Prior to the passage of the new Health Bill the United States was spending $2.
1 trillion a year on health care, a cost of $7,026 for every person in the country.
Health care represents 16 percent of the national economy and these costs are still rising.
One of the biggest problems is that heath care is a maze of paperwork, you stay two days in the hospital and you get this bill that looks like the Kansas City Star Sunday Newspaper, if you are insured all we see is how much you have to pay and never question any charges.
Too many times there are unnecessary tests, inflated prices attached to products, and unnecessary services as part of this itemized maze.
At times a particular cost may be a point of discussion with our friends "they charged me $10.
00 a piece for sanitary napkins" but we never pursue these charges.
"The insurance company will catch that", we say and nothing more is said, but then the insurance company raises your rates and you protest.
This is too often the scenario and it has caused our rates to sky rocket, we never blame the health providers its always the insurance company as being the bad guys.
A friend of mine was pregnant, she had complications, and the baby was born three months premature.
It was a long stressful time for the family because the baby required a heart monitor and a 24-hour watch.
After several weeks of pure hell the baby was out of danger, but the hospital and doctor bills overwhelmed them and they had to file for bankrupt.
They tried to negotiate a payment program, but the payments were impossible.
During the negotiations they questioned some of the charges, one test had a price tag of $1200.
00 dollars.
The hospital accounting clerk told them that if the hospital knew they did not have insurance they would have never performed that test.
Being cognizant of charges is a responsibility of all of us and it has been neglected and consequently hospitals, clinics, and health care providers have been given free reign to charge whatever they choose.
We are now faced with costs that are totally out of control and we shamefully lead all industrialized nations on money spent for health care and those nations provide health care for all of their citizens.
In the past 20 years health costs have been: ·The major factor in deterring small business start ups.
Potential small businesses cannot afford to pay for employee health insurance.
·The main reason for family bankruptcies.
An emergency in the family can totally deplete a family's financial reserve and even payments become impossible.
·Larger companies have relocated to Canada and other countries, simply because they cannot pay insurance costs and be competitive, America is loosing a tremendous amount of revenue in the way of lost taxes as well as loosing jobs.
·Even though America pays the most for health insurance of all the industrialized nations we have the highest mortality rate of newborns.
So who exactly are the bad guys? We always want to blame the insurance companies, probably because they are the most convenient, but we all have had a hand in rising costs.
The hospitals claim that their costs are too high so they inflate their bill, the doctors claim that their liability insurance is too high so they charge higher rates, the insurance companies claim they have to pay out too much for claims so they have to charge higher rates, but When it comes down to the bottom rung on the ladder we, the U.
S.
citizens, are the main problem.
We allow all of these situations to go unchecked.
We never: ·Protest inflated hospital bills or bills from Physicians.
It is called being lazy "let someone else protest, I am just too busy" and when someone does protest we look at them as idiots because they want to tie up the system for a few dollars.
·And we will sue at the drop of a hat.
Can it change? I wish there was a quick fix and I applaud the efforts of our government in attempting to find a fix, but is more government the answer? Nancy Pelosi said and I quote, " now we have a new health program lets get in there and see what its all about".
Maybe that's the answer just let the chips fall where they may.
Have you been looking for affordable health care? If you haven't then there are 34 million uninsured Americans that will soon be in line, don't be left behind.