With the Health Care Debate turning into grumbles from people who feel powerless to stop it, and Obamacare seeming to be here to stay for the foreseeable future, it\u2019s time we discussed who\u2019s really paying for all this \u201cFree\u201d health care.\u00a0 It\u2019s those of us with health insurance who are covering the expenses of those who can not.\u00a0 It is a big part of why it is so expensive to go to get medical care, and why so many people end up bankrupt when they get ill.<\/p>\n
There is a sweet couple we know who are college students.\u00a0 He graduates in a couple months and she has a bit longer. In the meantime, their son is on CHIP \u2013 Children\u2019s Health Insurance Program, and my friend, the wife, was on Medicaid while she was pregnant.<\/p>\n
Our family has health insurance through my husband\u2019s employer.\u00a0 It is one the government considers to be a \u201d Cadillac Plan\u201d, meaning that it is among the best available.\u00a0 His company pays the premium for him, and we are responsible for the premium which covers the rest of us.<\/p>\n
In the past year, both of our families had new baby girls, and both had to take our 5 year old boys to the Emergency Room. Both moms needed surgery post-delivery to fix issues not caused by the births, but certainly exacerbated by them.\u00a0 The financial realities paint a stark difference between those of us on private insurance, and those who get their health care through the government.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s start with the deliveries.\u00a0 We both had baby girls in hospitals, epidurals, vaginal deliveries, and stayed a day and a half in the hospital:<\/p>\n
Her Out of Pocket \u2013 $0<\/b><\/p>\n
My out of Pocket \u2013\u00a0 $1617<\/b><\/p>\n Our surgeries<\/p>\n Hers, done within 6 weeks of delivery so that it is covered as a part of this pregnancy \u2013 My surgery*, Out of Pocket- $1774+<\/b><\/p>\n We both have very active 5 year old sons who ended up in the ER this past year (little boys can\u2019t fly, they fall).\u00a0 The biggest difference was that she went to the ER without a second thought. I stared at the gash on my son\u2019s head and wondered how much it was going to cost, if we could afford it, if super glue could fix it (no kidding \u2014 I\u2019ve super-glued wounds before), and checked my bank account in the car on the way to make sure we could cover the co-pay which the ER.<\/p>\n Her family\u2019s Out of Pocket \u2013 $0<\/b> \u00a0In the past year, our family has paid $4069** out of pocket for hospital care, plus $500 for the pre-natal care,\u00a0 several hundred dollars in co-pays, and over $8000 in insurance premiums.\u00a0 Her family has paid nothing, and gotten significantly better care.<\/p>\n Why the disparity?\u00a0 It is a direct result of the low amount that the government pays to hospitals and physicians for services rendered.\u00a0 The doctors with whom I\u2019ve spoken about this have told me that what Uncle Sam pays doesn\u2019t even cover all of their expenses, and the disparity between what Medicare pays and what things cost is passed along to people who do have<\/i> insurance, people like my family.\u00a0 It is the not-quite-hidden tax for healthcare, and it stretches back to long before Obama came to power. It has simply become more pronounced in the past four years.<\/p>\n While I do not begrudge them their medical care, there is something immoral about the way the government is paying for it.\u00a0\u00a0 If the government is going to legislate and provide free health care for those who couldn\u2019t otherwise afford to pay for it (something I completely support), then it also needs to provide a way to pay fair market value for those services.\u00a0 What we currently have could rightly be called a tax on those with health insurance as we are forced to cover the shortfall of those without. It is burdensome..and, yes, unfair.<\/p>\n *\u00a0 I have not actually had the surgery I wrote about in this piece.\u00a0 The costs I quoted are the estimates given to me by the insurance company and the doctor\u2019s office.\u00a0 They assume best case scenario, and that all medical personnel would be in-network.\u00a0 If they are out of network, the costs skyrocket and there is no cap on them.\u00a0 We have had to put it off.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t matter how much I need it, we simply can\u2019t afford it.<\/p>\n **\u00a0 In the amount paid this year, I did not include the horrendous costs of our journey to a JRA diagnosis and everything which followed from that. That will be a post for another day. <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With the Health Care Debate turning into grumbles from people who feel powerless to stop it, and Obamacare seeming to be here to stay for the foreseeable future, it\u2019s time we discussed who\u2019s really paying for all this \u201cFree\u201d health care.\u00a0 It\u2019s those of us with health insurance who are covering the expenses of those […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1979,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n\n
Out of Pocket \u2013 $0<\/b><\/p>\n\n
<\/b>Our Out of Pocket \u2013 $678<\/b><\/p>\n\n