Work, insurance and the unemployed worker?

Question

How can we balance family health care and needs when we can not find jobs? Clinton's health care plan will make us buy health care insurance; okay if I have a job and can afford it along with risiing fuel, food and living expenses. Clinton’s health care plan makes health care available to illegal aliens whether they are working or not! So - as I see it, I will have to buy health insurance, I may never get another job, but the illegal aliens will be able to get work and get free health care insurance and Clinton will live happily ever after; so much for the American dream. She has been part of the Washington mess for over 15 years; she and her counterparts in Washington have all but destroyed our quality of life and economy. Do we need to put with her any longer? She says she is ready to fight; isn’t that all that has been happening in Washington for the past 15 years; all fight and argument and no progress?

Answer 1

I concur. She's not doing one positive thing to resolve the ACTUAL problems with US health care:

government meddling

greedy corrupt large insurers who ignore contract and antitrust law

Those laws need enforcing.

We need price transparency (all prices posted on their web sites so folks know the charges BEFOREHAND as we do for EVERY OTHER FIELD OF BUSINESS. And the lists DO exist--they're just hidden from the public.)

We need to increase the number of doctors and nurses.

We need to fix the bogus government rules that are bankrupting Medicare, Medicaid, etc.

Only place I've seen a comprehensive approach is in Cassandra Nathan's Save America, Save the World book from last year.

Oh a few FACTS:

When 75% of the people who declare bankruptcy over medical bills ARE INSURED, then insurance is CLEARLY not the answer.

"Aldrich’s situation is "asinine" but increasingly common, said Dr. Deborah Thorne of Ohio University. Thorne, co-author of a widely quoted 2005 study that found medical bills contributed to nearly half of the 1.5 million personal bankruptcies filed in the U.S. each year, said that ratio has likely worsened since the data was gathered.

...

Like Aldrich, Thorne said, three-quarters of the individuals in the study who declared bankruptcy because of health problems were insured. "

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20201807/

Linda Peeno, MD testified that SHE had often denied treatment JUST to save the insurance company money http://www.thenationalcoalition.org/DrPe...

Furthermore:

"the vast majority of health insurance policies are through for-profit stock companies. They are in the process of “shedding lives” as some term it when “undesirable” customers are lost through various means, including raising premiums and co-pays and decreasing benefits (Britt, “Health insurers getting bigger cut of medical dollars,” 15 October 2004, investors.com). That same Investors Business Daily article from 2004 noted the example of Anthem, another insurance company. They said the top five executives (not just the CEO) received an average of an 817 percent increase in compensation between 2000 and 2003. The CEO, for example, had his compensation go from $2.5 million to $25 million during that time period. About $21 million of that was in stock payouts, the article noted.

A 2006 article, “U.S. Health Insurance: More Market Domination, More CEO Compensation”

(hcrenewal.blogspot.com) notes that in 56 percent of 294 metropolitan areas one insurer “controls more than half the business in health maintenance organization and preferred provider networks underwriting." In addition to having the most enrollees, they also are the biggest purchasers of health care and set the price and coverage terms. “’The results is double-digit premium increases from 2001 and 2004—peaking with a 13.9 percent jump in 2003—soaring well above inflation and wages increases.’" Where is all that money going? The article quotes a Wall Street Journal article looking at the compensation of the CEO of UnitedHealth Group. His salary and bonus is $8 million annually. He has benefits such as the use of a private jet. He has stock-option fortunes worth $1.6 billion."

--Save America, Save the World by Cassandra Nathan pp. 127-128

"Insurance Companies Robbing Patients

Robbing patients to pay CEOs leads to unprecedented medical insurance corporation greed.

Thursday, January 3, 2008 8:52 AM

By: Michael Arnold Glueck & Robert J. Cihak, The Medicine Men"

http://www.newsmax.com/medicine_men/medi...

How does her plan or anyone's address any of that? They don't.