On May 9, 5:46=A0pm, Robin <Ri...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> Kujebaku, what do you think?
>
> This is a tale of pay or die that recurs again and again all over our
> country and only in our country in the entire western world.
>
> Advised by her physician to go to M.D. Anderson for urgent treatment
> of her leukemia, Mrs. Lisa Kelly was told she had to pay $105,000 up
> front before being admitted. The hospital declared her limited
> insurance unacceptable.
>
> Sitting in the business office with seriously advanced cancer, she
> asked herself =96 =93Are they going to send me home?=94 =93Am I going to
d=
ie?=94
>
> Time out from her torment for a moment. M.D. Anderson started this
> upfront payment demand in 2005 because of a spike in its bad debt
> load.
>
> The Wall Street Journal explains =96 =93The bad debt is driven by a
larger=
> number of Americans who are uninsured or who don=92t have enough
> insurance to cover costs if catastrophe strikes. Even among those with
> adequate insurance deductibles and co-payments are growing so big that
> insured patents also have trouble paying hospitals.=94
>
> It isn=92t as if non-profit hospitals like M.D. Anderson are hurting.
> Look at this finding in an Ohio State University study: net income per
> bed at non-profit hospitals tripled to $146,273 in 2005 from $50,669
> in 2000. And you also may have noticed the huge pay packages awarded
> hospital executives.
>
> M.D. Anderson, exempt from taxation, recipient of funds from large
> government programs and research grants has cash, investments and
> endowment totaling $1.9 billion, with net income of $310 million last
> year, the Journal re****ts.
>
> Back to the 52 year old, Lisa Kelly. She and her husband returned with
> a check for $45,000. After a blood test and biopsy, the hospital
> oncologist urged admittance quickly. Then the hospital demanded an
> additional $60,000-$45,000 just for the lab tests and $15,000 for part
> of the cost of the treatment.
>
> To shorten the story, she received chemotherapy for over a year. Often
> her appointment was =93blocked=94 until she made another payment.
>
> In a particularly grotesque incident, she was hooked up to a
> chemotherapy pump, but the nurses were not allowed to change the chemo
> bag until Mr. Kelly made another payment.
>
> She endured other indignities and overcharges. Re****ter Martinez cites
> $360 for blood tests that insurers pay $20 or less for and up to $120
> for saline pouches that cost less than $2 retail.
>
> Imagine anything like Mrs. Kelly=92s predicament and pressures occurring
> in Canada, Belgium, Germany, Italy, France, Switzerland, Holland,
> England or any other western country. It would never happen.
>
> These countries have universal single payer health insurance. No one
> dies because they cannot afford health care. In America, 18,000
> Americans die each year because they cannot afford health care,
> according to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of
> Sciences. Many more get sick or become sicker.
>
> None of these countries spend more than 11% of their GDP on
> healthcare. The U.S. spends over 16% of its GDP on health care and
> does not cover 47 million people and tens of millions are under
> covered
>
> In the U.S. the drug companies charge their highest prices in the
> world, even though we, the taxpayers, subsidized them in large ways.
> In other countries like Mexico and Canada, they cannot get away with
> such drug price gouging, with a pay or die ultimatum.
>
> In the U.S., computerized billing fraud and abuse cost over $200
> billion last year, according to the GAO arm of Congress. In other
> counties, single payer prevents such looting.
>
> In other countries, administrative expenses of their single payer
> system are about a third of what the Aetna=92s and other insurers rack
> up.
>
> In other western countries, medical outcomes for children and adults
> and paid family leave are far superior to that of the U.S. The World
> Health Organization ranks the US health care system 37th in the world.
>
> When apologists in Wa****ngton hear these statistics, they say =93but we
> have the best medical research centers in the world, like M.D.
> Anderson.=94
>
> Clearly much is wrong with the nature of pricing health care.
>
> Like other hospitals, M.D. Anderson is caught in a macabre spider=92s
> web of cost allocations mixing treatment costs with research budgets,
> cash reserves, and just plain accounting gimmicks that burden
> patients.
>
> When a friend showed the Journal=92s article to a Dutch visitor, the
> latter blurted in anger =96 =93you are a nation of sheep.=94 Not a very
> flattering description of =93the land of the free, home of the brave.=94
>
> Someday, soon maybe, Americans will finally band together and say
> =93enough already,=94 we=92re going for full Medicare for all- without
> loopholes for cor****ate profiteers and purveyors of waste and fraud.
>
> Last month after being in remission, Lisa Kelly=92s leukemia has come
> back.
Of course the champion of the leisureless (Nader) won't
mention that Mrs. Kelly had another option to deal with
her personal predicament, and that was taking out a re-
verse mortgage on her house in order to pay what she
would owe. Then when the money ran out, she would be-
come eligible for Medicaid, and continue her chemotherapy
at a public hospital. Yes, there are public hospitals in
America. And yes, they do take care of the have-nots.
Consider the case this way: Why should I, as a taxpayer
be responsible for "cadillac health care" (the kind Michael
Moore is receiving at Stanford) for somebody who is either
too cheap (like Karel), or too poor to pay for it. However,
that is not really what is happening in Canada. There,
economically productive people pay a progressive ****tion
of their earnings (correct me if I'm wrong), yet everyone
gets pacer care. For all who don't know, AMC Pacer was
the ugliest car ever made in this country. I would really
like to see some no-nonsense comparison between
Canada and the US in terms of the overall paycheck
burden attributable to health care.
Get to work, Tony! ;-)
|
