33% of the working population has chronic medical condition such as diabetes or high-blood pressure. A patient with a chronic condition requires continued and regular access to health care. However, 20% of these families reported having problems paying their medical bills in 2003. This is criminal. Think about the stress this adds to a family. A parent has diabetes, and yet must struggle to find money to pay for insulin. This is not a heroin addict looking for a fix; it is an otherwise healthy adult who has a medical condition. And his medical condition, rather than being a simple monthly expenditure, causes financial problems.
Cross Posted at My Left Wing
However, the story gets worse. 68% of adults with a chronic condition had private health insurance. And private health insurance is no guarantee of financial security:
Uninsured people with chronic conditions are especially vulnerable to medical bill problems: almost half (45%, or 3 million people) are in families with such problems. However, even people covered by private insurance are not immune to these financial concerns: one in six privately insured people with chronic conditions (16%, or 6.4 million people) live in families with medical bill problems.
These problems with paying medical bills led to other financial problems:
Among working-age adults with chronic conditions whose families had problems paying medical bills in the past year, negative effects on other aspects of family finances are common: 68 percent of their families had problems paying for other necessities, such as food and shelter; 64 percent were contacted by a collection agency; 55 percent put off major purchases; and 50 percent had to borrow money. More than nine in 10 families with medical bill problems faced at least one of these negative effects on family finances, and almost a quarter experienced all four.
Let’s review. People who have a chronic condition can’t change their condition; they must learn to live with it. Chronic conditions are pretty common. Yet having a chronic health condition creates a ton of other financial problems such as paying for food and shelter.
Am I the only one who thinks this system is really screwed up?
I know three families with a member with MS. The breadwinner of each family is trapped in a corporate job solely for the medical benefits.
Even worse, in one case the ill person is also the breadwinner. When she needs to cut back on work (MS leaves you exhausted, even with treatment), there’s the possibility she’ll lose all or part of her medical benefits–or that she’ll have to pay a lot more for them.
My heart goes out to every family in this or similar situations. It is just wrong. To be trapped in a dead-end, boring job–and feel relived to have it–just to keep someone you love from getting sicker.
And I’ll keep working to pressure our government to take care of them as well.
The health care system(and I use the term loosely here)is so beyond broken that I can’t understand why people aren’t literally marching by the millions on Washington demanding something be done.
At one time I actually considered writing a book about what has happened to me concerning the medical profession-misdiagnosed 30 years or ignored and told there was nothing wrong with me. This effected my entire life-not being able to work mostly while people thought I was either lazy or had mental problem. Also meant I couldn’t go to college as I couldn’t walk enough for long periods to get around large campus and had to forfeit several scholarships I had won at Community college-and people continued to believe there was nothing wrong with me. In part because doctors who didn’t want to bother with me(no insurance-as I couldn’t work)continued also to say nothing was wrong with me…
I ended up finding out I have hereditary neuro-muscular disease yet after many years still do not have a doctor. Mostly due to doctors who continue to say this disease causes little problems-even when my sister half carried me into their offices as I couldn’t walk or use my hands during flare-ups of this disease. And sent home with no wheelchair and no way to walk when they knew I lived alone.
The system is bad enough but when you’re poor you’re treated lower than dirt usually by doctors. I can’t begin to imagine the waste of lives, of people who if diagnosed and treated correctly would be able to work and be more productive members of society instead of living on the fringes.
I sent out so many letters to Senators, Rep. even to the Clinton White House but found that doctors are pretty much untouchable. Even after the Clinton White House sent several letters on my behalf to Human Resources here in Ca…and when they called and found out I was suggesting that the doctors were not doing their job and my medical records had over 30 some errors in them implied that someone like myself-poor and implying also stupid couldn’t possibly know what I was talking about. As doctors were educated and respected members of the community-again implying I wasn’t.
I don’t usually write much about my personal medical situation as it’s too complicated and I still get to worked up over the whole sorry state of affairs that is laughingly called our health care system.
Thanks you, chocolate ink, for sharing this. I know how hard it is because I’ve had some similar experiences. When you have those sorts of things happen, you don’t want to talk about it, but we need to. People don’t want to believe that things are that bad or that regular people can be that cruel, but it’s almost standard procedure when the disadvantaged try to seek any help whatsoever from a system that is not designed to include them.
When I was a teenager, I was a passenger in a head-on collision and sustained multiple traumas. Like you, I ran into the problem of never having “earned” a safety net. I also had no familial safety net. People talk about the safety net all the time, and there is a semblance of one if you’re up high enough in the first place. What most don’t realize is that there are millions who never reach that point.
And your medical experiences match mine — the cruelty, both unthinking and deliberate, by some in the medical community can be breathtaking. I’d add that some of the kindest are there also. Maybe it’s the same in all occupations, but when you’re in a powerless situation and someone has complete power over you, you really get some insight into who they are.
Look, from outside we know your system is broken. We could tell you that. Ignore the protests of the vested interests in the insurance industry, poverty employers, hospitals and doctors. You need the same sort of system of basic health coverage free to everyone at the point of need that is is available in viritually every other industrialised country.
Get the Democratic Party to establish a commission to examine other countries’ systems to report back within a year with a proposal for a federal system of health care. Launch the policy at a special mid-term convention and get every candidate to sign up to it. Model the timetable on that in the UK after 1945. A system of universal basic health care for all Americans by 2010. Make those hospitals that have grown fat on being able to claim tax benefits for being “charities” work for their money. The corporations that own them have been paid to buy them with the blood of American s. If the doctors cannot pay for their golf club fees on the mandated payments you offer, let them practice privately – they can get their money from people willing to pay large sums for elective procedures not covered by the basic cover available to all. Insurance companies can cover the rump or for people who want Las Vegas style accommodation and gourmet food while they are getting their fat sucked out by liposuction.
For god’s sake sell it by giving the example of the system you are re-establishing in Iraq. Why is free basic health care a right for all Iraqis and being partly paid for out of the reconstruction aid from the USA when sick Americans have to slave for a corporation that could remove their healthcare if it means the shareholders don’t miss out on a payout at the end of the year?
HA HA! You so funny, Londonbear!
Oh, wait — are you serious? Have you, um, seen what happened to the Clinton healthcare plan? or read about our big pharma and re-importing drugs from Canada and the inability to even provide aid to AIDs victims or impose any sense of reason or morality on any of them?
I mean, honestly, we’ve been doing stuff, it just hasn’t worked out so well. Whinging may be our only hope.
I think there is a timing question that might be coming together – Iraq, the problems with the big auto manufacturers and their bills, more companies stopping healthcare benefits for their workers and retirees and last but not least the fact that Canada is going to stop people in the US buying the cheap drugs.
My quite serious point is that it is a crisis heading for a crunch. As you will know, the US spends more of its income on healthcare than virtually all other countries yet gets the least for it. That’s why I suggested the Commission and not giving congressional candidates and the Democrat Presidential candidate some spine. It took a lot of hassle in the UK to get doctors on board in the 40s.It would be a very nasty campaign but it is an ideal “common citizen against vested interests of big business” campaign the Democrats should be doing rather than whimping out when the going gets tough.
sorry that should be “not capitulating and giving ….candidates some spine”
No, you’re quite right and if my reply sounded snippy, it was due entirely to frustration. I would LOVE to have a candidate — on any level — run on that issue. I think it would be a sure winner. Try convincing anyone of it.
The problem is not that people in power here don’t understand the situation. The problem is that they do not want to change it. Even the doctors have had it with the current system. Even the sane sectors of the business community. But we’re talking big, corporate, ruthless bad guys here.
Case in point — my state, Washington, has one of the toughest insurance commissioners in the country and we’re one of the bluest states. We cannot budge the industry. We tried to keep this one regulation, and the industry yanked the insurance of every neurosurgeon in the state. None of them could work and we’re the only high-level trauma hospital in the northwest — Washington, Oregon, and Idaho.
So it’s not that we don’t understand and it’s not that we don’t know how it should work — it’s just figuring out how to fight a very entrenched, powerful industry that’s fighting back.
I hope you didn’t mean that too personally. You have no idea what I’ve personally done.
When I was being denied correct care-which caused my complete collapse for almost 3 years and I thought it was permanent I could not take care of myself..to the point that I couldn’t even cut my own food-doctor negligence caused this. This has happened several times of my collapsing over the last 30 years when doctors had continued to say nothing was wrong with me. Even though I’ve never been able to do many things normal people do due to pain/blacking out and various other associated problems to say nothing of extreme pain.
I wrote over 50 letters to Senators, Representatives when my hands got a bit better(couldn’t use phone as I couldn’t hold onto phone)tried to get all the news stations here to talk to me, wrote to news shows, wrote to medical boards-local and state, I tried to get lawyers to talk to me all to no avail. I finally had one lawyer tell me over the phone that all the lawyers here played golf with the doctors and no lawyer in this town would do anything against a doctor here even if it meant they crippled you up for life.
Some lawyers told me as someone who was obviously very very low income I simply had to be an ignorant and uneducated person and doctors were all educated upstanding members of the community. When you’re very very sick and you’re being told this you don’t have much energy to fight back plus it’s completely demoralizing.
I was very very lucky that I regained some hand use, that I can walk around my apartment(haven’t been able to drive for 20 years while doctors had continued to say I was exaggerating or worse simply told my sister and I we were lying-even that my tests which showed massive nerve damage which was leading to muscle damage was no big deal)and am on a somewhat even keel right now.
I hate talking about myself and this whole lifelong mess because most people don’t get it..they see me and think if I’m walking around my apartment and ‘look’ ok I must be ok. I’m not going to read this over as all of this can still upset me greatly so I’m going to hit post and hope it sounds half way coherent.
Sorry if it sounded personal – it was not intended to be directed at any individual rather I meant it as a call to move on to the next stage.
The strange thing is that I have never seen anyone claim that the healthcare for the American people is adequate. You have some extremely able doctors and medical establishments, including some world beating ones but access to these is limited to the rich or those fortunate enough to be in some form of healthcare program that pays for it. Outside those able to continue paying high insurance premiums, excesses and for medication, access to virtually any form of healthcare is limited and a good proportion have no form of cover or presumably the savings to pay for major illnesses.
What I was urging is to be bold and move on from examining what the problem is to what the solutions might be. Unlike the Clinton plan, devise it ignoring the possible objections from the vested interest. Be honest about the possible outcome – to pay for it you will have to divert money from the insurance companies into the national system. In the UK we pay roughly a payroll tax of roughly 10% each from the employer and employee to get free coverage apart from dental costs, sight tests and glasses/contact lenses and a fixed fee of roughly $10 for every drug on a prescription. The young, elderly and poor get help with some or all of these charges. The contribution also pays for a basic state pension of about $150 a week for a single person, more for a couple and for unemployment benefits. Stripping out the non-medical benefits I suppose it works out as a payroll tax of about 10$ split between employer and employee.
Care is allocated on the basis of clinical need. Yes there are waits for some treatments and the “Hotel” side of our hospitals is different but frankly I would be prepared to share a ward with other people rather than not get any treatment at all. When you look at the healthcare costs on those country by country lists remember they include private treatment which is covered by additional insurance or directly. As an example, cosmetic plastic surgery is not covered usually unless required for medical reasons – so breast reconstruction after cancer surgery would be covered, bigger boobs to flash in pictures would not (however if there were severe psychological reasons for such a procedure, it might be available free)
Now I am certainly not suggesting the British NHS system as an ideal model but there are plenty of other working systems that provide a decent basic health coverage for all at an affordable cost. With ill health one of the biggest worries for Americans, it is a powerful policy. Let me take an example – a couple of weeks ago I badly cut my leg. Nothing serious, just through the skin but it bled rather spectacularly from about a three inch cut. My first reaction was to wonder about calling an ambulance, decided to see if my local doctor’s surgery was open. I had it patched up there and went on to the local hospital to get it stiched and dressed. Both treatments were by a nurse practitioner as I did not need to see and expensively trained doctor. Last week I had the stiches removed by the NP at the local doctors. The initial treatmens took I suppose about 20-30 minutes in total and I had to wait about a total of a further 20 to be seen. (Admittedly the reception at the surgery made an error with my appointment and sent me to see the doctor initially so the wait was longer that time) The cost in the US would have been maybe $800 or more. For me it was nothing and remember because we have primary health General Practioners the emergency room was not full of chronically ill patients using the ER as a healthcare system.
I was also suggesting being robust with opposition. If they claim it is “socialist”, face em up – is it socialist to want every American to have the same healthcare as that available to members of Congress? Why should John Doe pay for the President’s doctor to patch him up from a bike fall when JD cannot afford to pay for his own operation?
The problem is that your party system is very weak and you need to get the policy in place and choose a candidate who will endorse it rather than the other way round. Call it something like “A citizens’ healthcare contract for the American People” Stop tring to imitate GWB and get back to FDR!
A paragraph got out of order in there somewhere but I hope the substance is clear.
Well I agree completely that we need a health care plan for everyone. I don’t care what it’s called. I think it’s morally reprehensible they we don’t have everyone covered by a universal health plan.