Sharing the burden

Recently UPS was criticized for dropping employee health insurance coverage for spouses who are eligible for health insurance through their employers. But that's only 15,000 people. The majority of their drivers and other employees are covered through Teamster's Union benefits so they will not be affected by the change.

A recent article called Employers Play Obamacare Blame Game discusses reactions to the shared costs complaints and how other companies are reacting to the upcoming changes.

The whole point of mandatory health care is to have a healthier population. This requires change. So of course employers are going to start shifting burdens around as much as they can. Companies which have provided the most benefits I am sure will be some of the first to start making changes.

There is a separate requirement, starting in 2018, where employees who offer richer policies will be required to start shifting more of the costs to employees or start paying a penalty.

People are dying or going bankrupt due to lack of medical care or the high costs associated with it. We need to share the burden and can't assume our employers or the government will hand us everything we need. Its part of taking our place in society and being a contributing human being.

There are those, including me, who face health or other issues, who can't contribute as much as others. But that doesn't make them any less of human beings.
If you do not like the current and upcoming changes for whatever reason, then you can do your part by cooperating with the existing legislation and work to find ways to change it.

What this is all called is change. Get over it. Change is needed to make health insurance more affordable and health care more available. Our current system does not work. Insurance companies, not doctors, are making decisions about the health of people.

 

This is an ad for a CNN Special called "Escape Fire: the Fight to Rescue American Healthcare" which premiered last night (after my bedtime so I recorded DVRed it and will watch in the next few days).

It was included with this article titled US Manages Disease, Not Health which states that though Obama care represents change and has the goal of helping more Americans get health insurance and access to health care. But tjhat is the wrong question to answer.

They claim the real question that healthcare reform needs to answer is: "How can we improve medical care so that it's worth extending it to more people? In other words, how can we create a health care system that helps people become and stay healthy?"

Personally I would like to believe that both questions should be answered. We need everyone to have access to health insurance and health care and we need a better medical system that helps people become and stay healthy.

As this article claims more focus needs to be on prevention and keeping people healthy where treatments are less expensive and less arduous. We do need to focus on healthier life styles. More exercise - go for a walk instead of watching tv. Provide better food - meaning less processed food, fewer ingredients.

I have seen changes which help make Americans healthier by offering free annual physicals as a preventative measure. There has also been a movement coupled with the recent recession where people are eating healthier, farmers markets are showing up everywhere, and there has been public awareness of the dangers of obesity.

But we have a long way to go. We need health care reform, we need to focus on keeping people healthy, and we need financial reform in the way doctors, medical centers, and insurance companies pay and charge fees.
 

Health care reform

Now that the stupid election is over and we can  now focus on more important things than candidate hair styles, scandals, and mud slinging, we can take another look at health care reform. If Mr. Romney had been elected health care reform would probably have been on the chopping block. In the meantime, now that it is still alive, the poor insurance companies and hospitals have to make changes - note the sarcasm and lack of sympathy.

In the next five years more and more changes will be rolled out. Of the 91 changes, 60 are already in effect. You can see the full implementation timeline on at the Kaiser Foundation here. The last one takes effect January 1, 2018.

Some of the good changes are already in place - up to age 26 on parents health plan and temporary insurance for those with pre-existing conditions. There are still some new ones yet to start such as:

• Financial Disclosure: Requires disclosure of financial relationships between health entities, including physicians, hospitals, pharmacists, other providers, and manufacturers and distributors of covered drugs, devices, biologicals, and medical supplies. The first report is due to Congress April 1, 2013.   Ooh, all these hidden payments will now become visible.
• No Annual Limits on Insurance coverage
• Guaranteed availability of insurance: Requires guarantee issue and renewability of health insurance regardless of health status and allows rating variation based only on age (limited to a 3 to 1 ratio), geographic area, family composition, and tobacco use (limited to 1.5. to 1 ratio) in the individual and the small group market and the Exchanges.

I admit there are some parts of the bill that I don't like as much but overall I think this is forcing change on health insurance, medical device, and pharmaceutical companies as well as on medical centers, doctors, and hospitals.  The system was broken and I hope to see some positive outcomes for patients. After all, we are the ones that receive all this care so we should be better off.

Politics and healthcare

I always think politics and healthcare should be separate issues. I am also not blogging about political issues - I am in my quadrennial political avoidance mode. But I find this issue interesting. Would you change your presidential vote based on the issue of healthcare? According to CNN it is making people think in several swing states (they just use the term swing to confuse us all).

The big issue is that people who have always voted with the Republican party and enjoying the benefits of the healthcare reform act. They realize that if Romney wins they may lose these benefits.

I think this shows how divisive politics have become and how messed up our healthcare system  is. If Americans' politics are swayed by a single issue, our health care system must be in very bad shape.l

The power of health insurance

If you wondered what life was like without health insurance? Here's a little statistic: 26,000 Americans die prematurely each year due to lack of health insurance. They didn't get preventive care or they didn't get needed care. Many of these are caused by high premiums or denial of coverage.

As we await the Supreme Court's decision on healthcare reform, what do we do for those people who die prematurely if the act is struck down, all or in part? I am not saying the healthcare act as proposed is right or wrong, I just think the current system is broken.

I know you can blame people like me with a million little bitty ailments who are driving up health care costs with all my medical adventures. But I do feel everyone should be able to get health insurance if they want it. Call me optimistic but it would be nice.