Affordable Health Care and Medical Insurance

        Much to my surprise the Supreme Court has said “Obama Care” is constitutional.  There are a lot of different opinions on the specifics of the decision and what it means.  My concern is with providing affordable health care.   

        I don’t think “Obama Care” can do that even under the best possible scenario.  The reason is we are attempting to fix a problem caused by “First Dollar Coverage” medical insurance with “First Dollar Coverage” medical insurance.  It makes no sense.  It cannot achieve the objective of affordable health care. 

        One of the major problems in providing affordable health care is differentiating between “health care” and “medical insurance”.  These are two separate things and the terms are not interchangeable. 

        It seems most politicians and even at least one Supreme Court Justice does not understand the difference.  They keep interchanging the terms.  How can we deal with a problem if we don’t identify and define the problem?

        Many people think they are guaranteed the best health care because they have good medical insurance.  They may be wrong and will never now the difference until it is too late. 

        Many people don’t even know what coverage they have.  I hear statements like. “I have the best” or “I have full coverage.”  This often means people don’t know what coverage they do have. 

       

The leading cause of bankruptcy in this country is medical expenses.  Over 40% of all bankruptcies are because of medical expenses.  

        The really reveling part of these bankruptcies is the majority of these people had medical insurance.  They thought they were covered.  Not true. 

        There are several problems with medical insurance including; annual deductibles, co-pay requirements, excluded coverage, maximum limits for coverage, and continuing monthly premium payments.  If you are sick and cannot work, you have no salary or income.  Who pays the premiums, deductibles, and co-pay requirements? 

       

        If you are independently wealthy or part of the political elite there is no problem, but there is a problem for the rest of us.  Medical insurance premiums may have been offered as a benefit of our job, or we may have paid them personally.  We have paid these premiums for years with little benefit in most cases, but when we really need it for a catastrophic illness or injury, we end up with no medical insurance coverage. 

        Next week I will take a closer look at the working of the medical insurance industry and the health care industry and how it is hurting our health care and costing this country.