how health care should make you feel!
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As you have probably heard by now, the Supreme Court decided today, in a 5-4 vote, that President Obama’s Affordable Care Act (health insurance) is constitutional. The individual mandate part of the ACA is about semantics – if you don’t buy into this insurance, are you taxed or penalized?
As self-employed individuals, our health care would have cost us from $12,000-$14,000 a year each for basic care,–about $25k– so we haven’t had insurance for the last 22 years. When we were first married, we bought basic coverage, then when I got pregnant we learned the insurance didn’t cover maternity expenses. We paid more than $8,000 for Megan’s birth – and that was in 1989 – and there was nothing wrong with her, it wasn’t a C-section, and I spent just one night in the hospital. Yes, that was with health care.
Around this time, my friend Nancy Pickard and I had a rather in depth discussion about the Seth material. She said she didn’t have health insurance because she had realized long before that her challenges in this life weren’t about health issues. She adhered to Seth’s tenets that physical ailments/diseases are about internal disconnects. A light went on in my head; I realized that my challenges in this life weren’t about health, either. Neither are Rob’s. After that, we dropped our insurance.
This no insurance thing isn’t something we’ve talked about with most people. When we do, the often subsequent silence is uncomfortable, the other person changes the subject, their stance is clear. The Macs are cuckoo.
Fortunately, we’ve been healthy and have been in ER maybe three times. We paid out of pocket. We never expected to be treated for free. While our daughter was growing up, she had fantastic health care through Florida’s healthy kids program. $5 co-pay. When she broke her wrist when she was nine or so, the entire cost was $20. When Rob broke his foot in a biking accident and went to a walk-in clinic and then an orthopedic surgeon, the bill was $3,000. After Megan’s healthy kids insurance expired, she broke her foot in a sailing accident. The bill eventually came to $2,500 and that’s without any surgery, just a cast, the doctor’s visits, the X rays.
When Obama proposed the Affordable Care Act, he didn’t even bother proposing Medicare for all. In fact, he set the bar way too low, using what was a Republican agenda that basically turned 33 million people over to the insurance companies in return for: you can’t be denied insurance based on pre-existing conditions (excellent); kids can stay on their parents’ policies to the age of 26 (great, if your parents have insurance); no cap on care (fantastic). But Obama ‘s program doesn’t remove profit from health care.
The irony is that Obama’s program is fashioned after the template that Romney set up in Massachusetts when he was governor. Romney, of course, would prefer to have amnesia about that and even made a statement today that as president, he would make sure the Affordable Care Act was repealed.
While the ACA is a fine step in the right direction it is NOT true universal health care; that would be Medicare for all. So when you hear liberal pundits talking about how we now have universal health care, it simply isn’t true.
A couple years ago, Nancy turned 65 and went on Medicare. I asked her if she was going to the doctor more often. In typical Nancy form, she laughed. “Naw. I realized I needed more internal clarity, so I’ve been going to a Jungian dream analyst.”
Wow, I thought. What a great way to use Medicare. In June, I became eligible for Medicare and my little card arrived in the mail. I looked at this sucker that I’ve been paying for my entire working life, and started laughing. Insurance, I have medical insurance. And I immediately wondered if that meant I was supposed to get sick. So I’ve decided to go Nancy’s route and find a Jungian for dream analysis.
In the meantime, I scheduled an appointment with my eye doctor. If you pay cash, he charges $60 for an exam. And he’s good. So for years, once a year, that’s what we have paid him. The other day I called his office to make an appointment.
“Are you still private pay?” the receptionist asked.
“Nope. Medicare.” I felt almost smug saying it.
“Supplemental insurance?”
“None.”
“Do you, uh, know about the twenty percent that Medicare doesn’t pay?”
“Yes.” I mean, please. For this appointment, if the doc charges his usual $60, the exam will cost me all of twelve bucks.
“Very good. We’ll see you in July.”
The big question mark here is if the eye doc jacks up his prices for Medicare. I’ll know the answer is about two weeks.
Medicare is as close to universal health care as this country will ever see. It costs me a hundred bucks a month, no questions asked. That’s how it should be for every U.S. citizen. Yet, a friend who lived for a time on Hilo, in Hawaii, said that no one on the island accepted Medicare. So even with this program, there are prejudices.
My Canadian friend, Judi, emailed me today asking about the decision by the Supremes. “As a Canadian I don’t understand why a lot of Americans don’t want health care for everyone. Isn’t it a good thing that children with preexisting conditions are now covered, and that health care premiums cannot just be jacked up for no reason? I’m already reading that some of those opposed to the ruling and socialism, are thinking of moving to Canada – and yet we have universal health care. Isn’t that what they are trying to get away from? What am I missing here?”
Well, what she’s missing is that piece of the American soul that shrieks, Don’t mandate what I have to buy. Don’t you dare tell me I have to eat broccoli. Just make it universal, please, but don’t call it socialism.
So this is where we are. Romney vows to repeal the ruling. The Obama administration considers the ruling a victory. Personally, I think we’ve got a long way to go. But right now, hey, I’ve got my Medicare card. Thank you, Lyndon Johnson, who got this program approved in 1965, in just eleven months.
Don’t mean to beat a dead horse, but I thought this article was interesting. Written by a physician who supports Obama but believes the healthcare act is Bad Policy:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/marcia-angell-md/roberts-romney-health-care_b_1637397.html
Thanks for the link, Jo. I’ll check it out. No dead horses here!
WOW, Cousin! That’s such a shame about the insurance in your state. When we applied for the AARP United Care Supplemental after we got Medicare, we were asked no questions whatsoever! We thought it strange at the time, but we were coverd, and very well covered. I had thought when we applied we wouldn’t get it or that the premiums would be too high for our limited budget due to pre-existing conditions, but we got full coverage w/o any questions at all. My heart surgery in 2008 was completely covered, as was hubby’s later cancer surgery, and I was astonished that we never had to pay a single penny out of pocket, not even a deductible. So far, every hospital and physician around these parts accepts Medicare and United HealthCare Insurance thru AARP, but with the new changes, who knows what may happen? We’ve got our fingers crossed, because if anything negative occurs regarding the coverage, no way will hubby be able to purchase insurance due to his existing health issues. And if he DID get covered, the premiums would be prohibitive.
Right now we’re in a really good place with the insurance, can afford the premiums with no deductibles, and are hopeful nothing shifts as a result of the political scenarios. My cardiologist has mentioned the docs may have no choice but to begin to refuse Medicare and supplememntal as full payment because they will otherwise begin to lose a great deal. We have a long way to go.
cj – ya’ll are very lucky there in terms of what’s available to you as supplemental insurance – in this state, during the time i was enrolled in one, there were only a very few and these did not include the better ones – as a matter of fact, i signed up for one in particular and had an appointment for a rep to come by but no one ever did – i kept calling and calling and was finally told that there was no rep in this state for that company at all – i’m sure part of this has to do with the state’s extremely high cancer rates and companies are not willing to offer policies here – also, one i looked at – and i think it actually was AARP asked several medical questions – like, HAVE YOU EVER HAD OR BEEN TOLD YOU HAD stuff in it which would have disqualified me even though i’d never received nor required treatment for whatever it was – SO does this new deal mean that they can no longer ASK THESE QUESTIONS??? and the company with whom i did sign, at the end of the first year, quit offering any coverage in this state, as well – interestingly, just day before yesterday i received an EOB/explanation of benefits from that company indicating that they had just now paid one of my specialists for services provided way back then – apparently the physician had appealed a denial on a claim and had just been paid for it – anyway, such has been my limited experience with all that in this state –
and about volunteer firefighters – there are no paid firefighters/emt’s here – they are ALL volunteer – ALL – a very sad state of affairs –
Momwithwings, I just emailed T & R about that quake, then clicked over and saw your comment! SYNCHRO! And no, it isn’t over. For some reason I sense it’s just beginning. Not a good feeling. I continue to have the nausea coming and going, and my eyes are watering and burning like crazy. They aren’t infected or anything. This is a PE symptom. I don’t think it has anything to do with the horrible fires out West. Something else………
About a week ago, I heard from Sharlie, and I think she mentioned China. Will have to re-check email. Also, a few days ago, Nancy A said something about having planetary empath symptoms, too.
FYI : 6.1 earthquake in China, it is not over yet, I feel nauseaus.
I will check out those sites, thanks.
Did you see on news that firefighters have no medical insurance?!! How can that be?!
I did see that thing about the firemen. I think someone mentioned it in a comment, too. Shameful.
Shameful is the right word!!!
What I don’t like is that if you don’t purchase ins. You will be “taxed” or forced anyway. This isn’t the govt. paying it is still the patient.
I am happy about accepting with patients with pre-existing conditions and keeping kids on it until they are 26.
I have often noticed what the medical charges are on our ins. Forms and am shocked at what you’d pay if you didn’t have ins. It is crazy!
The amount of money we spend on wars is obscene! It is ridiculous!
I am lucky that we have always had good insurance and I could pick the doctors I wanted, to me that is what we all should have.
The mandate. I don’t like that, either. offer people reasonably priced insurance and they’ll buy on their own accord. This doesn’t solve the problem.
Here’s what michael moore says about it:
https://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mike-friends-blog/more-victory-decision-today-was-mandate-us-act
And what a physician says about this mandate: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/marcia-angell-md/roberts-romney-health-care_b_1637397.html
Gypsy, just a quick comment….if our supplemental premiums had been anywhere NEAR in the hundreds of dollars a month, we would never have been able to afford it. It is much less than that, and what we have received for what we have paid in has been returned to us many times over, all things considered. And Nancy….my husband and I are not what some folks would refer to as “doctor-hounds”. We don’t go to the doctor expecting trouble. In fact, we avoid those visits as much as possible. But when a person is urinating solid red blood into the toilet, as my husband did, or hemorrhaging vaginally, arterial blood, in a manner that cannot be stopped, as I did in a grocery store, hemorrhaging which subsequently requiring SEVEN blood transfusions…..then a visit to the doctor is not a choice but a life-saving necessity. We focus on health ourselves. You are a very, very lucky woman and I hope you do realize that, considering that you require no types of prescriptions medications. My husband, age 73, is a brittle insulin-dependent diabetic. That disease cannot be “thought away”. Awareness dictates that common sense should be brought into this matter, and more than common sense, a sense of BALANCE. We use both traditional and alternative modalities if sickness hits, but we don’t go rushing to the doctor with every little ache or pain. Our ex-daughter-in-law had a genetic liver disease; her liver ailment wasn’t due to drugs or drink, and she had to receive a transplant to survive. She got her new liver from a donor who died in New Orleans during Katrina, and thank the gods for that. Sometimes karma works in ways that use illnesses as teachers. Be grateful that you are blessed with good health. Many are not.
excellent commentary, thank you. I am in complete agreement………..I also went without health care, because I simply couldnt afford it, for virtually all of my working life, as a self-employed person myself. In 2002 I broke my leg and had to be helicoptered to a hospital. The bill for fixing the broken leg? $40,000.00, and after that a bankruptcy.
One might ask, why so expensive? Could the system itself have something wrong with it, that it costs $40,000.00 to fix a broken leg? Why, for that matter, does my asthma medicine, Advair, cost 250.00 a month in the U.S., and when I drive to Nogales, Mexico, it costs $50.00? %200.00 is a sizable mark up……..
I agree with you as well as to priorities. We will be paying for wars that, like Vietnam, served no purpose except to bankrupt the country, make a lot of money for corporate interests, and cost a lot of lives. And yet, unlike Canada, we cannot make health care truly affordable for all, thus prioritizing lives, instead of prioritizing deaths. Think about it…….
40 grand to fix a broken leg? My god, this is exactly what’s wrong with the existing system. And you’re so right about war.
I prefer to call it the ACA or Affordable Care Act rather than Obamacare, which is a derogatory term the right spits out. That said, Obama himself remarked that he doesn’t mind the term because ‘Obama cares.’
The GOP image is ‘We like war, we don’t like health care.’ Apparently, lots of Americans buy into that talk. FOX News is by far the most popular cable new station, and it’s virtually an arm of the GOP. Sometimes it seems the other way around: the GOP is an arm of FOX News. I can watch FOX for about 30 seconds. All it takes is one look at those blathering blond bimbos or the other acid-tongued talking heads and it’s back to MSNBC.
Rachel rules! Great article on her in Rolling Stone.
Romney plans on going after “entitlements” which includes social security and medicare. In true Repug form – nothing for the little guy and everything for the wealthy – who can afford whatever they want anyway. As for Obamacare – I think it’s great up to a point, and that point is that it handed the insurance company a great big gift and didn’t talk about price. If you can’t afford insurance before Obamacare – chances are that you can’t afford insurance now. What are they going to do – put you into all the for-profit prisons if you can’t buy insurance?
I have insurance and never use it. I don’t use any Rx drugs and believe if you constantly go to the doctor – they will eventually find something wrong. Like you and Nancy, I prefer to take my chances and focus on health.
my own experience with medicare has been reasonably good so far – at least in terms of finding physicians who participate in it – for a long time, in addition to the medicare premium automatically deducted from my monthly check, i paid an additional several hundred dollars a month for supplemental coverage but found that it was not at all cost effective in the long run – medicare alone was enough for me, given the pharmacy low-cost drug plans offered by most large pharmacies – so that’s what i have had now for the last couple of years –
as for the comment[s] about running the government into bankruptcy as a result of universal healthcare – my opinion is that the government, as led by the bush administration – was quite successful in that endeavor and needed no help at all –
as to “entitlements” – ie medicare and social security – i think of these more as “reimbursement” for all the monies i paid into the system for my lifetime of employment – oh, and let’s not forget that every medicare recipient does, in fact, “pay” for their individual coverage every single month –
very insightful post, macgregors!
Perfectly stated, Gypsy!
Interesting when you write about how the ‘American soul that shrieks, don’t mandate what I have to buy.’ I can understand that but I look at the Health Care question from my UK perspective. To me it’s no different to having to pay income tax every month or quarter. Lots of the stuff the government does with my tax money I don’t like and don’t want to buy, but I have to lump it.
To me everyone should have access to equal health care when needed – and that means everyone has to contribute.
I agree we should all contribute. No problem. But what we’re getting isn’t true universal care like the UK has.
Well, there are a lot of ways to look at this, and I won’t delve deeply into the spiritual aspects of an individual soul/ego creating illness for some karmic purpose, or even on the aspects of unexpected automobile accidents in which an individual is seriously injured. I can only speak about my husband’s and my experience with Medicare and supplemental insurance. My husband was always disgustingly healthy, with the immune system of a caveman. He is and has always been self-employed. My health hasn’t been that great but hasn’t been awful: a bout with serious, life-threatening cancer requiring major surgery, for which we had no insurance, and a few other issues for which we simply didn’t have sufficient money to pay. We had no choice but to go bankrupt a few years ago after my cancer surgery, so no one rec’d any payment. We didn’t WANT to take the bankruptsy route; it hangs over your head forever, but it was the only choice we had at that time because we couldn’t pay the medical bills. We didn’t have insurance for years and years. When we got Medicare, we decided to purchase supplemental insurance through AARP, because no matter what a person believes spiritually, people DO get sick, sometimes very seriously sick, requiring professional traditional medical attention. In 2010, my disgustingly healthy husband developed renal cell carcinoma, a highly aggressive cancer of the kidneys, and he had to have half his right kidney removed. There were complications, and he was in surgery for nine hours and then in the hospital for more than a week. WE DID NOT PAY ONE SINGLE PENNY OUT OF POCKET for any of this. NOT ONE PENNY, and the final bill was staggering, almost a million dollars.(Our insurance doesn’t have a deductible), we don’t have to have a referral, and we can go to any physician of our choice. All of them, without exception, accept our insurance and Medicare. As an RN, I am very familiar with the costs of medical care, and I understand the hospitals most certainly raise prices somewhat when there is insuarance coverage. The thing is, and be that as it may, my husband would now be dead if we had not had the insurance, because we could not have afforded the surgery or the care without it. So we pay the monthly premiums and believe me, it has been worth every dime we have paid in premiums! Every dime. Now, shifting gears slightly to life insurance. Many folks don’t believe in purchasing life insurance and think it’s being negative and pessimistic. Well, doesn’t everyone die sooner or later? And in our situation, if my husband precedes me in death, without the life insurance I carry on him, I would be left destitute. So people can argue and debate the goods and the bads of having insurance. We have it, and we will keep it. It has been a GOOD DECISION for US. Being in touch with one’s soul and understanding that one may not be here in the current life to deal with health issues, yada yada yada, is all well and fine. But can a person know as a CERTAINTY that he or she will not be broadsided by an eighteen-wheeler while on vacation?? We aren’t omnipotent, and bad things actually do happen to good people, regardless of what we may be convinced our souls and our Higher Selves are telling us or how healthy our lifestyles may be. Insurance works for US. For others, it’s an individual choice based on that person’s individual ideas. For us, the medical insurance has been similar to putting money aside for the retirement years when old age prevents being able to go on working. An intelligent person understands that a roof and food and clothing are necessities of life, and that if one lives to a ripe old age, the money needs to be there for those things. For us, insurance is parallel to that. I’ve recently lost a dear close friend who never had a sick day in her life, NEVER, and she was found dead in her kitchen of a brain aneurysm. Fortunately, she was financially secure, or her adult children would have been responsible for the astronomical costs of burial and/or cremation. Medical and life insurance has its ups and its downs, but in the long run and in the whole scheme of things, once again, insurance has literally been life-preservers for my husband and me. I have no regrates about writing that premium check every month. But, that’s me, and that’s OUR experience. Others are different.
It’s not that anyone is opposed to universal healthcare – what we’re opposed to is universal healthcare that runs the government into bankruptcy. The simple fact is that the cost of entitlements (medicare and social security) alone plus interest on our current debt will equal 100% of our tax receipts by 2015. That’s before we spend a dime on any other government program, which means we have to borrow the rest of the money required to run the government. That’s not a sustainable way to manage a budget. Don’t believe me? Ask Greece. Ask Spain. Ask Italy. Portugal. Ireland. We’re on the same road, just farther from the dead end. Universal healthcare is great and all, but the money to pay for it has to come from somewhere.
And for the record, Romney doesn’t deny that ObamaCare is similar to his Massachusetts plan. It’s the way it’s implemented that he has a problem with, and rightly so. Good ideas poorly implemented and without the means to pay for them is Bad Policy, no matter how nice “universal healthcare” sounds.
Jo
I have to agree with Gypsy. Where was the outrage from the right when Bush was spending $3 trillion on unnecessary wars? Not a peep about deficit spending back then. The Bush admin. didn’t even include the war spendings in the regular budget. Not a peep. Let’s have more outrage about war and killing people and less about health care and healing people. Health care should be the #1 priority for federal gov’t. Defense is important, too, but not expensive foreign incursions for questionable purposes.
I couldn’t agree more! There is never any talk about the War Machine when we talk about deficits.
Trish,
Totally agree, the bombing of WTC was by Saudis, but we went into Iraq, and Afghanistan. Why? No one will tell me. I photographed boy and girls going off to war who then came back in coffins. But, no health care just spend more on the military complex. Did you know that the men and women battling the blazes here in CSprings, if they are volunteers have no health care? But spend more on the military complex. We can not even get enough planes in the air to do fire suppression out here, but spend more on the military complex.
Shut down those wars now!
Laurence
totally agree…
Agree 100 percent, Laurence!
Jo – During the 8 years of the Bush administration, congress never worried about how to pay for 2 wars. After 9-11, Bush told everyone to “go shopping,” Greenspan made it easy for people to use their homes like ATM machines, and by 2008, the economic meltdown was the end result. Since Obama took office, the republicans have suddenly become oh so concerned about balancing the budget. Why are we in Afghanistan? Why did we go into Iraq? Trillions have been spent on these wars and those trillions could easily fund medicare for all.
I don’t disagree with any of you on military spending and pointless wars, but it’s beside the point. Even if we cut the military budget to zero, and eliminate every other government service and program, we still don’t have enough money to pay for medicare, social security and interest on our debt. Add the additional cost of this healthcare plan, and we’ll be Greece in less than a decade. Borrowing more isn’t the answer.
I’m all for ending the wars, and Bush-bashing is lots of fun, but blame doesn’t solve the problem. The problem lies with the cost of healthcare, and this plan doesn’t address that.
Jo
Which goes back to our original contention. Remove insurance companies from the equation. Health care shouldn’t be a for-profit business and shouldn’t be corporate. Our governor, for instance, made zillions in the health care industry, was hit for Medicare fraud, a paid a huge fine, never did a day in jail and went on to become governor, a tea party candidate who probably wouldn’t be elected today. He, like most republicans, would simply like medicaid and medicare to vanish and let the poor and the elderly struggle in their own. There’s something very wrong with that picture. No one should go hungry, die for lack of medical care, or go bankrupt.
I really appreciate your frank, personal discussion of the impact of the ACA. It does feel in some ways like a big, so what? I still have to struggle with figuring out how to afford private insurance or go without it till I can get on Medicare. Big government is one that doesn’t let you say vagina in public, not one that helps citizens face the big issues like affordable health care. I don’t understand why people get so riled up about it. You don’t have to call it socialism, think of a new word for it like “community caring.” Moving to Canada to avoid “Obamacare” is really funny, too. It’s always rewarding reading your posts!
I will be interested in following what the fallout from this ruling will be. But for heaven’s sake, if it had been overturned, the class warfare would have been extreme: if you can afford it, you can see a doctor. Otherwise, you simply don’t. I used supplemental insurance the first year I was on Medicare, but it made no sense to me to pay $170 every month when I wasn’t sick and never saw the doctor even once. So now I am on an Advantage plan and have a co-pay every time I see the doctor, which isn’t often. Works for me.
Great post, thanks for sharing these thoughts. I was wondering what you were going to have to say about this! And yes, I am very interested to know if that doctor jacks up the prices for Medicare…
As your resident, die-hard capitalist, I want to know why you want to “take the profit out?” Don’t you expect to be paid for your writing?
Jack, wake up, what health benefits do you get from an insurance company? None. They’re a middleman and not needed. But if you love your insurance company, you can certainly keep paying them all you want.
I really don’t know what’s going on with today’s healthcare-insurance. I was totally aware of it in the 1980’s when we were self employed. In the 1990’s I had a great job with awesome benefits and I remember my boss telling me at an annual review that he’d got me the highest raise available. I must have had a blank look on my face because the $$ was negligible and he laughed. “Right, you’re just here for the benefits.”
I really was. I loved the job, and my boss, but when it came down to the truth – I was running a national company so my family had health care. And they were so healthy we never needed it… But it didn’t cost me anything more than my time, and I wouldn’t trade the experience I had during those years.
But I can’t say anything cool about this landmark event. I know it is huge to many, and I applaude that. But it’s a non-event, a historical issue, that’s not on my radar today. I’m not sure what to feel about all this.
It’s like I’m no longer one of the many. Instead I’m one the elite few. I like it here. It’s a really nice pause. The drama and fight can be exhausting.
Terri, what, you married a doctor?