ADD A ZERO TO CALCULATE U.S. HEALTH CARE COSTS
By Nancy Clark
Twenty some years ago this feature would have been labeled an opinion piece. Because it is. That doesn’t mean it’s absent of research or due diligence, but it is shaded with my opinion as a reader, writer, editor and publisher. And it is, in my opinion, no different than what is considered “news” today in media worldwide because, it seems, the media is the most guilty party when it comes to slanting the news. Take the economy, for instance.
In July 2009, the media announced that the U.S. had entered a recession. Oh, what a surprise. News source after news source headlined the increasing numbers of unemployed, the increasing number of foreclosures, bankruptcies, government-mandated furlough days—all depressing more than recessing facts—until we, the public, accepted it as truth. Only a few months later, the same media was making headlines claiming that parts of our country have risen out of the recession like a Phoenix (but not Phoenix, Ariz.) and are now on their way to full recovery. Not so much, if you ask me.
(But that would be my opinion.)
Possibly the most egregious display of media making madness was the sheer volume of news agencies hypnotized by the Balloon Boy shenanigans. How the play-by-play of this family’s hoax could go viral in less than one hour, bringing the masses to focus on it is something that only the actor and actress who spawned children could have performed, amazed me. It used to be that media made a point of vetting facts before presenting real-time action as fact. The use of the word “alleged” has all but disappeared from the vocabularies of talking heads.
So when it comes to the health care debate, I do not trust the media. I do not trust health care insurance companies or the legislature or, for that matter, I trust very few healthcare providers. The dynamic of my disbelief was confirmed last week when our little company received notification that our insurance rates would increase 33% for the coming year. We had been forewarned by our insurance agent that this increase was imminent. It was, he explained, the direct result of the Colorado Legislature approving a resolution that “evened out” the cost of insurance, disallowing the discount that small companies like ours got when insuring the entire group.
At about the same time that we received our re-up paperwork, one of the young people in our office traveled to Jamaica. When he left, he had an earache. When he landed on the powdered sugar beaches of the tropics, his ear hurt even worse. He figured he wouldn’t make it through the weekend stay if he didn’t see a doctor, so he made an appointment, albeit nervously. The doc, who actually did use “Mon” in his dialect, looked in our young man’s ear, pronounced it infected, and prescribed amoxicillin. Then, unlike in the U.S., the doctor dispensed the prescription right there in his office. No trip to the pharmacy to stay him from his afternoon on the beach. No worries, Mon, about an insurance card. The total tab for the cure was $15; $7 for the doctor’s exam, $5 for the Rx, $2 for the cab.
Upon his return to the states, our young man visited his own physician who confirmed that this was the same medication he would have prescribed had the visit been at a Mile High vs. sea level. That office visit, less the $25 deductible, was probably another $125, but our young man won’t be fazed by that because he has insurance.
Fact: The cost of health care can be devastating. Especially when you figure that 70% of all bankruptcies filed in the last year were precipitated by insurmountable medical bills.
So what’s happened to our system that we as Americans buy into the idea that health insurance is an entitlement or that health care is our right, and that employers must provide it, although it’s not perceived as being as valuable as a raise?
We don’t pay the highest salaries comparatively in our little company. But we do pay on par for health insurance coverage. For some of our employees, the health insurance benefit amounts to one-fifth of their gross salary. The younger ones in the group would probably rather have a new Kia, or a swell vacation to a far-away land (where, I might note, they’re bound to get cheaper health care if the need arises.)
So when I turn on my Internet, pick up a newspaper, listen to the radio, watch the TV, I’m hearing that healthcare needs reform. I’m not hearing much about the choices employers need to make in order to afford to provide that benefit. I’m not hearing the correlation being drawn that if a company pays X for health insurance for its employees that it could mean eliminating XX positions going into next year.
I recently accompanied my mother to a hospital where she wanted to return a hand-held pincer, never used, that had been given to my father two weeks prior. He’d had back surgery and the device was one of the many accessories the physical therapist had offered (at a dear cost) for my dad to take home. He’d gotten by without opening the plastic wrapper on the pincer and my mother wanted a credit for its return. We stood for five minutes at a counter waiting for one of the four receptionists to acknowledge our presence. They were gabbing among themselves, never looking up even though they’d gotten our scent. Only one of the four was actively doing what would be called hospital work as she scheduled another woman at the counter for a return visit. In private industry, even a really seriously customer-service-oriented industry, the scheduling could have been accomplished in less than 2 minutes by one individual. Overlaid by the co-workers chatter about the upcoming weekend, it consumed four of them, at a cost passed along to all patients.
A physical therapist passing by stopped to ask if we’d been helped. She was the one to explain to my mother that the hospital would not accept the pincer back, but that my mother could drive to the hospital wares outlet 12 miles east to return it…if she called first.
My second visit to a hospital this quarter was to accompany my son who’d suffered what I had determined was whiplash from the rollercoaster. Because he is my grown son, he didn’t want to take my advice about seeking a medical opinion soon after the night at the amusement park. Because he’s my grown son who I happen to work with, I ended up being in the office with him when he displayed symptoms that could be confused with a heart attack. Turns out, the emergency room physician diagnosed whiplash. One CAT scan and shot of muscle relaxant in the arm later, the ER doc prescribed pain killers and rest for a few days. I was the one to go to the pharmacy…no dispensing out of the emergency room. I was also the one to open the mail the day the invoice for the ER visit showed up—all $8,000+ of it. With insurance, it was just $2,500…still too much, in my opinion.
So what is the media’s responsibility in all this talk-talk about health care insurance? My opinion is that that responsibility is in telling the whole story…not just the shiny parts, like a silver balloon headed skyward.
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