Oh, sure. Nothin' broke here:
With median annual compensation of more than $12.4 million, C.E.O.’s at the big health-care companies make two-thirds more than their counterparts in finance and are the highest paid of any industry. The health-care industry’s total annual profit has grown to an estimated $200 billion, and it doled out nearly $170 million in campaign contributions in 2007 and 2008. It now spends more than any other industry lobbying the federal government—$3.5 billion over the past decade and a record $263 million in the first six months of this year. That’s six lobbyists and nearly half a million dollars for each member of Congress. It’s been a good year on K Street, too.
It should come as no surprise, then, that we spend 17 percent of our G.D.P. and more than $7,500 per American per year on health care. That’s 50% more than any other industrialized nation. Meanwhile, the quality of care we get in return has fallen to embarrassing lows. According to the World Health Organization, our health-care system ranks 37th in overall quality and fairness, placing us between Costa Rica and Slovenia. We rank 41st in infant-mortality rates, alongside Slovakia and Serbia, and dead last among 19 leading industrialized countries in preventable deaths. Nearly two-thirds of personal bankruptcies in the U.S. are caused by illness, yet more than three-quarters of those people actually had health insurance when they fell ill. In other words, we’re all getting ripped off.
In regards to the last sentence quoted: it makes me think about one of the hospitalizations my son went through. We were still in the process of diagnosing his autoimmune disorder when he coughed one night as we put him to sleep-then started to breathe oddly. We called an ambulance, went to the ER and sat through a series of x-rays that told us that his lungs were "fine." B/c of his history, I wouldn't leave the ER. Finally, the doctors agreed to a cat-scan. When they looked at him in three dimensions they realized immediately that his lung had collapsed. The intervention in a pneumothorax is to insert a chest tube into the pleural wall and re-inflate the lung via vacuum. While the tube is inserted, though, the patient must remain in ICU in a bed attached to a machine that creates the vacuum. Doctors tried to remove chest tube too soon, the lung collapsed a second time. All told, we were in PICU that time for 31 days. My son has very unusual health issues, I do not fault the doctors for the errors that occurred. In retrospect, I realize that certain events HAD TO occur before doctors could legitimately arrive at the proper diagnosis.
However, about 7 days in, we were informed by our insurance company that while the hospital was indeed in our plan, the medical group of pediatricians that worked in ICU had recently withdrawn from our plan because they felt they were not receiving adequate compensation from the insurance company. Thus, every time a pediatrician came to visit us or checked my son's chart, instead of being 100% covered, we were only covered for 80% of reasonable cost. Over the course of a month, the difference between real life and 80% of reasonable cost really added up.
My husband is a state employee. We actually have very good insurance. But that one hospitalization (and my son has had many) still stripped us of our savings (not VAST sums, but all we had) up to that point.
Posted by: Andrea | Friday, October 16, 2009 at 01:29 PM