current health system can't/won't help those fallen through the cracks

[dajoki]

WP
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/30/AR2005123001173.html

A Snapshot of the Uninsured Life

Sunday, January 1, 2006

What does it mean to be uninsured in the United States?

A recent study revealed that if you don't have health insurance, you might as well have a scarlet letter sewn on your shirt because you will be identified as someone who can be ignored, discarded and shamed with impunity.

A group of Georgetown medical students recently posed as either low-income, uninsured adults or as the parents of low-income uninsured children who needed a wellness exam. The students visited 311 clinics, doctors' offices and community health centers in the District.

Nearly half of these pretend patients were unable to get an appointment; those who were able to get one usually had to wait 2 1/2 weeks to see a doctor.

Providers also asked the students for a pre-visit deposit averaging $190 -- a quarter of the gross monthly income of a minimum-wage worker. Only one in 40 sites was willing to see an uninsured patient without payment at time of service, and four out of five required payment in full at the time of the visit. The students further reported that more than one in five of the personnel with whom they interacted were rude or very rude.

What does this snapshot of the uninsured life tell us?

Tom O'Toole, a faculty adviser on the project and a dean at Georgetown University School of Medicine, said, "Our current health care system is not prepared or equipped to respond to the growing segment of our community that has fallen through the cracks, making too much money for Medicaid coverage but not enough to afford health insurance on their own. We need a better approach to connecting people to affordable health care and safeguards to keep them from becoming bankrupt trying to stay healthy."

[Telly Savalas]

1. It's time for our guys to be banging this drum

at the very least on the Sunday morning news shows.

The United States is the richest country in history. The circumstances described in this article are completely inexcusable. Any Congressperson unwilling to confront this issue needs to resign immediately.

[dajoki]

2. it's disgraceful and embarrassing n/t

[CAG]

3. Even the insured get the shaft... the bubble will burst eventually

Unsustainable growth.
Thats all this is.
Healthcare will continue to take more and more out of everyone's paycheck. As people's paychecks get smaller and smaller, and they have to buy smaller and smaller houses to afford the same mortgage payment, and they can't buy the latest SUV but have to settle for a used pontiac, and they can't buy their kids the latest Xbox, it will eventually hit them.
Then and only then will there be change.

Healthcare insurance should be the number one domestic issue with the democratic party, imho.

[Telly Savalas]

9. Correct.

I'm too lazy to conjure up the link, but some report issued in the last year said that half of all bankruptcies in the United States are due to health care expenses and of such cases, three fourths of the folks actually had insurance. (Or maybe the numbers were the other way around. Regardless, it's a bleak situation.)

[kineneb]

4. we had this problem

Hubby (diabetc & now on dialysis) could not, of course, get any kind of insurance. So I cut my hours back so we qualified for the CA rural low-income service (a parallel to MediCal called CMSP). Otherwise, he would not have been able to see doctors or get the medicine he needs. Now we have to do battle with the regular MediCal/MediCare system, to make sure all of his bills are paid. The system sucks.

[dajoki]

5. and this new...

drug plan is a mess, i am going through it right now, and it is very tricky.

[OneBlueSky]

6. BushCo is bankrupting the government so that programs like . . .

Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security will have to be abandoned due to lack of funds to pay for them . . . their deficit spending isn't bad planning, it's intentional . . .

[Armstead]

7. kick

[Vinca]

8. I would love to see national Democratic candidates put

universal health care at the top of their agenda. The bottom line - from a Republican point of view - is that expensive health insurance is becoming the death knell for business. (They might not want the poor to be healthy, but they sure as hell want their portfolio to stay healthy.) I don't see how or why this would be so difficult since Medicare is already in place (excepting, of course, the nightmare drug portion of it).

[Telly Savalas]

10. It's as if the right-wing's mendacious talking points on health care

have been so thoroughly absorbed by a large chunk of the electorate that most Democrats are afraid to challenge them anymore. It's pretty sad that they have such little confidence in their abilities that they won't try to tackle this issue.

[dajoki]

11. i agree...

the poor no longer have a voice in government because of this greedy, coldhearted bunch of thugs.