a thought going on the 1000+ page bill. They shout at each other and talk over each other.
For how much of health care cost is each of us responsible?
My answer is 100%. Then it's up to me to find someone to share that cost - an insurance co. Once a third party got between us and our doctors, we lost control. Let's tell our employers we no longer want them to provide our insurance policies. Give us the money and let us buy our own policies. Something tells me that the ins. companies will find many ways to sell us a policy at or below the same premium amount. We, the consumer would be back in power. If the consumer is young and single, the deductibles could be set higher because they get sick less. Got kids? Lower deductibles because they get sick more. No matter how you design YOUR policy, you can design your savings account such that you have the money set aside when you need it.
How many people are involuntarily uninsured?
I've heard 40 million, 45 million, 47 million, 50 million and 85 million.
In 2007, there were 45 million uninsured, but only 29 million of those were at or below the low income level. Seems like the gov't could pay the premiums for their insurance for less than $1.5Trillion over ten years. I guess everyone else above the low income level choose not to be insured or fail to budget for such.
And...
What about those medical bankrupcies?
Researchers at Cambridge Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Harvard Law School and Ohio University found that in 2007, 60% of individual bankruptcies were prompted by medical bills.
They found that medical bills ranged from $6500 to just under $27,000.
Their total debt exceeding their assets averaged about $44,600. So were the medical bills part of the problem or the entire problem. The articles which cite the research were written such that the reader was to believe that the medical costs were the only cause of the problem. I'm not so sure after reading the study online in The American Journal of Medicine.
