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I really didn’t
think I would become an “activist,” but if you didn’t catch my last
column, I’ve ruffled some feathers. It was a very controversial essay
that’s brought me a lot of feedback, most of it positive. It was about
the drug companies manipulating doctors to prescribe expensive
prescription drugs.
This week,
I have to get something else off my chest, because it’s my number one
complaint: health insurance companies, and how they’re blatantly ripping
us off.
Obviously,
the government has done nothing, state or federal. I know a number of
small business owners locally who have been dropped by their health
insurance companies, or who are paying more for their health insurance now
than they are for their home mortgages.
Dave and I
have been affected by this as well. We could own a new Cadillac for what
we’re paying each month. A few years ago, the insurance company doubled
the premium on our group coverage, forcing us to switch to individual
plans. And for the past two years, these individual plans have continued
to shoot up. In fact, they are trying to raise my premium 75%. If you
think that’s bad, I’ve been told, “Wait until next year.”
To cope,
I’ve had to raise my deductible and reduce my coverage. So I’m paying
more for less.
What’s
the cause of all this? I hear all sorts of explanations. One of the main
ones is that insurance companies want to become more and more profitable,
so they’re merging into mega-companies and denying coverage for anyone
who’s not 100% healthy. But here are some other factors pushing up the
cost of coverage:
Expensive
prescription drugs. All those ads on TV, radio, and in magazines (often
featuring has-been celebrities) aren’t cheap. The cost of all those ads
and marketing to doctors is now factored into the price of prescription
drugs. The ads also make people demand drugs they don’t need.
Unnecessary
care. The doctor doesn’t make any money unless you’re being treated,
and he or she is running a business, after all. They also have to practice
“defensive medicine,” because they don’t want a lawyer asking why a
certain test wasn’t performed. So they throw in the kitchen sink.
Lawsuits.
If you watch daytime TV, you’d think everyone were a victim of a
“medical mistake.” The problem is, people today think that if they
have something wrong with them or they don’t get cured like they think
they should, it’s someone else’s fault. Sometimes it is, but most of
the time, it’s not. The verdicts are getting higher and higher, allowing
the lawyers to make more and more money, attracting new lawyers and new
“victims,” etc., etc. This has caused malpractice insurance to triple
for some doctors, including one I know.
Aging
population with bad health habits. There’s no way around it. As people
get older, they tend to get sick more often and with more expensive
illnesses like cancer and heart disease. The baby boomers are getting
older and fatter and demanding more care, and as a result, health
insurance is paying out more in claims. Delaware has become the “new
Florida” with all the retirees locating here. It’s one of the reasons
that Sussex County was “re-rated” by the insurance companies to be a
much higher risk, so it now costs more to buy insurance here.
Heroic
care. Elderly patients reaching the end of their lives are often treated
with heroic care that drives up costs without improving quality of life.
In our society, you can’t die of old age anymore. Even though death
comes for everyone, we deny the fact that it is a natural process. It
might sound cruel, but you just don’t see that type of treatment offered
in Canada or Europe, where there’s national health care.
People who
don’t pay. You don’t get treated very well if you don’t have any
money or insurance, but you do get treated for emergencies. The trouble
is, as insurance has gotten more expensive, fewer people have it, forcing
the medical establishment to raise prices for people who can pay. It’s
called cost shifting. They also tend to pad the bills for people who have
insurance. For example, it’s not unusual for families to be billed for
services supposedly performed weeks after a loved one had actually died.
So, where
do we go from here? At the current rate, no one who owns a small business
or who has an individual policy will be able to afford coverage within a
few years. Only the rich or those who work for large companies or the
government will have any coverage at all. An uninsured person who spends a
week in the hospital could easily be forced into bankruptcy and lose
everything.
I don’t
think that’s an acceptable situation for our country. There will be a
lot of needless human suffering if people can’t get health care. In
fact, there already is. It makes me angry that we’ve gotten to this
point.
Everybody
should be covered by some type of national health care, like Canada and
Britain have. People shouldn’t be dropped by their insurance company
just because they get sick or have a pre-existing condition, but that’s
now the case. I recognize that national health care would have its own,
different set of problems from what we have now. But overall, I think it
would be a huge improvement.
It
probably won’t happen, though. The special interest lobbies are just too
strong. The doctors, lawyers, and drug companies in this country would
never consent to a change in the status quo.
Wouldn’t
it be great if Delaware enacted some sort of statewide coverage so that
everybody is insured fairly? People need to contact their elected
officials to voice their concerns. If Delaware is the First State, why
can’t we be the first to do this?
Rick
Moore is a personal trainer certified by the American Fitness
Professionals & Associates. Visit his club, Rick’s Fitness &
Health, in Milton, Delaware or www.ricksfitness.net, or call 302-684-3669.
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