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Thank you, Rocky Mountain News columnist Bill Johnson, for bringing the plight of the young woman with operable cancer, but no health insurance, to our attention (“Personal finance decision now haunts cancer victim,” Aug. 22).
What compounds the tragedy of her situation is that if she were 66, 76 or even 86 instead of 26, a government program would pay for most of her surgery and follow-up care.
A little acknowledged fact is that we do have universal health care in this country for anyone who is 65 years old or older or who is disabled. It is called Medicare and has been in existence for 40 years. Unfortunately, for young adults, who have the potential for years of happiness ahead of them, years during which they could be productive, taxpaying citizens, we offer little or nothing in the way of health care should debilitating illness strike.
It seems that we have chosen to invest in our past but not in our future!
I will keep this young woman and others like her in my thoughts and prayers.

Diane Burridge, Aurora

READER COMMENTS

Diane,

I also will keep this woman in my prayers and thoughts. The purpose behind this story is to guilt us into accepting bureaucratic control of health care. Since the American public is resistant to socialized medicine, perhaps we will be vulnerable to it if we hear some very sad stories.
Our culture will not approve of just letting her die of her disease so, in a way, she will receive "socialized" medical treatment. Her tragedy is that there are now and will be other consequences. She may lose her home, her car and her ability to work. She may have to make a new set of choices between her things and her life.
My sympathy is with her because I HAVE insurance and my husband and I will give our attorney the papers he requested and sign forms to file bankruptcy. I am 56. He is 62 and a disabled veteran. We are both the diabetic children of diabetic families. Our home is a 14 by 70 foot mobile home. Our gross income last year was 31,000 and will be lower this year because of the lost work days in March, April, June and July when he waited at the hospital to see if this heart attack would respond to treatment. Once he waited to speak to the orthopedic surgeon and hear whether his wife had lost her toes or her leg to a raging infection. We have no credit cards and no debts other than medical co-pays and minimums twice those listed in the insurance policies but our responsibility until the companies honor the contract.

Therefore I agree the present health care system is broken and needs repair.
How we do it will depend on what we consider broken and why.
If we ask the government to repair it, we are making the same mistake as the homeowner who hires the burglar to repair the locks broken in the robbery.

Our present troubles have several causes. Some can be fixed. Others are unchangeable.
I'll leave the government related problems for last.

We live longer. That allows us to contract diseases and develop conditions that used to be rare because few people grew old enough to get them.
Medical science has progressed in the field of basic survival. (Trust me on this one. I have personal proof.) Heart attacks that would have killed instantly or nearly so are now survivable. Again, the reason has several pieces. Technology, pharmacology and information. People know the warning signs of illness or disease and turn to medical treatment more quickly than in the past. This creates a snowball effect where a sick person survives, but generates more expense and more need for health care. Hearsay tells us that in the "single-payer utopia" this happens less often because some care is denied or deliberately delayed to save money. Same sources tell us that it happens in our system too for those without coverage.
So, we have three unchangeable parts to the increase in medical costs.

Now for the curable problems.
Legal nuisance, nonsense more often, lawsuits create a situation where those legal expenses are added to every health care service. Worse, to protect themselves from allegations of poor diagnosis or care, doctors will order tests and treatments of questionable value to prevent charges of medical negligence.
There is a supreme medical ignorance among individuals. I should say among Americans. Few of us know or care what the actual cost of a doctor's visit is. Tests ordered by the doctor are done where and when ordered without the word "WHY? being uttered if you have insurance.
This brings in the governments'' failings.
Our present system is based upon insurance. Unfortunately the insurance practices and availabilities are skewed by tax regulations and practice. Medicare and Medicaid have set prices they pay for services and products. This means that the doctor will be paid X dollars every time old Mrs. Grump or young Miss Circpied goes to his office. If tests are ordered, there is a set fee for such things as well. No where is any relation required to exist between the actual costs of those tests and visits to their necessity. Scandals have exposed many doctors who scheduled Medicare patients for extra visits and tests necessary only to increase the doctors' incomes. Other doctors refuse such patients because the cost of treatments is often lower than the approved payment. Government programs have created a situation where the cost is unknown because the government will pay the bill. Those with private insurance are equally ignorant for a similar reason. If they make their co-pay, the amount the insurance company is charged is invisible to patients. No matter how urgent or silly the reason for a doctor's office visit, the cost to the patient is unchanged.
People have this view, in part, because they normally do not have contact with an insurance company as a buyer. In a market economy the buyer dictates the market. Today's insurance buyer is almost always a business. Insurance companies sell to that buyer in corporate terms of group savings and group costs. Individual insurance is rare and expensive as is any product in small demand that requires so much time to produce.
Tax benefits for insurance should go to any purchaser. Today only businesses have a tax deduction for the cost of insurance. Why deny to an individual the right to charge off his expenses for health insurance when individuals are permitted to deduct bandages and hospital parking fees?

If we reform the legal tort system to eliminate the financial incentives for bottom trolling attorneys, i.e., "If your child has hicciduopicus call lawyer Slimey Burger Boy and we'll file a lawsuit against a doctor and get you money because juries feel sorry for sick kids. It doesn’t matter if the doctor really did anything wrong or not."
Maltreated patients can be reimbursed for their losses without allowing the gravy train awards granted by sympathetic juries and shared with those lawyers at a rate of 50% or more plus expenses. We can cut medical expenses through tort reform. Fewer lawsuits will lower the actual cost of malpractice insurance AND, by eliminating the need to over treat and over test, will reduce actual costs. I'll post the ideas for this elsewhere.
Longer life spans, medical advances and human nature can't be changed. Government programs that, by their nature, discourage the recipient from considering costs and tax regulations that concentrate the power of insurance in the hands of business owners can be changed. Personal injury lawyers can be restrained by reforms that limit the profit for the attorneys. Some people will still make bad choices. Nothing will prevent that under any system. Others will rush to take advantage of new opportunities while still others will watch and wait. Insurance companies are businesses. Business must make a profit to exist. Give them a whole new market of individuals spending their own money and there will be too many different health insurance plans and options to count. People like me will have to pay more because we create higher expenses. I certainly didn't complain when my husband's and my driving records reduced our auto insurance. It is the same effect with the same cause.
We can feel sad that a bad choice was made. Don't let it become the wellspring of other bad choices foisted on the public in the name of compassion.

oh yes and please remember sicko mikie moores move about health care in cuba being so wonderful. have you read any of the stories about castro and the probelms he had when they botched the surgery? oops not suppose to say that.
if you feel so bad for her for her choice of not getting health insurance you could send her money to pay for it. she took a gamble on opting out of her employers health care program and now wants us to pay for her foolishness.
sorry she has cancer but there are thousands of others who have it too

So, 06:21, are you saying to those who don't have the money to buy health care through where they work, if where they work has no health insurance program and so they also don't have the money to buy health insurance privately, any health problem they may get is just to bad, so sad but it's your own fault and you must pay the consequences of not having the money to pay for your problem?

If that is your opinion, you are an elitist snob intent only on your own welfare, far removed from understanding others who don't enjoy your position and not familar with compassion or doing what is right just because it is right.

I agree 6:21 people need to be held accountable for their own actions and when people like Mommy go solely by emotions that's were we get in trouble.

momma y,
I have decent insurance. I also have access to costs of procedures through their website.I also know what the doctor's bill and what they have contracted with the insurance company for that service.I can keep track of how much insurance dollars I have spent on each family member. I know when a bill was submitted and paid and what was paid and what my share is.

I also go to their website to compare prices at different facilities for different procedures.This has saved us alot of money ,but it has also save the insurance company money. Most insurance companies have a lifetime cap of money being paid out. Ours is 1 million per person.

I do my homework before having any test run and I go to out-patient facilities when I can to get tests because if the facility is connected to a hospital it is usually 3 times or more the amount than a private company.

I consider my insurance a medical savings account. So I try to manage the money in that account the best I can and save where ever I can.I have out of pocket expenses and pay other charges until it reaches a certain amount per family per year.However you can negotiate those out of pocket costs with the billing departments. You can negotiate anywhere from 20-50% off of those charges.
Don't heasitate to ask.

Our health care system is not perfect. I haven't had any problems with the insurance companies. My problem is finding decent doctors.I finally have found a Dr. that is really great for my everyday care.Now I am healthier than ever and even after having breast surgery that ended up being benign.I'm on the mend.

My problem now is the surgeon who did my surgery let me walk out of there with an infection after taking off the steri-strips.Had she given me antibiotics then I would not have this infection still after surgery a month ago. I've been to my regular Dr. who is taking care of it and me.

Like I said finding the right Dr.'s is most of the battle.

In 1995, our company offered all 7 employees we had a $2500 deductible insurance plan that covered 100% to in-plan providers, with a $15 co-pay. We paid the entire bill, under $1200 a month, for everyone. Today, only my two partners and I are covered. Our deductible is now $5,000 at 80% to in-plan providers with no co-pay allowance. Our premium is over $1,500 a month. All the while, the insurance companies are reporting record profits. Something is wrong.

Keep them in your thoughts but forget about prayer: "Nothing fails like prayer."

8:21

I am going on facts and experience. Emotion is involved but I've made almost all my health care postings based on insurance facts. I would be one of those who would initially benefit from messing up health care with government inefficiency.
I'm not the only one who matters. That's why I will post, read, complain, testify and, against my own instincts, file a lawsuit to make health care a matter of individual choices and responsibilities with real consequences.

The consequences are no more selfish punishments for the voluntarily uninsured than gravity is a punishment for 10 year olds trying to make umbrella parachutes.

Think individual creativity and no problem is unsolvable.

Richard,

You are in my prayers daily but not in the context of "change this one." It is more like, "Thanks you for this one and for letting me discover him." If you prefer think of it as a daily joyful thought that celebrates your existence.

momma y and amen!
Unfortunately, your diligence is practiced by less that 10 percent of the health care consumers. A major reason for this is "the secrets of the priesthood", by which I mean the deliberate obfuscation of health care issues and costs by those who rely on keeping it confusing to make money. This includes insurance companies and
government bureaucrats. Fortunately for me, my fiancee is in health care and can decipher the gobbledygook. For most others, it is a bewildering language, with no hope of decoding.

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