It's the lead story today in the Boston Globe. Even those Americans like some of us, with very expensive junk insurance are unable to seek medical care in a timely fashion due to spiraling out of pocket costs. Escalating co-pays, deductibles and declining reimbursement make a routine trip to the doctor, a luxury purchase even many with insurance can no longer consider.
Around here, we've known about the concept we call, "think you're insured, think again", for a very long time, but the politicians, as you might expect, are still debating whether healthcare should even be a basic right of citizenship and available to everyone.
If you're outraged beyond words, like most Americans, you can help, even on a Sunday. Please go to Stand With Dr Dean and sign the petition.
This is from the Boston Globe.
Costs are keeping patients from care
Copayments rise as families struggle
People with robust health insurance are putting off doctors’ appointments and skimping on prescriptions because they can’t afford the increasing costs of copayments and deductibles, according to managers of patient-assistance hot lines in Massachusetts.
Not that long ago, such dilemmas were typically faced by lower-income families, often on publicly subsidized insurance. But with many consumers struggling to pay rising healthcare costs amid today’s shrinking family budgets, these tough choices are becoming commonplace - even among families with employer-provided health insurance, consumer advocates say.
http://www.boston.com/...
So here we are, good, tax-paying, heavily insured middle class Americans. We pay so much for this worthless insurance, that we make all manner of sacrifice just to pony up that exorbitant premium every damn month.
But despite doing this--working hard and playing by the rules, (and in Massachusetts facing a fine, if you refuse to play along), we still cannot afford routine medical care.
Like I often say, you don't need to believe me, read this report from the Kaiser Family Foundation.
"Previously it was the uninsured,’’ Rukavina said. "Now we are seeing people with insurance, but they are struggling to pay their bills.’’
In the richest country on the planet, some of us can't even afford a damn allergy shot.
The healthcare catastrophe has burrowed its evilness deep into the heart, soul and psyche of America's middle class.
Why tens of millions of Americans are not following the lead of our Iranian brothers and sisters is beyond me. Have the last eight years been so deliberatly brutalizing, that we have become numb, silent and obedient slaves?
In Framingham, Dr. James Kenealy, an ear, nose and throat specialist, said his patients increasingly cite copayments as a hurdle to continuing with allergy treatments. The care typically includes weekly shots for several months, with copayments ranging from $20 to $50, per shot, depending on the patient’s insurance plan.
"Probably once a week, there will be a patient deciding to discontinue allergy injections or not pursue that as a therapy because they have high copays,’’ Kenealy said.
Even patients without chronic illnesses are finding themselves in a copayment crunch.
"If you are a family with four or five kids . . . copayments are going to add up,’’ said Worcester family physician Dr. James Broadhurst, noting that children visit doctors frequently for illnesses and preventive care.
And if you really want to get ill on a lovely Sunday morning, take a look at this.
Blue Cross seeks immediate rate hike
Move would affect 400,000 customers
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan has asked the state to let it immediately raise rates for 400,000 people who buy their own health insurance outside the workplace.
. . .The state is reviewing Blue Cross' request for an immediate rate hike.
If granted, monthly premiums for non-group policyholders immediately would increase 44.4%, compared with the 56% Blue Cross eventually wants for those plans.
Interim rate hikes Blue Cross seeks for group conversion policies that extend coverage people once had in a workplace would be 27.8%; the full rate hike pending calls for a 39.2% increase in those plans.
http://www.freep.com/...
Truly, I'm at a point where I don't know whether to laugh, cry or just leave this horribly and tragically depraved nation. So in order to relieve the misery of living in a country which still condones this amoral state of affairs, some make 30 second public service announcements, and we kid ourselves and think the political class will listen.
They only listen when you force them to listen.
Even today, you can do something. Please go to Stand With Dr Dean and sign the petition.