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The Nation Needs Health Care Reform
As my mother relayed the tale to me, I was filled with an overwhelming sense of incredulity. Why couldn’t the nurses simply tell her if her insurance would be accepted? Did they want her to live in dread of horrendously large bill that may or may not come? I asked my mother this and she informed me that, for liability reasons, the hospital has a policy in place stating that they cannot disclose whether or not a particular insurance company will pay for a patient’s medical bill until after the patient has been admitted into the hospital. This policy is in place to prevent a hypothetical situation in which a patient, learning that his/her medical expenses will not be covered at the current hospital, leaves the hospital emergency room and becomes ill.
Those are merely the health care problems faced by those with medical insurance. In 2007 almost 46 million Americans had no health insurance and this number is steadily increasing due to lack of employer provided coverage (or unemployment) and the rising cost of health care premiums. More and more it appears that health is a luxury that most Americans cannot indulge in. Due to this among the uninsured there is an increased risk of mortality due to postponed medical care. A current issue quite important to those Americans without health insurance, those with meager health coverage, and those struggling to pay their health insurance premiums is the major health care reform that Obama promised to implement during his term in office. Obama’s health care program can be broken down into three parts: making health care affordable and accessible, modernizing the U.S. health care system to lower costs while improving quality, and promoting public health via preventative measures.
For millions of Americans affordable health insurance will mean the difference between safety and insecurity, treatment and neglect. For millions of Americans health insurance will mean a peace of mind. There’s nothing this nation needs more right now than major health care overhaul. If Obama acts on his campaign promises, my mother will never have to watch another person walk out of the emergency room because their health seemed too expensive to maintain.
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My mother, who works as a registered nurse in the Pediatric Emergency Department of our local hospital, told me about a woman who came into the emergency room with her ailing daughter. This woman refused to let the nurses admit her daughter until she found out if her insurance would cover the medical expenses; conversely the nurses also refused to tell her if her insurance company would foot the bill until her daughter was admitted. Recognizing the stalemate, the mother left with her daughter choosing a hospital, albeit further away, that she knew would take her insurance.
I was irked by this in two main ways. The first of which was the fact that hospitals are barely allowed to function because they are constantly inundated with the fear of being sued out of business; the hold that insurance companies and the judicial system have over them is utterly appalling. At the end of the day it’s everyday Americans that are harmed; the hospital gets off scotch free while patients are left footing an outrageously large medical bill. Moreover I disliked the idea that insurance companies were selective about which hospitals they would pay medical fees for. Shouldn’t they be concerned with insuring the health of their client wherever the client may need to go to maintain said health?
He plans to achieve these three goals by implementing a Small Business Health Tax Credit to lower the cost of health insurance for businesses and, consequently, their employees, preventing insurers from overcharging doctors for malpractice insurance, lowering the cost of medication by importing it from developed nations, increasing competition in the insurance market to drive down prices, and many other strategies. Furthermore, he plans to accomplish all this without raising taxes (he aims to eliminate tax cuts for Americans making more than $250,000 a year).
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