A group calling itself the "Conservatives for Patients Rights" has launched ads with citizens from Canada and the UK describing the horrors of government-run (aka socialist) healthcare:
Another government-run horror story has been reignited in Canada, where a 66 year old woman who needs to have serious hip replacement surgery has been waiting more than two years for what the government has deemed elective surgery.
How can you have patients rights if you are not able to be a patient of anyone?
The propoganda effort is being driven by Rick Scott. Who is Rick Scott? Think Progress has an answer: "former CEO of Columbia/HCA Healthcare who was forced to resign amid fraud charges." Here is how Forbes described Scott and his corporate policies in a 2000 article:
Under former Chief Executive Richard Scott, it bought hospitals by the bucketful and promised to squeeze blood from each one...Scott was forced to resign in the wake of the initial fraud charges in 1997...the fraud revealed by that investigation ran deep within HCA's way of doing business.
Listening to Scott's ad, one might be inclined to forgot some of the healthcare horror stories from countries without government-run healthcare, like...oh...the United States?
My boyfriend has no healthcare. He says no matter how bad a government-run program could be, it would have to be better than having nothing.
He has a degenerative arthritic condition known as ankylosing spondylitis that causes daily pain. The bones in his spine and ribs are eroding and slowly fusing together. Without proper treatment soon, he will likely need surgeries to correct future spinal deformities or give his lungs enough room to expand. He attends grad school and is too old for coverage under his parents plan. Insurance companies will not sell him a policy because of his pre-existing condition--or they want more than $1k per month. He is not disabled at this time, so he cannot qualify for Medicare or Medicaid.
He's just one of those people who has fallen through the healthcare cracks. He tried working at Target just to get healthcare and came home every night hobbling because arthritis has caused tendonitis and the arches in his feet have collapsed. One day his arthritic knee gave out at the store, and he collapsed on the floor. He requested a day off, which subtracted from the hours he needed to work to qualify for health insurance. Then, his manager began writing him up for imaginary infractions. His hours were cut. He quit.
Even people with insurance face problems every bit as serious as those presented in Scott's fear-mongering commercials.
From 2004-2008, Anthem BlueCross in California illegally dropped 2330 PPO members after they filed high claims; some had cancer. The company did the same to 1770 HMO subscribers. HealthNet canceled 1600 policies of its subscribers who decided to use their benefits, forcing Patsy Bates, a hairdresser with breast cancer, to stop chemotherapy. Why?
From the LA Times:
...Health Net, in documents produced for the Bates trial, said it avoided $35.5 million by canceling 1,600 policies.
Perhaps you have corporate health insurance, but your doctor prescribes a new oral treatment for your cancer. Mr. Stauffer can tell you what might happen:
From the New York Times:
Mr. Stauffer, a 62-year-old Oregon farmer, had to pay $5,500 for the first 42-day supply of the drug, Temodar, and $1,700 a month after that. "Because it was a pill," he said, "I had to pay — not the insurance."
The Bush Administration had the bright idea of letting private insurance dig its fingers into the government-plan's pie. How did that work out for Mary Francis Thomas, an 86-year-old woman with cancer who has private insurance coverage through the Medicare Part D plan?
...she reached the doughnut hole on her very first prescription of the year [and] had to pay $4,300 in January for a month’s supply of Revlimid, to treat a disorder that can lead to leukemia. Having now passed through the doughnut hole, she must pay 5% of the cost of the drug for the rest of the year...$377 a month.
Health Law Advocates (www.healthlawadvocates.org) describes individuals denied coverage or care by insurance. People only have trouble getting hip relacements in Canada, right? Not so fast.
...a 37 year old Methuen man who incurred over $20,000 in debt to health care providers after undergoing hip replacement surgery. M.M. has health insurance through his employer, but the plan provides limited benefits.
S.A., a 57 year old Wilmington woman, recently had hip replacement surgery. She now owes about $25,000 in medical bills including $15,000 to a hospital...S.A. was uninsured...S.A. applied for public insurance, but was deemed eligible only for coverage that would not cover her bills.
If you have already had a joint replaced, few insurance carriers will cover you--or they add a rider that denies coverage for your prosthetic joint, which often needs to be replaced. This man'sinsurance refused to pay for his hip surgery:
...In 1981 and 1995, David Molnar had surgery to implant and replace an artificial left hip, necessitated by a childhood injury and severe arthritis...Molnar purchased a health insurance policy from Conseco Medical Insurance Company (Conseco) that said: NO BENEFITS WILL BE PAID UNDER THIS CERTIFICATE OF INSURANCE, OR UNDER ANY RIDER OR AMENDMENT THERETO, FOR DISABILITY, LOSS OR EXPENSE RESULTING FROM OR CAUSED BY ANY DISEASE OR DISORDER OF THE LEFT HIP INCLUDING ANY OPERATION OR TREATMENT FOR OR COMPLICATIONS THEREOF SUFFERED BY DAVID A. MOLNAR.
Molnar signed the exception because he could not get coverage without doing so. In 2001, he needed hip surgery; his claims were denied, although his doctors explained his condition resulted from a tooth infection that traveled through his bloodstream to the hip and was not a pre-existing condition.
While Molnar did not have to wait years to get the surgery, it was only because he signed his economic stability away to pay for it.
I worked as an editor at an insurance reinsurance company for two years. The company insured big healthcare agencies against excessive claims and employed auditors who audited their auditors. I recall one case in which a woman's policy excluded coverage for "prosthetics." The company said her insurance carrier should not have paid for her artificial hip--a prosthetic.
Then there are the horror stories many of us have heard--the 49-year-old woman who died unnoticed on the floor of a Brooklyn Mental hospital after waiting 24 hours to be seen.
The 12-year-old Maryland boy who died when an untreated tooth infection spread to his brain. For 2 years, the boy compalined about his painful teeth but his family had no medical coverage to fix them.
When Andrew Pacini's COBRA care expired, his family's combined income of $2350 made him ineligible for free care. The medical providers halted his pancreatic cancer treatments and could find no insurance carrier. He died 2 months later, leaving behind 2 children.
Kent Snyder, Ron Paul's campaign manager, died last year of pneumonia, leaving 500k in healthcare bills because he lacked insurance.
Tracy Pierce, age 37, died from kidney cancer after his insurance company, Coventry Health Care, denied every single treatment his doctors requested. As he was dying, they denied coverage even for oral morphine to ease his pain.
Sakina Rivers, 34, died because her job cut her back to parttime and she lost her insurance. She had a cough and her lung collapsed. She had a rare lung disease and needed transported to a larger Orlando hospital for treatment, but no service would transport her due to lack of insurance. She died 6 days later.
Nataline Sarkisyan, 17, of California died because her insurance would not cover the liver transplant she needed for her leukemia. After she lapsed into a coma, Cigna agreed to pay but it was too late.
Richard Hershman broke his arm on January 17. He was denied needed care due to lack of insurance. He was approved for medical assistance 6 excruciating weeks later and finally had his surgery on March 3.
There are so many stories like this. Only people who have healthcare or who have never had to fight the corporate insurance system think of "socialized" medicine as a big evil. If you have insurance, bureaucrats already make your healthcare decisions for you rather than your doctor, and if you have no insurance, nobody makes decisions about your healthcare because you have no healthcare.