health care reform is not about those without insurance.
there are many blogs out there that collect insurance horror stories. we'll start with a minor one:
Three years ago I was paying $1500/mo for the family's health care. My wife got ill one night at about 10PM with massive stomach pain that were so bad she couldn't stand straight and I had to carry her to the car. We went to the ER. We were in the ER for over 7 hours. In the end they determined that she did not have to be admitted. When I got the bill from the hospital I was shocked, but since I had health coverage I wasn't concerned. Then I got my notice that my provider didn't cover ER visits when you didn't get admitted. In other words, I was fully responsible for the costs.
The following year we had another emergency that required a late night ER visit. I refused to let my daughter get discharged from ER and demanded admittance. The cost was almost four times as much as she was admitted and them immediately released. But this time I didn't have to pay anything. :-)
See, once you know the rules, you can make sure that you play by them, and you can screw the health care provider who screwed you.
We have since changed providers and have a HMO/PPO plan at $18K/yr. As part of the HMO I recently took my daughter to her primary for be looked at for TMJ. They didn't have an x-ray machine and they sent me across the street to the hospital ER. Now I have a $25 co-pay with the primary, and since the primary referred me to the ER I assumed that I would have a $25 co-pay there. WRONG. The insurance company has stated that I have a $100 co-pay even though my primary referred me to the ER. I wonder how they will feel when we demand admission the next time.
We need the public option so that this kind of stupidity stops. Even when you have health care, the system is stacked to screw you as much as it can, and you get to pay THOUSANDS of dollars for this fine system of bullcrap.
JMI in The OC