Protecting Patients
Those of us who have health insurance--or think we have health insurance--can get complacent about whether the nation needs that big, complicated health reform legislation. But just try getting sick. Is your insurance even real? If it is, can you afford it after the latest round of price hikes? Is your deductible so big that paying it will mean financial ruin? Check out these stories and think about what the White House and Congress, by wimping out again on health reform, will condemn all of us to...
Washington, D.C. -- Consumer Watchdog issued a warning today in a letter to President Obama and Congressional leaders against the health reform fallback proposals of some Congressional moderates, including deregulated national insurance plans and malpractice restrictions, calling them "the wish list of the insurance and medical industries."
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- With a major health overhaul in deep trouble, some lawmakers want a scaled-back approach that targets the indisputably unpopular insurance industry, by enacting such popular ideas as requiring insurers to accept people with medical problems and barring them from canceling policies or charging more for customers with health problems. Jerry Flanagan, the health care policy director of the Consumer Watchdog advocacy group in Los Angeles, never bought the idea of a mandate. "The industry was crying a lot of crocodile tears. The idea that people won't buy coverage unless it's required is largely overblown," he says. A more modest bill that includes new limits on insurers but doesn't force people to buy coverage will prove that "Congress can stand up to the industry."
Washington, D.C. -- Consumer Watchdog urged President Obama to watch Sunday’s Dateline NBC documentary on patients who have insurance but not adequate coverage, then pledge in his State of the Union address tomorrow to deal with the lack of legal accountability for insurers and lack of adequate representation for consumers in the federal government.
Here's the full link to last night's excellent Dateline NBC "Critical Condition," which followed insured patients as they were turned down by their health insurers for critical care.
OLDWICK, N.J. -- In a pre-emptive strike on a legislative mandate, major health insurers in Florida have agreed to pay for what could be costly care for members diagnosed with cancer who participate in clinical trials. Jerry Flanagan, health care policy director for the California-based Consumer Watchdog, with offices in Washington, D.C., said it's likely legislators were threatening a mandate. Cancer patients in Florida are getting a short-term victory but "without a clear law on the books that requires this treatment, the insurance companies are free to back away from their promise in the future."
The Washington Post today has an eye-opening story today on how a family ended up in crushing debt at an "in-network" hospital apparently jammed with out-of-network doctors. Tens of thousands of dollars later, their little boy's rare and deadly heart defect is at least semi-fixed, but the family finances are in ruins. It's a problem that won't be fixed by reforms that rely on the private insurance industry. But it's also a problem that Congress can partly cure, with or without bigger reforms.
