(admin note:this is a guest post lifted from the board by elspaniard. also contains a bit of profanity, but that’s okay.)
Unless you’re living under a rock, you’ve seen the shitstorm that is health care reform brewing in Washington as of late.
This is not a post about the proposals. This is a post about being absolutely sick to the point of puking blood and shit about the misleading statements and outright lies the right wing noise machine is trying to use to scare the shit out of Joe Public about the supreme Boogeyman, government-run health care. I know I’m probably preaching to the choir for the most part here, but I’m hoping others will find this and join the discussion.
Ok, so the main point conservatives and neo-cons (yes, there’s a difference) are making about government-run health care is you will lose the “right” to choose your doctor and make your own decisions regarding your health and treatment. At best, this is an outright lie. Anyone who’s ever had insurance knows this is bullshit. Why? Because already, as we speak, you do not have this right. But who does, you ask? Your insurance company.
Whether it’s the doctor you want to see, the medicine you need to take, the treatment you have to have or a life-saving procedure you desperately need, neither you nor your doctor have any control over these decisions. Someone, possibly hundreds or thousands of miles away, will make these decisions with total disregard for you, the premiums you pay (which will probably be going up again very soon. mine just did.), your condition or your financial situation.
Want to see a specific doctor? Tough shit. If he/she’s not on your insurance company’s “preferred network”, they’re not paying for it. Years of paying skyrocketing premiums be damned. I recently had to visit a neurologist for a spinal issue I have from years ago. He was the only one within 100 miles of me, so it’s not like I had much of a choice. So I go in, hand them my insurance card thinking all was well, get my appointment taken care of and head back to the counter expecting to pay my typical $25 co-pay. But guess what. “We’re not on your insurance company’s ‘preferred network’. This visit isn’t covered by your co-pay.” $150 out of pocket. And I was told I needed to come back every month for re-evaluations and refills for medication. That’s $1800 a year that doesn’t go against a deductible for visits alone, not counting the cost of the medication. Needless to say, I can’t go back because I can’t afford that.
Need a specific medicine which there is no generic form of? Oh, it’s not on your insurance company’s list of covered medications? Too bad. You’ll just have to pay the full price of $100/month for a bottle. My wife has severe acid reflux to the point where she’s more than likely going to end up with throat cancer. So her doctor prescribed Nexium (“the purple pill”) that not only keeps reflux down but also repairs damage to your esophagus. But yes, you guessed it. The insurance company does not cover Nexium, which costs right above $100 for a 30 day supply. That’s another $1200 a year just to keep my wife’s throat from literally eating her from the inside out.
Need that life-saving procedure or treatment? Not if your insurance company has anything to do with it. “Pre-existing condition” has become to the proverbial go-to word when describing the shady shit an insurance company will do to fuck you. Just like the insurance companies that screwed thousands of people on the Gulf Coast out of claims in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Since the ‘wind’ pushed the water into your home, it doesn’t “qualify” as water damage. The same applies to medical treatment and procedures in the health care world. Insurance companies will do anything and everything to fuck you out of your coverage with any kind of shady double-speak they can get away with. Doesn’t matter if you’ve paid your premiums on time, every month, for your entire life. The procedure has to be “pre-certified” before you have it done, in most cases. This means they’re going to dig through your entire medical history. And if they, the insurance companies, can find anything that even remotely looks like a “pre-existing condition,” that can get them out of paying for a $250,000 surgery, you can bet that pre-existing condition, you’re fucked. It’s you against an army of “medical lawyers” whose entire job is to deny coverage.
So you see, this notion that you and your doctor currently have the right to make these decisions is a total fucking sham. You don’t have that “right.” You never had that “right.” And as long as insurance companies, their lobbyists and their whores in D.C. continue to write the laws, you never will have that “right.”
And if I have to hear one more Republican or conservative think-tank tell me that’s what’s going to happen if, basically, Medicaid becomes universal, I’m going to take my pre-existing condition and shove it up their asses.
