I had a discussion with a doctor’s nurse today about whether or not I had followed up with a specialist for one of my physical conditions I’ve been dealing with for 20 years.  They obviously have no concept of not being able to afford a specialist.  With a $3500 deductible along with being unemployed a specialist isn’t a necessity but a luxury.

I don’t claim to know the perfect solution to fix our broken health care system but I do know a change must come before more and more Americans find themselves with chronic illnesses they can’t afford to treat.

By Kyung M. Song

Medical bankruptcies

Illnesses — and the attendant loss of job and insurance — are a major reason behind personal bankruptcies in the United States.

In a random national survey published online in June of 2,314 bankruptcy filings, researchers from Harvard University and Ohio University found that 62 percent of the debtors had experienced an illness, high medical bills or loss of income.

Key findings about the medical bankruptcies:

• Seventy-eight percent of those debtors had health insurance at the onset of their illnesses.

• Debtors with no insurance had medical bills averaging $26,971, compared with $17,749 for those with private coverage.

• Of those who owned homes, 5.7 percent borrowed against the house to pay medical bills.

• People with neurological disorders such as multiple sclerosis and those with diabetes had the highest bills, averaging $34,167 and $22,568, respectively.

(Source: “Medical Bankruptcy in the United States, 2007: Results of a National Study,” August 2009 issue of The American Journal of Medicine)

When Mark Moody and Glenda Krull could no longer afford both health insurance and mortgage payments, the Edmonds couple knew which had to go.

They sold their house.

Moody, 60, had a liver transplant four years ago and may need another. He alone pays $1,345 a month for the most generous policy he can buy from Premera Blue Cross.

And he’s desperate to hang on to it — even though the costly premiums drove his wife to downgrade her own coverage, decimated their retirement savings and, just this month, forced them out of their well-appointed home into a newly purchased house half its size.

For Americans with serious illnesses, even good insurance is no guarantee they won’t go broke and they will get all the medical care they need.

In 2007, nearly two-thirds of all personal bankruptcies filed across the country were linked to illnesses, loss of income or high medical bills, according to a survey published in June by researchers at Harvard University and Ohio University. Of those cases, 78 percent of the debtors had health insurance when they first got sick.

REST OF ARTICLE

As a Canadian living in the United States for the past 17 years, I am frequently asked by Americans and Canadians alike to declare one health care system as the better one.

The article continues, debunking myths about Canadian health care:

Myth: Taxes in Canada are extremely high, mostly because of national health care.

In actuality, taxes are nearly equal on both sides of the border. Overall, Canada’s taxes are slightly higher than those in the U.S. However, Canadians are afforded many benefits for their tax dollars, even beyond health care (e.g., tax credits, family allowance, cheaper higher education), so the end result is a wash. At the end of the day, the average after-tax income of Canadian workers is equal to about 82 percent of their gross pay. In the U.S., that average is 81.9 percent.

Myth: Canada’s health care system is a cumbersome bureaucracy.

The U.S. has the most bureaucratic health care system in the world. More than 31 percent of every dollar spent on health care in the U.S. goes to paperwork, overhead, CEO salaries, profits, etc. The provincial single-payer system in Canada operates with just a 1 percent overhead. Think about it. It is not necessary to spend a huge amount of money to decide who gets care and who doesn’t when everybody is covered.

Myth: The Canadian system is significantly more expensive than that of the U.S.Ten percent of Canada’s GDP is spent on health care for 100 percent of the population. The U.S. spends 17 percent of its GDP but 15 percent of its population has no coverage whatsoever and millions of others have inadequate coverage. In essence, the U.S. system is considerably more expensive than Canada’s. Part of the reason for this is uninsured and underinsured people in the U.S. still get sick and eventually seek care. People who cannot afford care wait until advanced stages of an illness to see a doctor and then do so through emergency rooms, which cost considerably more than primary care services.

What the American taxpayer may not realize is that such care costs about $45 billion per year, and someone has to pay it. This is why insurance premiums increase every year for insured patients while co-pays and deductibles also rise rapidly.

To read the debunking of more myths please click  HERE

See the benefits of a single payer system in this 5 minute presentation:

Still not convinced?  You can find more information at the following links:

http://www.pnhp.org/news/articles_of_interest.php

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7186

http://www.grahamazon.com/sp/index.php

http://www.singlepayeraction.org/index.php

You can contact your representative and senators through this website: League of Women Voters

Many of your fellow Americans are suffering needlessly, please get involved in finding a suitable public option for health insurance.