Comments on: When Health Hits Home

By: Stephen

Stephen — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 02:39:01 +0000

As the spouse of someone with a chronic illness I am very fearful of what the future holds for us. Even though we live frugally and have good incomes I’m afraid will get dragged into debt by medical expenses. I hope there is universal coverage in the US soon.

By: Jean

Jean — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 01:18:25 +0000

Denny – great info on Missouri DMVs.

Not sure which is worse, Roy Blunt’s distortions and lies about single-payer, or his hypocrisy given that belongs to the best health insurance plan in the country.

By: Caroline McIntyre

Caroline McIntyre — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 22:00:37 +0000

Let’s face it, Health Care is expensive and the price just keeps going up. Even with some type of discount already in place through PPOs or discount cards, members often remain unable to pay the balance. Worst case scenario, the member seeks medical care outside of the discount network and is faced with undiscounted charges with no support, no assistance and mounting dept.
A little over a year ago I saw a growing need to help individuals with their medical debt. My company Independent Health Care Advisors works with HealthCare Mediation’s for the sole purpose of helping individuals with their medical debt. So until a system is in place to ensure individuals customary and reasonable charges, contact my company and we can negotiate your medical bills.

By: Wilson Samuel

Wilson Samuel — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 01:27:59 +0000

To Mark @

>Universal health care is a terrible solution. Giving >the government greater control of health care is >putting a corrupt bloated bureaucracy, with a hundred >conflicting agendas in charge of one of largest parts >of our economy. It will result in higher costs, >politically based decisions and another huge drain on >taxpayers.

Do you work as a CEO for any of the Health Insurance companies sir?

If the US Govt is not the best, then why is the USPS, US Air Force, DoD, US Army, US Navy, DHS, USCIS etc are the best in the World???

By: Denny

Denny — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 23:10:27 +0000

I just heard the podcast of this show.
I was interested in what Roy Blunt said about comparing a single payer system to a trip to the Department of Motor Vehicles.
Having lived in Missouri for the last 27+ years I can say without a doubt that trips to the DMV have gotten worse the last couple of years.
Amazing enough it got a lot worse after the previous Matt Blunt, Roy’s son, privatized all the DMV offices and auctioned them off to what I assume were his political supporters.

By: Wilson Samuel

Wilson Samuel — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 20:33:37 +0000

I was born and lived in India and Ireland, in India one can get easily a CABG done under 5 grand and in Ireland its free however if you want to get Private Care you can easily with the help of Insuarance.

But NOWHERE else, I have seen a person being charged 900 USD on top of the Insurance Coverage for a Doctor’s Visit for a small neck pain (by the way, that went away just by sleeping on the right pillow)!!!

This is nothing but ROBBERY!!

By: Pete

Pete — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 19:25:02 +0000

“Universal Healthcare” is, by itself, a meaningless phrase. Please educate yourself and then fight for what you believe we need. A huge fight is brewing. It pits healthcare for people (represented by a public insurance option in a national reform bill) against healthcare for profit (mostly a continuation of the status quo). Which side are you on?

Learn more and then take action at http://www.insurancecompanyrules.org

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 16:23:46 +0000

Universal health care is a terrible solution. Giving the government greater control of health care is putting a corrupt bloated bureaucracy, with a hundred conflicting agendas in charge of one of largest parts of our economy. It will result in higher costs, politically based decisions and another huge drain on taxpayers.

But I don’t know of a better solution.

By: Tom

Tom — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 15:42:39 +0000

REALITY CHECK:
1) Insurance companies need doctors and hospitals, they want them to be profitable. Without them, why would we buy health insurance from them.

2) Insurance companies reimburse doctors and hospital at a realistic rate for their services. The majority of doctors and hospitals income come from insurance and medicare, and they still make a profit.

3) The rate you are charged by your doctor or hospital does not represent the real cost of healthcare, but is the inflated rate used in negotiating their contracts with the insurance companies.

4) Hospital and doctors have to bill their patients at the inflated rate used in the negotiations or they will be penalized by the insurance company.

5) Individuals without insurance have to be charged the the inflated rate or insurance companies will penalize the healthcare provider.

6) We have a 2 tie pricing system. One, is designed to keep the American public in fear of being without insurance. The other, is the realistic reimbursement for the actual cost of healthcare.

7) If everyone was charged the actual cost for their healthcare. Most people would not need the insurance they now have, but only a supplemental insurance for catastrophic health events.

The money saved by making healthcare providers charge the real cost for their services, which would eliminate the need for full coverage health insurance, would save Americans billions every year.

By: Nancy Richman

Nancy Richman — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 13:38:23 +0000

I woke up this morning still thinking Karen Tumult’s surprise by her findings about the reality of health insurance (or lack thereof). She claimed to be “sophisticated” about the topic. It was just another example of how lazy journalists have become. Or is it that when it comes to most of the crisis topics e.g. finance, housing, healthcare reporters cannot put aside their assumptions and biases about the “great” American system and the supremacy of the private sector? Besides, all Karen had to do is watch “Sicko” and much of her surprise would have been muted.

By: Rick Evans

Rick Evans — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 11:21:20 +0000

david re: your “other guys problem” is a favorite argument by scapegoaters who try to claim the “uninsured” are responsible for our souring health care costs. However, despite all those anecdotes about unpaid emergency room bills, the big money driving health care inflation is from insured patients especially medicare and medicaid. When a patient doesn’t see what it costs to treat him he consumes more.

Surely you heard and read about the much higher retail price charged uninsured patients “health care providers”. $7000 for $900 worth of lab tests?

Last summer politicians were calling for windfall taxes on oil companies when oil approached $200 per barrel. Meanwhile the standard policy for health care providers IS gouging.

Before we continue the scapegoating of uninsured taxpayers ala Massachusetts how about we put in place a policy that a hospital cannot charge an uninsured patient any more than the lowest or highest or average (pick your number) insurance payment for a service.

By: david

david — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 07:56:28 +0000

I have more than one friend that has a good salary, but refuses to buy medical insurance. Too many people just refuse to buy a basic medical policy and think it’s “the other guys” problem.

By: cecilia

cecilia — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 03:07:18 +0000

I recently switched insurances and now have Regence healthcare. I tried to read through through their booklet in order to educate myself about what they cover and what don’t cover and what my benefits are. I am educated and intelligent, but their policy is so complicated, so many twists and turns and exclusions, it is very hard to grasp. The whole medical insurance thing is way too complicated for the average consumer. The consumer has no idea really what they are paying for. One last thing. I require a small amount of sleep medication in order to be able to sleep at night. When I went to the pharmacy to get my prescription filled, I was told that Regence only pays for 14 days out of every 29 days. I guess I am not supposed the sleep on the other nights. The pharmacist told me that lots of insurance companies do the same. They will pay for only 1/2 months prescription even though prescription coverage is part of your benefits.

By: cecilia

cecilia — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 02:58:58 +0000

I believe more and more insurance companies will go the way of United Healthcare. One of the ways that United Healthcare makes money is by having no in-network providers of a certain type in the network. For instance, I needed a cystoscopy which is a very routine urological outpatient procedure to look inside the bladder. ALL the urologists in the medium sized town where I lived used an outpatient facility next door to their offices in order to do cystoscopies. But this facility was not contracted with Unitedhealthcare and I am guessing because UHC pays so poorly and is such a hassle to its providers. So in order to have a cystoscopy in my town, I would have to pay hundreds of dollars because the ONLY facility in town was out-of-network. My husband recently went to his doctor who removed a small growth and sent it to the main pathology lab in our town. This lab was also not contracted with UHC and so we are now having to pay the bill as out-of-network. So this is how the insurance companies make their money, by not having contracts with important providers of services in your area which means the consumer has to pay these costs because they are out-of-network. Unless the public somehow puts a stop to it, this is the wave of the future. You think you have good coverage, you pay a fortune for your insurance, but when you actually go to use it, you end up paying bills that you should not have to pay. My advice is to stay away like the plague from United Healthcare.

By: Ed Helmrich

Ed Helmrich — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 02:29:21 +0000

As a pro-lifer, I see the traces of abortion here also: if we hadn’t aborted fifty million human beings, there would be plenty of health people buying health care insurance to pay for our elderly. The disaster in the system could have been predicted.

By: charles

charles — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 01:45:26 +0000

This is so much hogwash about the DMV and the IRS. What about the VA? I was under the impression that until the Bush Administration screwed things up, the VA Hospital system was the finest in the world.

Charles Miller
Brooklyn, NY

By: Naomi Holloway

Naomi Holloway — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 01:36:48 +0000

The US doesn’t have a health care system. It has a sickness management system. It doesn’t cure. It feeds on chronic illness. It’s designed on a predatory model with all incentives serving to keep people sick, create more, and enrich certain groups at their expense. If one’s interest is in health, focusing on how to pay for what we have is pointless. It isn’t worth paying for.

By: Richard Johnston

Richard Johnston — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 01:28:58 +0000

To understand why we need universal health care we need to agree that “insurance company” is a misnomer. The companies we refer to with that expression are risk-avoidance mechanisms that only want your business if they can make money on you. The only way health insurance can continue in the United States is if the pool includes everyone, I mean EVERYONE, so the risk is spread universally. That means the well subsidize the sick, and sharing that responsibility is what being a nation is about.

By: Don Miller

Don Miller — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 01:07:55 +0000

I was listening to your program on the new proposed National Health Care system and the negative comments by Roy Blunt. I live in Columbia, Missouri and have had to suffer under Roys’ son Matt as our govenor for the last 4 years. Thank God he has been voted out because he wasd the worst governor in memory. We are now working to rid ourselves of Roy and his opinion( bought and paid for by the medical insurance HMO’s) and hope the Democrats will do what they promised and vote in a medicare program for everyone. Thanks for your program and your station. I listen every night on my computer.

By: cecilia

cecilia — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 00:49:07 +0000

What I have learned after being covered by United Healthcare is that the most important thing is to follow the money when it comes to health-care. There were so many problems with United Healthcare, that I went online to research them. I learned about their former CEO, William McGuire who not only received $124 million in 2005 as compensation, but also received $1.6 billion(yes you read that correctly) in stock options, and something like $1 billion in a golden parachute. All the health insurance companies have a big vested financial interest in keeping the system as it is, so the media need to begin to really follow the money not only with insurance companies, but also with hospitals and other medical providers.