Amazing how the talk about health care insurance from legislators has conveniently transitioned from “Universal” to “Mandatory” and from “Health” insurance to “Medical” insurance.
As well, their rhetoric only focuses on “containing and lowering health care costs”.
But nobody has spoken about containing the escalating costs of medical education. Understand the facts. A good majority exit medical school (doctors & therapists, et.al.) with loans over $100,000 at 7%-10% interest rates. Now “contain and lower” the potential incomes of these professionals by drastically restricted and/or capping what they are paid for their services. Now add in the costs of practice which only increase and the costs of living which only increase, on top of the costs of those student loans. How many people do you think will remain in the medical professions? What do you think is going to happen to the medical care system in this country?
There needs to be greatly increased awareness about and focus on what the real problems are:
1) Skyrocketing health care insurance Premiums, Co-Payments and Deductibles.
2) Continually reduced or eliminated covered health care expenses.
These issues have been conveniently avoided, hidden and ignored, just as the real causes to them have been deliberately hidden and ignored:
1) The obscenely high salaries and bonuses of health care insurance, medical equipment and pharmaceutical company executives.
2) The extremely high commissions and bonuses health care insurance, medical equipment and pharmaceutical company brokers and salespeople get to sell their policies/products, plus their lucrative perks, like all expense-paid trips.
3) The “incentives” these health/medical products corporations “extend” to providers, administrators and mangers of hospitals and clinics, to use their products.
It is obvious that the purely free market, unregulated approach to these issues has been failing dismally for decades now and that failure is worsening by the year.
The current “Mandatory Minimum Health Care Insurance” proposal as put into regulation in Massachusetts and other ideas currently being pushed by health care insurance lobbyists and their allied legislators, is just half of the equation. Implementing only this part is a mere hidden agenda to enrich the health care insurance industry with greater profits at the expense of the consumer.
The other part, in addition to mandating health care insurance, is to mandate a hybrid approach to this “Universal” insurance, which would include actual health care.
If the average working and middle income citizen is going to have the added mandated expense of purchasing health care insurance then health care insurance, medical equipment and pharmaceutical companies, et. al. should be mandated to contribute to the solution, as well. As insurers place “caps” on the amounts they will pay for a particular health care service, “caps” should be mandated on the amounts these insurance and products companies are allowed to charge for insurance premiums and products. And how hard would it be to mandate insurance corporations to form not-for-profit subsidiaries which would offer health care insurance plans at reduced premiums for working and middle income citizens who do not qualify for Medicaid or Medicare plans?
But, obviously, with corporate America virtually running this country when it comes to policy, only the first part of this equation will be mandated until organizations like Health Care For All and other advocacy groups begin to collectively and seriously turn up the heat on our legislators.
In my own profession, most health care insurance companies and their hired intermediaries who control the third-party reimbursement system, are constantly restricting the rights of policy holders to Chiropractic care. To add insult to injury, Chiropractors are seeing continually reduced, delayed or denied payment for Chiropractic Adjustments with constantly increasing demands for re-submitting paperwork, while other providers are receiving prompt and fair compensation for their services. When an average Chiropractic Adjustment charge is submitted as an insurance claim with the co-payment paid, after all associated costs of repeatedly dealing with that claim are deducted, the average dollar value of the Adjustment fee remaining is about 9% of the total fee! From this, it should be obvious that it’s not a case of some Chiropractors who “refuse to accept insurance”, but rather, it is insurance companies who refuse to “accept” (fairly or adequately reimburse for) Chiropractic Adjustments.
A common sense, common good, common contribution approach, with health care insurance and products companies contributing their fair share needs to be applied if all citizens are going to get fair, affordable, complete health care insurance that covers all health care providers’ services in all health care disciplines, equitably.
Dr. David Robinson received his B.S. in biology at Bridgewater State College in Massachusetts and his D.C. from Life University, College of Chiropractic in Marietta GA.
He then returned to the South Coast of Massachusetts to establish private practice. In 1996 he received his fitness certifications as a Personal Trainer, Fitness Counselor and Aerobic Instructor from the Aerobics and Fitness Association of America, Los Angeles CA.
To learn more about and view Dr. Robinson’s full biography, visit: http://www.fat2trim.com
