More on "Moral Hazard" and a "Health Care Plan" of the present Administration
I apologize in advance for this post. I really do. But I feel like I have to explain some things to the Persons in Charge of our president's plan to alter the health care system by the beginning of 2009.
First, I'm not going to reinvent the wheel, there's a good discussion of the plan here, that outlines it's implications.
This is the particular idea that I find amazingly offensive whenever it is discussed. And it never matters who is doing the discoursing. When I hear that term "Moral Hazard" (they don't use it directly in the linked discussion but it is all over their policy) I completely lose my mind. I am on the way to being a screaming Tasmainian Devil.
In short "Moral Hazard" means that economists or policy makers who buy into "Moral Hazard" believe that we use health insurance like candy or gum, consuming a vast amount of unecessary health care dollars because we're greedy or lazy or indifferent to the cost of the coverage we enjoy.
I believe that is one of the five biggest crocks ever sold to the American public.
To, (as usual) use my personal examples.
I have never had a "frivolous" test in my life. Every lab work or other diagnostic test was necessary to combat whatever was going on with me at the moment up to and including cancer.
The folks telling us about the new plan literally say we "consume" health care dollars without being aware of the cost versus the benefit.
We are concerned about our well-being. That is why we see physicians, go to the emergency room, have surgery. We "consume" health care when it is *necessary* to do so. It's not some fluffy luxury like too many shoes or IPODS, sweaters, or travel out of town. If we're to continue to exist, it's necessary to "consume" some health care. Why this country treats it like an option we could do without if we chose, rather than a vital cog in anyone's ability to get up in the morning is beyond me.
I did do the right thing and go to doctor visits every three months or so and avoided expensive testing...all through the spring, summer and fall of 1990, for example. They found out I had asthma, but that was a simple test. Not very expensive at all. But you know, I was so fatigued, anemic, feverish and feeling odd by February of 1991 that the doctor's (finally!) surmized I might have cancer.
What *stage* was the Hodgkins in when they finally diagnosed it??????????????
Well, stage 4 means you're basically terminal with no hope. I was one stage down from that.
3B...but I'd avoided all those frivolous tests! I'd done the right thing for the free market! I was a low utilizer.
The heavy artillery chemo that was necessary so I might survive left me with consolation prizes I deal with to this day. Bad bone density, cracked and missing teeth, the gut trouble....
I cost them much more than an earlier biopsy and discovery of this cancer would ever have done.
But, the Moral Hazard lovers want everyone to simply see their primary care doc every three to six months (or once a year if you're shockingly healthy) and not require the system to give them any outpatient surgery, rehab, scans, diagnostic testing or god forbid hospital stays. I could lose coverage or be handed much less in 2009 if the present plan goes through.
They want us all to pay for an individual plan out of pocket, and not through work, up to 7,500 a year (15,000 a year for families that we would get back as a 'tax credit.' I don't know about the rest of you, but I don't have an extra 625.00 /1250.00 a month to pay for it in advance, and the budget cannot be tweaked enough to make it so.
I'm shaking and spitting at the keyboard...
This is just nuts.
First, I'm not going to reinvent the wheel, there's a good discussion of the plan here, that outlines it's implications.
This is the particular idea that I find amazingly offensive whenever it is discussed. And it never matters who is doing the discoursing. When I hear that term "Moral Hazard" (they don't use it directly in the linked discussion but it is all over their policy) I completely lose my mind. I am on the way to being a screaming Tasmainian Devil.
In short "Moral Hazard" means that economists or policy makers who buy into "Moral Hazard" believe that we use health insurance like candy or gum, consuming a vast amount of unecessary health care dollars because we're greedy or lazy or indifferent to the cost of the coverage we enjoy.
I believe that is one of the five biggest crocks ever sold to the American public.
To, (as usual) use my personal examples.
I have never had a "frivolous" test in my life. Every lab work or other diagnostic test was necessary to combat whatever was going on with me at the moment up to and including cancer.
The folks telling us about the new plan literally say we "consume" health care dollars without being aware of the cost versus the benefit.
We are concerned about our well-being. That is why we see physicians, go to the emergency room, have surgery. We "consume" health care when it is *necessary* to do so. It's not some fluffy luxury like too many shoes or IPODS, sweaters, or travel out of town. If we're to continue to exist, it's necessary to "consume" some health care. Why this country treats it like an option we could do without if we chose, rather than a vital cog in anyone's ability to get up in the morning is beyond me.
I did do the right thing and go to doctor visits every three months or so and avoided expensive testing...all through the spring, summer and fall of 1990, for example. They found out I had asthma, but that was a simple test. Not very expensive at all. But you know, I was so fatigued, anemic, feverish and feeling odd by February of 1991 that the doctor's (finally!) surmized I might have cancer.
What *stage* was the Hodgkins in when they finally diagnosed it??????????????
Well, stage 4 means you're basically terminal with no hope. I was one stage down from that.
3B...but I'd avoided all those frivolous tests! I'd done the right thing for the free market! I was a low utilizer.
The heavy artillery chemo that was necessary so I might survive left me with consolation prizes I deal with to this day. Bad bone density, cracked and missing teeth, the gut trouble....
I cost them much more than an earlier biopsy and discovery of this cancer would ever have done.
But, the Moral Hazard lovers want everyone to simply see their primary care doc every three to six months (or once a year if you're shockingly healthy) and not require the system to give them any outpatient surgery, rehab, scans, diagnostic testing or god forbid hospital stays. I could lose coverage or be handed much less in 2009 if the present plan goes through.
They want us all to pay for an individual plan out of pocket, and not through work, up to 7,500 a year (15,000 a year for families that we would get back as a 'tax credit.' I don't know about the rest of you, but I don't have an extra 625.00 /1250.00 a month to pay for it in advance, and the budget cannot be tweaked enough to make it so.
I'm shaking and spitting at the keyboard...
This is just nuts.
Labels: Health Care Plans
posted by imfunnytoo at 8:11 PM
3 Comments:
Thanks for the write up on this... Bush's health care plans are nothing more than "fluff" to make the people happy. "Look at me America, I'm trying to fix health care!"
and failing miserably.
I've said this over and over and over, but whenever I hear about your US health system (or lack thereof), I can't really believe it is like that. Because one gets the strong impression that I and many others simply wouldn't be breathing today if we happened to have been born over there - over there in the richest country in the world...
Of course, having state healthcare, we do have an ongoing debate on where those pennies should be spent, including some pretty horrible debates around lifestyle, issues like IVF, which surgeries could be described as cosmetic procedures, sexual re-orientation etc..
But at least there is consensus that people should get the help they need. The debates we have are more about the most economical way of meeting those needs.
I keep hoping that the policy makers will have to experience the health care system as low income and/or disabled folks do. But then I think, they would just return to their cushy lives and they wouldn't give a shit, so my fantasy ends.
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