Health care crisis

6 min read

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A Surviving Facts Blog

We had 43 days of the government shutdown. With both parties refusing to budge — and a lot of false rhetoric about who’s doing what — the shutdown could became the longest in history. The democratic “deal” for agreeing to end it was health care. As of yet, the republicans haven’t agreed to anything, though it increasing numbers are siding with the democrats.

Health care hits me personally. I get my and my daughters’ health care “on the market.” Often referred to as Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act provides health care to Americans who cannot get health insurance through an employer or who do not qualify for Medicaid and Medicare.

Because of the rising cost of health care, Congress in the past agreed to credits or subsidies to help people like me obtain healthcare. These credits reduced the outrageous expense of premiums , which contributed to lack of coverage. The same credits are set to expire by the end of 2025 unless Congress chooses to extend them or make them permanent.

Health care prices are soaring in the U.S. largely because of insurance company profit margins. Many insurance companies are for profit, meaning that they are in business to make money. Their CEOs earn salaries and bonuses in the tens of millions. These insurance companies — - and not for profit ones as well — regularly deny insurance claims for a variety of reasons often outside of the doctor’s and insured’s control and certainly outside the insurance company’s expertise. If you’ve been operated on by a surgeon in your network but got an enormous bill for the out of network anesthesiologist who provided services, which you had no involvement in hiring, you will know what I mean.

The U.S. stands apart from all other developed nations in its profit-driven, private approach to health care. While Switzerland’s program is similar to the U.S., other nations such as The Netherlands, United Kingdom, Australia, Taiwan, Japan and Germany have publicly supported programs. The propaganda in our country tells us horror stories about these government supported programs. But this is a U.S. lobby driven message. The U.S. spends 18% of its GDP on healthcare, the highest of high income countries. So we spend more on healthcare as a portion of our GDP than all other highly developed countries. But, we also have lower life expectancy and higher rate of preventable deaths. The U.S. has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the entire world. The cause? Lack of access to affordable healthcare. It’s quite the conundrum to be spending more than publicly funded health care systems but still be performing worse.

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The U.S. is different from other high income countries by restricting access to health care. Particularly the right side of the political spectrum sees health care as an earned privilege rather than a fundamental human right. This perspective has prevailed, even after President Obama developed a system to expand access to millions of Americans. As imperfect as it may be — and the imperfection comes largely from criticism from the health care lobby — the ACA directly provides or expanded supplementary access to almost 70 million Americans. You read that number right: 70 million. If this number doesn’t shout the need for health care in this country, I’m not sure what would. The issue for health insurance companies is the impact on their profit. We are horribly skewed when profits are more important than human lives, but this is where we are.

Pursuit of financial gain has far exceeded concern for Americans’ lives. Our health care system is a loop of corrupt profit motives putting shareholders and chief executives above everyone else. Big pharmaceutical companies are part of this problem too, and have gotten worse this year since Trump ended price caps on medications such as insulin.

Uneducated men like RFK complain about the quality of food as the reason for our health crisis. If this is the case, then why isn’t he changing it? He’s right, the quality of our food is horrible. Our food is largely engineered and stripped of all nutrients. Yet, this same person is removing oversight of food production and the use of harmful pesticides and pollutants as well as approving flavor enhancers and chemicals that can even be immune to GLP-1 and other weight loss shots. Can you get your mind around how evil this is?

Our system works like this: health insurers raise premiums and deductibles to push more burden to companies which then push more burden to Americans. For those with ACA insurance, the burden hits both companies and tax subsidies. No matter what, Americans pay more, for both health insurance and health care. The pharmaceutical companies, meanwhile, increase the cost of drugs which are then passed onto the consumer through higher prices and/or limited access to drugs of choice. Doctor’s also get squeezed by decreasing disbursements, and for many, fighting for insurance companies to cover tests, diagnostics and treatment for patients. This challenge even impacts the numbers of people going into the medical field.

When UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was gunned down as he exited his NYC hotel, many pundits raised Americans’ frustration with the state of healthcare. This seems to have been short lived, however, because polls continue to place the economy as American’s number one concern. How the two can be separated is a bit of a tail wagging a cow. Americans can lose all life savings to health care bills and the Trump administration has removed the exemption of health care costs in bankruptcy filings — meaning, just like your student loans, you’re stuck with these forever. Wages can be garnished, deeply affecting standards of living.

Health care is top of mind for me today because I learned that my ACA premiums will increase by almost 4,000% if the premium credits are not renewed by year end. Contrary to the far right propaganda, this is the issue for Democrats in Congress, NOT giving immigrants health care. I know immigrants cannot get healthcare because a family member of mine could not get it. IT’S ILLEGAL. Having said this, it’s horrifying that human life means so little to Americans that we are unwilling to help sick people unless certain qualifications are met. I’ve gotten healthcare in London with no problems. No one cared whether I was a citizen or not.

As far as my exploding premiums, I will be holding until Congress is back in session — and that does have to be before the end of the year. Past that date, millions of Americans like me will be deciding between healthcare and other necessities. We may just have to forego coverage.

My request to all Americans, no matter your political beliefs, is to put aside the partisan spin and think. Do you really think healthcare for all means less for you? Do you really think immigrants are increasing health care costs? How do you reconcile the increasing profits health care companies are making. How do you justify people’s inability to pay for drugs they need to survive? Are you really ok with Americans’ lives being ruined by healthcare bills? Do you really believe Americans want to get sick and be burdened by such bills or that it’s “their” fault for getting sick so they should suffer for the rest of their lives? Are you really comfortable with the restricted, profit-driven system healthcare companies have wrought. Do you really think you are better to have health care when another does not? Do you really understand the unfortunate circumstances that lead people to lose health insurance? Life is capricious. You could be next. If these questions don’t wake you up enough to begin to question your beliefs, then perhaps you should reflect that Jamaica, Iran and Uzbekiatan rank higher in health care than we do. Is your suggestion that we should all just move there?

I would love to hear from you, even if, especially if, you disagree. Perhaps we can bring back the American tradition of debate. Please like and share this blog with others. Subscribe to receive it by email and go directly to the Walk the Moon website (www.walk-the-moon.com) to peruse the full collection of articles and updates. You can email me from the Walk the Moon website as well.