Engaged?

For those of you who surf here simply to hear the ‘update of the day’ regarding the wedding will be disappointed. “Hold the phone, you’re getting married? No one told ME that!!!”

I’ve been thinking about the huge topic of national health care. Politics aside, I’m wondering what is the right thing to do for our country.

It is hard to sort through the facts from the rhetoric and the “Obama’s going to spend us into the poorhouse” type comments to figure out for myself where is the right place to stand on this issue.

I am biased because of my liberal point of view, and I think that our current system is filled with strange and easily abused rules. I worry that we have a huge population of people who can’t afford to manage their health within the confines of the current system. Yes, there is Medicaid but many of our working poor don’t qualify but don’t have adequate insurance either.

The thing that bugs me about our current system is the strange pricing of things. The pricing seems to be scaled to whatever your method of payment is. I understand this in a scenario where a service provider (Dr. Joe) is serving someone in his community whom he knows can’t pay and he’s willing to accept a goat for setting a broken arm. However, I don’t understand it when the price of something changes because it is or isn’t being submitted for insurance.

There is a company that provides supplies for a medical device (much needed, but in the end it’s all neatly packaged pieces of plastic tubing.) The bill submitted to the insurance company is about $1000.00. The insurance company pays about $125 – the ‘allowable’ amount and the supply company is satisfied with that number and doesn’t bill back the remaining amount to the patient.

Now, on one hand I’m happy the patient doesn’t have to fork over an additional $875 out of pocket – but isn’t the true price of these items $125… or less?

More perplexing to me is what someone without insurance would pay for these items. Is it $1000 – is it $125? Or is the system so confusing that they live without these supplies?

We are a wealthy country and should be able to and want to afford to provide ALL children with immunizations and dental care. Will it be hard? Probably. Is it the right thing to do? I think so. Do I have the patience to keep 100% up to date on the pro’s & con’s? No.

Oh, I really got away from what I wanted my main point to be. I wanted to comment on how hard it is to pay attention to the nuances of this issue. I’m hoping that it will just get done, and am aware that is not the way to participate in changing our world. I see folks who have the energy to get fired up on important topics and I wish I had more of that gumption.