Recent Posts in Protecting Patients:
Blue Cross's taste of what's to come if health reform fails
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...
Dateline NBC on why being insured isn't same as being covered
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.
Reform or no reform, insurers will weasel on "out of network" loopholes
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.
MLK and the Massachusetts Senate Disaster
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said little about health care, though the one fragment that is quoted leaves no doubt about where he stood: “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and the most inhumane.” The quote is hard to confirm, but health care proponents losing ground to a fear campaign need King's power to stoke determination in the service of hope.
Patient protections are California's to lose
California has been a leader in patients rights, largely in response to abuses by HMOs that, for instance, tried to eject new mothers and babies from the hospital a few hours after giving birth, and attempted to require "drive-by mastectomies." The federal health reform bill could weaken or do away with all that, including a right to HIV/AIDS testing. Rep. Jackie Speier of San Mateo is leading a tough fight to preserve such rights, and so is Consumer Watchdog.
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