Health care or health I-don’t-care?
This is a question that I have often found myself pondering from my experience working in a women’s health clinic for almost thirty years, and as a patient. MAHA (MAKE AMERICA HEALTHY AGAIN) is a great platitude, and one I believe all Americans (regardless of political ideology) could get behind. The problem is, the person who uttered this platitude is someone who has done all he could to preclude this from actually becoming a reality!
While I believe health care should NEVER be a “politically rooted” consideration, no patient should EVER have to concern themselves with if and how their well being and healthcare could be impacted by the ideology of the party in power either statewide or federally!
I long for the days, when doctors and other healthcare professionals were able to advise and treat their patients as they say medically appropriate, without concerning themselves with whether or not some MBA at an insurance company would agree with their prescribed course of treatment, and therefore cover the costs of the treatments. An outsider should not be chiming in on whether or not they deemed the diagnosis and or treatment plan “medically appropriate” — whether it be prescriptions, imaging or lab work orders.
Many people are under the misperception that “all jobs offer healthcare” when in fact, many companies do not offer healthcare coverage to their employees, and the ones that do, don’t necessarily cover the entire cost of the monthly premiums for that insurance and take payroll deductions from those patients in order to offer the insurance coverage. I personally found myself in a situation where I didn’t realize my employer had a monthly cap they would pay for my healthcare premiums and if my particular chosen plan cost more than that cap, I would have to endure a payroll deduction. One that neither I nor thousands of Americans who are barely making it paycheck to paycheck could afford to take on. I was forced to take a lower level of coverage with higher copay and out of pocket expenses, which doesn’t make affording my healthcare costs easy. In many cases, it has forced me to forego treatments due to my inability to pay out of pocket. I know several patients who have found themselves in the same predicament.
With the ever rising costs of healthcare for individuals in this country and the destruction of the healthcare safety nets that so many have depended on for generations, its hard to imagine how MAHA could truly become a reality. Many Americans forget the people who pass our laws, and have for decades now, work for us. They legislate who is “eligible for care” and who isn’t, yet receive better healthcare coverage paid for by us, the American taxpayer aka their employers, for the rest of their lives! Then have the audacity to continue to legislate and strip away any semblance of healthcare we may need to have for ourselves.
Unfortunately, due to the political climate of the last several years, there has been a lot of misinformation with regard to what may or may not be covered and who may or not be covered. Many in our country, find it false or hyperbolic that our citizens claim that they have to choose between food, rent and their healthcare needs and prescriptions. Well, as someone who has found herself in this exact predicament more than once in the last decade, I would love to offer a reality check to any and all who deem such claims hyperbolic.
With all its faults, the ACA has done a great deal to at least try to afford "routine healthcare screenings to everyone in this country. There’s that old adage “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Whatever happened to that way of thinking? It would seem, that with the now “for profit” insurance companies, they stand to make far more money by keeping people sick instead of helping them prevent serious illnesses or giving them affordable access to the treatments and early detection tools needed to keep them from contracting these conditions in the first place.
If in fact MAHA is truly a platitude we as a country would like to see fulfilled, we must make healthy food, office visits and procedures medications testing far more accessible and affordable to everyone no matter geographic location or economic status. We need to give the decision making back to the physicians, pharmacists and all medical professionals on what is best for the patients they actually encounter in their places of work. Insurance companies need to STOP forcing these professionals to take time out of their increasingly busy schedules and that of their respective staff to justify their professional medical opinions to these insurance bureaucrats who are supposedly their to “care” for the patients and yet are truly their to pump up their own exorbitant bottom lines, and appease their shareholders!!
The fact of the matter is, there are many doctors, who have become so disheartened by the bureaucracy their beloved and chosen profession has become, they are opting to leave the list of “contracted providers” who take any insurances at all and have opted to go into a “fee for service” type of practice, whereby they can use their medical expertise to best advise and treat their patients, without having to worry about the inappropriate interference of the insurance companies.
There are many things horribly sad about these medical professionals being forced into these situations. One is, many of their patients may not be able to afford their care anymore. Another is, this reduces the list of available contracted providers, making affordable and geographically reasonable access to care more difficult for most patients. Finally, those who may be considering becoming healthcare providers, may think twice due to their not wanting to have to contend with the current climate of insurance companies not their hard fought expertise making treatment decisions for their patients Again. Lessening the pool of available healthcare providers for generations to come
I am hopeful for a day where health care is actually legitimately health care and not “you get healthcare if you can afford our prices and access our locations” or “can’t afford the care, we can’t help you!”