A few nice company health insurance images I found:
Health Insurance Does Not Insure Health
Image by SavaTheAggie
No one in the United States can be denied health care because of their inability to pay. That's just the way it is. Health Insurance reform - any reform - is not going to give one single person health care they couldn't already receive.
Will it make health care better, higher quality? No, health insurance doesn't insure health, it only insures financial stability of the person covered.
So will it make it cheaper? Not if you cover Pre-existing conditions. Forcing companies to cover pre-existing conditions will only serve to increase costs to everyone. Insurance companies exist to make money. That's it. They must make a profit or break even or they will be forced to close. No company in the United States pays taxes or even has a single business expense - they pass that cost onto the consumer. You force the insurance company to cover things they lose money on and they will be forced to cover that extra expense by raising rates.
Want to make Health Insurance cheaper? Treat health insurance like car insurance.
Allow people to buy the coverage they want a la carte - if they only want insurance to cover emergencies let them buy it. If they want insurance to cover everything and their hangnails, make them pay more for it. Don't force single men to carry insurance for mammograms and don't force single women to carry insurance for testicular cancer (real law - forget what state, I think Wisconsin).
Allow people to buy insurance across state lines - There are some 1200-1400 health insurance companies in the United States, but you only have access to the ones in your home state. Each of the 50 states has their own regulations as to what insurance companies must cover (like the example above), limiting what small companies can do and creates localized monopolies. Think of the competition that could be created to hammer prices down if they all had to compete against each other.
Allow small businesses to form medical co-operatives - Obama himself has said he doesn't like how small businesses pay more for insurance than large companies. But that's just capitalism - economies of scale. Big companies get better rates because they have more employees and more bargaining power - and whether you think differently or not, you do not want this to change. By allowing small businesses to form co-operatives, and limiting it logically (I say within the same county), multiple small businesses can pool their employees and be able to talk down the price of coverage for their employees.
And after all that, the Insurance Companies would probably cover pre-existing conditions just because competition would warrant it - and it'd be cheaper than it would have ever been otherwise.
Carolyn Comeau On The Impact Of Health Insurance Reform
Image by Leader Nancy Pelosi
This afternoon at a press conference in the Capitol, Carolyn Comeau talked about how she will benefit from much-needed health insurance reform:
I’m Carolyn Comeau. I live in Ashville, North Carolina. I was diagnosed with breast cancer three years ago at age 45. I got the diagnosis call as my husband was on an important job interview for a position that would allow us to have good, high-quality benefits. Thank heaven he got those benefits in that job. However, seven months later, he was laid off. He works in the construction industry, which was hard hit in our state — and laid off in the middle of my treatment. We had no choice but to get — then get benefits through COBRA and that was ,058 a month for 18 months. We looked to the individual market for private-insurance, we did not qualify for Medicaid, and had a disastrous meeting with a representative from a company who quoted us ,000-plus a month for me only. You feel, in a sense, tainted. Being a woman should not be a pre-existing condition.
It’s hard to describe the stress of going through a catastrophic illness and the side-effects of the treatment that you receive and worrying about the insurance mess at the same time and how you are going to make it through as a family. The light on the horizon that we thought we had was the North Carolina high-risk pool. I currently pay into that 0 a month. I have a ,000 deductible. However, my oncologist’s office does — is not a member, is not affiliated with that program. And the latest update is that I just got word that there is an exclusionary policy with the high-risk pool for the genetic testing that my doctors want me to have, which would possibly impact my treatment and my future course as well as the futures of my children.
And the final highlight is that recently my husband and I did our taxes. And as we sat down and saw everything in black and white, we saw that very nearly half our income went to health-related costs. And that is just for me. My children are on the North Carolina CHIP program and my husband is uninsured.
So, the bottom line is — the reality: if you’re healthy, you get insurance. If you get sick, there’s no option — you then have a pre-existing condition, there is no place to turn. Insurance should help everyone, including those who need it. There’s no real option in a private market for people with pre-existing conditions. So I urge and urge strongly that Congress make the humane choice for our country and pass this health care reform bill. Plain and simple: It’s a broken system and it continues to leave a trail of families whose finances have been decimated by the system.
Krisja Hendricks on Health Insurance Reform
Image by Leader Nancy Pelosi
This afternoon, Speaker Pelosi and Reps. Chris Van Hollen and Kathy Dahlkemper joined a coalition of 20 youth organizations from 30 states to announce a key provision impacting young adults in health insurance reform legislation. Krisja Hendricks from New York spoke at the press conference.
Krisja was a senior in college when she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. She was still covered by her dad’s insurance plan and received excellent and prompt medical attention, surgery and therapy. Two months after she graduated however, she was kicked off the plan. She applied to numerous insurance companies and, time after time, was denied coverage because she’d had cancer. Krisja says, “Essentially because I needed insurance, I was not eligible for it.”
Today, Speaker Pelosi announced that the health reform bill will include a provision allowing young Americans to remain on their parents’ insurance through the age of 26.
