It isn’t just those people who do not have health care who might choose a public option and that makes big insurance companies nervous. That’s about the only reason I can think of for so much money being funneled into trying to block this.
Why would people choose a public option?
More and more ‘big businesses’ are hiring a large percentage of ‘part-time employees. These part-time people are not eligible for benefits such as health care with many of these companies. So, we end up with people having to work 2 or 3 part-time jobs because full-time jobs aren’t available and they can’t afford insurance without working multiple jobs. In many of those part-time positions, a person would be luck to be able to make insurance payments with the payment from one part-time job while the other one or two would provide the income necessary to survive on a daily basis.
People who have health care but can’t afford the co-pays were a substantial percentage of those I transported to the Emergency Room via ambulance when I worked as a paramedic. Why? Simple. The co-pay for doctor’s visits and the problems of having to take time off of work to get into the office when the doctor was there created financial stress. If the person could hold off until it was serious enough to warrant going to the ER, it was likely to be a lower copay (many insurance companies require no co-pay for ‘emergencies’) and the ER is open during hours the doctor’s office isn’t. If you are a working parent and trying to juggle what ‘sick time’ you have between your needs and those of your children, you can quickly get to the point where you are losing income.
Sure, there are walk-in clinics available….in some areas….at some times. If you happen to have transportation to get to one located in other areas and if you happen to be able to get there at the time that the clinic is open, you can go there but, that doesn’t fit for everyone.
What about those people who don’t have any insurance? They don’t go in to the doctor because they can’t afford it. Once they are sick enough they make it to the ER. All of these result in driving ER costs up. Those costs are spread out over all of those people with insurance premiums. If everyone had insurance, there could actually be a reduction in insurance premiums, if CEO’s are willing to let that money go back to consumers, you would see the savings.
There are some additional ‘hidden’ cost to either having insurance that is not affordable to use except in emergencies or not having insurance at all. As a child abuse investigator, I can tell you that over 50% of the cases I worked on involved situation where stress resulted in abuse, or the absence of affordable health care resulted in parents being accused of being abusive or neglectful. Stress is one of the primary contributing factors to abuse of children and adults. it is associated with alcohol and drug abuse. One of the most common sources of stress in our County is due to finances. Medical care/insurance is a primary source of financial stress.
All of the abuse/neglect cases cost taxpayers in employees, services (psychological, social, medical, and judicial). Simply removing or reducing one stressor could make a huge difference.
The Health Care issue is not just about Health Care! There are a lot of other factors that come into play. We desperately need health care reform. I, for one, also think that citizens deserve the right to choose if they wish to participate in a public option. That does not mean that everyone should be forced to join, simply that people should have the right to make that choice for themselves. For politicians to prevent people from making that choice for themselves is not fair. It is not right.
You may or may not agree with me. However you feel about this let your elected officials know. Take the time to make a call or send an email. This should be the people’s choice not the choice of whoever has the most money to spend on advertising. (It is ironic that the very companies you pay When your insurance company pays the bills are the ones paying for those ads?)
You may also want to take a few minutes to look at a website called Opensecrets.org. This site shows you where the political contribution elected officials receive come from. There are some interesting relationships between the positions elected officials are taking on this and where their funding comes from. And, yes…all of that contribution stuff is made available by FOIA.
By the way, all this talk about a ‘rush’? We could wait forever for insurance companies to ‘police themselves’. If they were going to do it, they would have done it by now.
I’ll be interested in hearing what you have to say.
