Pissurance

Sometimes when I'm slumming it in the various online newspaper discussion boards I have found myself writing things like this:

Let's say that your child is seriously injured or develops a nasty illness. You take them to the hospital. You have healthcare insurance through your employer. After a couple weeks of intensive treatment, tests, consulting specialists, and rehabilitation, your child is released and gets to go home.

But the insurance copays force you into bankruptcy.

"BOSTON and CAMBRIDGE--February 2, 2005--Medical problems contributed to about half of all bankruptcies, involving 700,000 households in 2001, according to a story published today as a Web Exclusive by the journal Health Affairs. Families with children were especially hard hit -- about 700,000 children lived in families that declared bankruptcy in the aftermath of serious medical problems. Another 600,000 spouses, elderly parents and other dependents brought the total number of people directly affected by medical bankruptcies to more than two million annually.

Surprisingly, most of those bankrupted by medical problems had health insurance. More than three-quarters were insured at the start of the bankrupting illness. Among those with private insurance, however, one-third had lost coverage at least temporarily by the time they filed for bankruptcy. Often illness led to job loss, and with it the loss of health insurance. Out-of-pocket medical costs (for co-payments, deductibles and uncovered services) averaged $13,460 for those with private insurance at the onset of their illness, vs. $10,893 for the uninsured. The highest costs -- averaging $18,005 -- were incurred by those who initially had private coverage but lost it in the course of their illness. Many families were bankrupted by medical expenses well below the catastrophic thresholds of high deductible plans that are increasingly popular with employers. The authors comment that even their own coverage from Harvard leaves them at risk for out-of-pocket costs above levels that often led to medical bankruptcy."

The headline of the Harvard news release cited says that most of those Americans that were bankrupted by healthcare emergencies were middle-class and insured.

From Holly Sklar:

William McGuire, of UnitedHealth Group, the nation's leading insurer, was the third-highest-paid CEO on the Forbes list. His pay of $124.8 million could cover the average health-insurance premiums of nearly 34,000 people.

"While executives are richly compensated, patients are tightening their belts," Dr. Isaac Wornom, chairman of the Richmond (Va.) Academy of Medicine, wrote last year. "Premiums, deductibles and co-pays are up, while benefits continue to shrink. One million Virginians -- that's one out of seven -- have no health insurance at all, and this number is increasing. . . . Half of the uninsured work full time for small businesses that simply can't afford the inflated rates."

You work hard, you're patriotic, you put food on your family, and what do you get if you or one of your loved ones is stricken by a catastrophic illness? Nothing.

Guaranteed.