You should have no doubt that the for-profit insurance insurance industry will do anything and everything to protect its immense share of the 2 trillion dollars that is spent annually on healthcare in the United States.
Yet the frightening realities faced by the American people plauged by this predatory and vicious corruption-laden system become more dire by the day.
If you continue reading, you'll notice there is a thread that ties everything together: profits for the predatory insurance and pharmaceutical industries at the expense of the well-being of the American people.
Make no mistake, affordable, universal, single-payer healthcare involves the national security of the United States.
I'll start by telling you that only yesterday, my friend the surgeon and oncologist called me to say that he would be even more harried than usual.
I found that hard to imagine--how could this saint of a human being add anything else to his already pressure cooker, heavily over-scheduled life? He. Had. No. Choice. He explained that he would personally be administering chemotherapy for a very sick and uninsured patient. Seems that he was the last line of defense between her and God knows what. He had persuaded his hospital to absorb the cost. I gather, chemotherapy comes with a host of potentially lethal complications, and the patient must be monitored closely. So this would consume more of his precious time. Unreimbursed time.
This grotesque situation is commonplace in America.
Poor Get Less Chemotherapy
Breast cancer patients who are less educated and have a lower household income are more likely to receive reduced doses of chemotherapy — leading to undertreatment for their disease — new research suggests.
. . .The report is published in this month's issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
. . .Researchers looked at 764 women with early breast cancer who were enrolled in a prospective, multi-center study of cancer patients starting chemotherapy.
Using U.S. Census Bureau statistics and zip codes, the study authors estimated each woman's household income and poverty status. The women were also interviewed to determine their level of education.
What they found was that women with less education were more than three times as likely as those with more education to receive reduced levels of chemotherapy.
Undertreatment with Chemotherapy "a Broad Problem
. . .This finding sheds light on a very real discrepancy — women with less money and less education are being given less of the medicine they need.
http://abcnews.go.com/...
Another Murder by Spreadsheet atrocity.
In collaboration with Demos, The Access Project produced a report in January 2007 titled Borrowing to Stay Healthy documenting how low and middle income households are turning to credit cards to pay for medical care.The report findings are based on a national telephone survey of over 1,100 low and middle income households.
Report highlights include the finding that nearly a third (29%) of respondents reported that medical expenses contributed to their current level of credit card debt. In households with medical debt, the average credit card debt was significantly higher (46%) that in those households without medical expenses as a contributing factor in their overall credit card debt.
While uninsured respondents had the highest levels of credit care debt, even respondents with health insurance were not shielded from the medical debt problem. These findings, combined with the industry trend of increasing deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs, call into question whether it is prudent to rely on borrowing as a method to pay for needed health care.
Families using credit cards to pay for their health care are sinking in debt and hurting their ability to get the care they need, a report issued Tuesday said.
Based on data from a national survey of low- and middle-income households, the report said consumers who used credit cards to pay for medical expenses had much higher credit card debts than those who do not.
Specifically, the report said low- and middle-income households with medical debt carried an average $11,623 of credit card debt, compared with $7,964 for those without medical debts on their credit cards.
"Too many working people are piling up debt on high-interest credit cards and risking their financial security simply because they have the misfortune of getting sick," Mark Rukavina, executive director of The Access Project resource center and co-author of the report, said in a release.
http://www.kansascity.com/...
You can read the entire report at the link I'm providing.
http://www.demos.org/...
And if you can bear it, I'll leave you with this. UnitedHealth is making record profits, so is the pharmaceutical industry.
A new government benefit increased U.S. drug sales by $2.5 billion, or 1 percent, in 2006, bolstering earnings at Pfizer Inc. and UnitedHealth Group Inc. as well as other pharmaceutical and insurance companies.
Purchases under the benefit, offered through the Medicare health program for the elderly for the first time last year, accounted for a sixth of the growth in sales, according to the research firm IMS Health Inc. UnitedHealth, the biggest U.S. seller of medical coverage, today reported a 9.2 percent profit margin on the drug program in the fourth quarter.
Insurers, including UnitedHealth, gained from selling drug policies to 22.6 million Americans and administering the new Medicare program, known as Part D. Drugmakers collected higher prices because the plan prevents Medicare from negotiating discounts. While the House of Representatives last week passed a bill requiring the government to lower costs, President George W. Bush said he'll veto the measure if it passes the Senate.
. . .UnitedHealth, based in Minnetonka, Minnesota, today reported net income of $1.2 billion on revenue of $18.1 billion in the fourth quarter. That compares with $870 million on $11.9 billion in revenue a year earlier. The 2005 results may be altered after a pending restatement.
http://www.bloomberg.com/...
I leave you again with the question, why do we tolerate this?
I think it's time to renew our idea that our elected officials be denied their health care benefits until all the American people have access to Medicare.
Medicare must be expanded and available to all Americans. This is the only logical solution to the myriad healthcare catastrophes facing the American people.