‘It’s not the children’s’ fault that their parents are poor’

September 26, 2007

The good news is, the House easily passed the expanded the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP) last night, 265 to 159. Whereas five House Republicans supported the original measure in August, 45 GOP lawmakers broke party ranks and voted with the Dems yesterday.

The bad news is, even with the large, bipartisan majority, the House still doesn’t have the two-thirds majority needed to override Bush’s callous and senseless veto, which will probably come Friday.

The next step is applying as much political pressure as possible. Ron Brownstein’s latest piece notes that this shouldn’t even be controversial — the legislation delivers on what Bush says he wants.

Bush says he wants the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, a state-federal partnership up for renewal this year, to more narrowly target the poorest children. He’s threatened to veto the bill Congress is completing because he charges it directs too much aid toward middle-income families and would prompt too many of them to drop private insurance and enroll in SCHIP.

But even conservative Senate Republicans such as Utah’s Orrin Hatch and Iowa’s Charles Grassley have complained that Bush’s concerns are, to put it politely, overstated. The best studies of the legislation show that it predominantly focuses its benefits on struggling working families and targets uninsured kids more efficiently than the alternative Bush has touted.

The bill focuses on the kids who are eligible for public insurance under states’ existing rules but haven’t enrolled. Nearly all those children, studies show, live in families that earn less than twice the poverty level, or about $41,000 for a family of four. The legislation gives states bonuses if they sign up more of those overlooked kids — and also offers more outreach money to help find them. It also, for the first time, reduces federal payments to states for insuring kids in families earning more than triple the poverty level — about $61,000 for a family of four.

As a result, studies show that the bill primarily benefits the lower-income families Bush talks about.

The $83,000 figure the White House is throwing around is a lie, and the Bush gang knows it.

Of course, pressuring the president with facts is rarely a worthwhile endeavor. The real emphasis should be on House Republicans to support the veto override. Michael Froomkin’s representative, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), voted with the GOP minority, prompting him to write a straightforward post:

How sad it is to be represented by a Republican with such a safe seat that she can vote against her community’s interests.

Final Vote Results for Roll Call 906: Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of the 18th District of Florida voted against the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act which would have expanded the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). In other words, she voted against insuring another four million kids who lack health insurance because their parents simply don’t make enough money to pay for it.

Florida has an estimated 658,000 uninsured children. This bill would have provided health insurance for about 240,000 of them (down from the larger number in the original Democratic version of the bill). But even that one-third increase was too much for Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who toed the GOP party line that effective government programs must not be allowed to grow, for fear that people might start to believe that government can actually help them.

What a terrible, terrible vote. It’s not the children’s’ fault that their parents are poor. And the amount of money at stake is remarkably low in the grand scheme of things — compared to tax cuts for the richest Americans for example.

Looks to me like the template for letters to the editor in 159 House districts.

It’s honestly hard to understand how we’re even having this debate at all. We’re talking about helping low-income children get medical care. Bush and 159 House Republicans want to play ideological games? Now?

It’s also not the children’s fault that health insurance is so expensive, either. You don’t have to be “poor” to have a hard time paying the premiums on a health insurance policy.

  • Sheesh, don’t you get it? All these poor children might grow up to be Democrats — so why help them at all?

    Now, if there’s a fund for renovating the polo stalls at a country club, well, *that* is a children’s issue the GOP can get behind.

  • Bush and 159 House Republicans want to play ideological games? Now?

    Anytime, baby, anytime. Over anything, too. No legislation is too big, no legislation is too small. No legislation is too important.

  • The bad news is, even with the large, bipartisan majority, the House still doesn’t have the two-thirds majority needed to override Bush’s callous and senseless veto, which will probably come Friday.

    Why should some poor little kids get that money when someone like Bush can get that money?

  • Steve-

    Did you notice in the roll call that Kucinich, of all people, voted against this bill? Is this out of some principled stand that I don’t know about to not vote in favor of anything but universal health care for everyone?

  • I wrote to my congressman, Greg Walden, who voted against S-CHIP and told him that his vote against the program is the reason why we need universal health care.

  • Hey lyn5! I’m also in Walden’s district and just called his office in DC to express my disgust in his voting against the best interests of his constituents.

    I wonder how much money these 159 get from insurance companies?

  • Holding children hostage to prop up a failed ideological regime? I thought they hung that Saddam critter—and here he is, alive, kicking, and waving around a veto pen on Pennsylvania Avenue.

    And those 159 members of the House? America’s version of “The Republican Guard….”

  • Just to give a third-party view, stepping back from the issue, do we really want health care controlled by the government? Any time you get any government control over a program you will have 30% of that wasted on red-tape processing. Do we really want that? People will need to fill out 5012.105b and then file that with the third floor desk processing center and … you get my point. My guess is that’s why more people aren’t accessing the insurance available now. Simplify the process, take it out of government control, and you will have more people submitting to programs already in place. What needs to happen is the attorneys who are driving up the price of insurance (by frivolous lawsuits) need to have limitations put on there so the doctors don’t pay so much malpractice insurance so they don’t charge more in med expenses so our insurance companies pay less so our insurance premiums (monitored by state insurance commissioners) go down. See the chain there? We want to focus our efforts on solving the healthcare problem, go after the people who are truly responsible for the rise in healthcare costs: The injury attorneys. Put a cap on them, and you will see costs for everyone’s (not just the poorest of the poor) insurance and healthcare go down.

  • Do we really want that? People will need to fill out 5012.105b and then file that with the third floor desk processing center and … you get my point.

    No, I don’t and neither do you. You’re actually describing the process my housemate (who is insured by a private HMO) has to go through to get a doctor’s appointment. Medicare’s system isn’t nearly so complex. Next?

    What needs to happen is the attorneys who are driving up the price of insurance (by frivolous lawsuits) need to have limitations put on there so the doctors don’t pay so much malpractice insurance so they don’t charge more in med expenses so our insurance companies pay less so our insurance premiums (monitored by state insurance commissioners) go down. See the chain there?

    Is there any point in asking you to provide valid information that supports the correlation between a rise in malpractice insurance premiums and a rise in medical malpractice lawsuits/money awarded for these suits? Actually, I can see there isn’t, since you make the assertion that doctors set the amounts they charge for services and the insurance companies have to pay. Here’s how it really works:

    The insurance companies set the prices and the doctors have to put up with what they get.

    I see no chain because there is no chain.

    If people honestly think this is how the US healthcare system works, no wonder they believe all of the crap the Right House keeps spewing.

  • CB writes: “The $83,000 figure the White House is throwing around is a lie, and the Bush gang knows it.” And the sun will come up tomorrow…

    Brad, you’ve sure bought the Rethug healthcare line, all the way to the hook. Don’t you think the redundant back offices of all these private insurance companies add to the costs not to mention the attendant extra paper pushers at every doctor’s office needed to service it? Get a grip on reality that the people making money from private insurance are the Bush constituency. (Oh, and if the non-fundy poor and the middle class die there’s more people left to vote Rethuglican and plunder the country. Just a side benefit, but aint it sweet).

  • To address your first point, if your friend has to do that just to make an appointment, they’re with a bad HMO. My guess is you are exaggerating to make your point. My point was that any time the federal or state governments gets into the mix, costs always go up because of administration and mismanagement of the funds. Government can never do the job as efficiently as private contractors or private companies who are held to stockholders and profitability/competitiveness, because they have no such incentives. All governments (regardless of which side of the aisle you sit on) spend without fear of losing their butts.

    I work in the insurance industry. Pricing is directly based upon the amounts they have to pay out, and is monitored very closely by the state insurance commissioner’s office. Claims ratio, payout ratio, etc. etc. etc… all these things are factors built into an insurance premium.

    Now, if you are taking my “charging more” literally, of course I’m wrong. But what I am referring to is the number of tests they run so they cover their rears so they don’t get sued when a blip comes up. Even when those blips do come up, they still get sued for potentially millions of dollars. If an insurance company (speaking about malpractice insurance costs) knows there is a limit to how much they can lose in any one single loss, they can build their premium structure around that potential loss. This will lower the rates they charge doctors. Do you know that 30% or more of a doctor’s bill goes straight to malpractice insurance? 50% for OB’s. If doctors are less worried about getting their pants sued off, they are less likely to run needless tests. Ever get an Explanation of Benefits? Some of those things that are denied by your insurance company because they deem them unnecessary or not valid? That’s precisely what I’m getting at.

    This is the chain I’m referring to:
    1) You reduce the number of malpractice suits, or put a cap on the malpractice payouts for pain and suffering and puntative damages, you will see the malpractice insurance premiums go down.
    2) That percentage of the cost of performing healthcare will go down as the doctors will have a smaller portion to pay out. Even if this portion is paid directly by the hospital or group medical system (like Aurora, Bellin, etc.), that’s still money that is paid for that insurance and it’s built into their charges, charges that will drop because of a lower output.
    3) If those prices go down, and the number of tests go down, our HMO, PPO, EPO, etc will need to pay less in med claims. If their claim frequency and payout goes down, they will be required to drop their rates (again, the insurance commissioner will review their books and say they need to, or at the very least, the insurance companies to maintain competitive will drop their rates) and we as the private citizen will pay less for insurance. If we aren’t paying for all of it, our employers will pay less, and our out-of-pocket portion will drop correspondingly. There are also catastrophic insurance plans (best used when combined with HSA’s that earn interest) out there that their premiums will drop because of the above reasons.

    See, it’s all based on the root of the issue: Malpractice suits without limits is harming our entire medical system. Remove that problem, and the house of cards will fall.

  • Brad, you’ve certainly dined on your employer’s kool-aid. There have been numerous studies that have shown no link between malpractice suits and health care costs. For the insurance lobby, that is a handy scapegoat, a shiny bauble to distract from the fact that even as health care costs and the number of uninsured has skyrocketed, insurers and Big Pharma companies have turned some of their biggest profit years in history. I know in my hometown the doctors and the insurance executives are making more money than the lawyers.

    It is not some law of nature that government=bad or inefficient, and even less true that private sector=good or efficient. Medicare, Medicaid and SCHIP have long been very successful. I doubt their overhead is any worse than most employer-subsidized insurance-covered health care (and I doubt the latter are any less complicated for the user – I know I have a ton of paperwork, and when I changed jobs it was even worse).

    Even if the “private is better than goverment because of market-driven efficiencies” were always true in a perfect market, health care is awash in classic market failures. Elasticity goes entirely out the window in the case of catastrophic care; information is far from perfect – consumers often have no way to even understand their medical care; externalities abount (unlike the usual case, these are positive externatlities – society as a whole would benefit from more preventive care, but because those broader costs are not reflected as discounts to individuals seeking prevention, prevention is underpurchased), etc. etc. etc.

    Most malpractice suits result in no award. Most awards are small. It is the truly exceptional suit we hear about – and maybe, just maybe, those suits are legitimate. The Right puts words like “frivolous” and “lawsuit” together like they are a single word. Sometimes, the medical system makes horrendous and avoidable mistakes. Those suits are not frivolous, even if they do cost money.

    I could go on and on. . .

  • Um, Brad – you might want to look into the administrative costs of Medicare – I believe it is something like 2% – yes, two percent.

    Here’s some info that might prove helpful: http://www.cms.hhs.gov/LowCostHealthInsFamChild/

    This is Title XXI of the Social Security Act and is jointly financed by the Federal and State governments and administered by the States. Within broad Federal guidelines, each State determines the design of its program, eligibility groups, benefit packages, payment levels for coverage, and administrative and operating procedures. SCHIP provides a capped amount of funds to States on a matching basis for Federal fiscal years (FY) 1998 through 2007. Federal payments under title XXI to States are based on State expenditures under approved plans effective on or after October 1, 1997.

    Sadly, I see that you have also bought into the – erroneous – talking point that, but for those evil attorneys driving up the cost of malpractice insurance, doctors wouldn’t have to charge so much and health care would be affordable. Numerous studies have debunked that theory, Brad. There are even studies that show that in states where recovery amounts are capped, malpractice insurance rates have not been affected much.

    A couple of years ago, we had a malpractice insurance “crisis” here in MD – one that got the legislature all tied up in knots and dragged up all of your favorite talking points. The end result was the state stepping in to subsidize the malpractice insurer which was threatening to leave the state and have doctors scrambling for coverage. Surprisingly, wouldn’t you know, it had profits – profits – that this year had it proposing to pay out a dividend of over 68 million dollars. Why did it have such huge profits? Because claims declined – and there was no corresponding tort reform that made that happen. It would seem, then, that the insurer was happy to charge doctors outrageous premiums, reap huge profits and pay them out to stockholders, leaving both the doctors and the public holding the bag. The insurer is going to have to pay the state back some 32 million of the 72 million in subsidies it received – and it is withdrawing from the subsidy program..

    The object of your scrutiny ought to be the insurance and drug companies themselves, which are not barely scraping by, but raking in the dough. “Tort reform” is code for “you’re interfering with our right to make huge profits at your expense.”

    If a doctor caused actual, serious harm to you or someone you love, I think you might be hard-pressed to understand why whatever loss you suffered had to be quantified according to some government cap – don’t you?

    I know I am wasting my time trying to explain this to you – just be careful what you wish for…

  • Zeitgeist, just out of curiosity, what percent of the population do you believe to be uninsured because they are unable to get insurance, not because they don’t elect it? (just responding to your comment about skyrocketing uninsured status. I’m not going to go back and forth with the premium charges, governmental administration, etc. etc. etc. That just starts a flame war neither of us needs.)

  • Following up on what Fargus and KMB wrote, 151 Republicans–out of 158 nays–voted against the S-CHIP bill. Kucinich obviously wanted more funding. As for the seven others dwarfs Democrats, Boren is from the crimson-red state of Oklahoma and Baron Hill is from the furthest-north southern state of Indiana.

    Kucinich will surely support the override motion.

  • Anne, just a head’s up. If the company is drawing that much of a surplus from its premiums and lack of payout, and the doctors are doing nothing to lower, I would advise contacting your insurance commissioner. There’s nothing wrong with a company making profit; that’s what they’re in business for. But if it’s a result from bad faith claim practices or overcharging premiums for the amount of payout they make, that is unsatisfactory and should be brought to light.

  • The question that Brad doesn’t address is, does what he suggests as the solution increase the quality of the health care people get?

    My husband saw his doctor recently for constant pain he was having that radiated from his neck all the way down his arm. Some years ago, he had a similar problem on the other side that turned out to be bone spurs pressing on the nerves.

    His doctor ordered an MRI. The insurance company denied it. They wanted to know what other “treatments” had been tried. His doctor had to explain to the twit on the other end of the phone that it is not always prudent to treat without knowing the diagnosis, and in my husband’s case, she thought it important to know if there was something happening that, if not identified, might result in him losing the use of his arm, or worse, if it might be a symptom of something progressive. They approved the MRI. Duh.

    The people manning the barricades at insurance companies are counting on people just giving up and going away and not forcing them to cover reasonable and necessary tests, procedures and treatments because it’s more money for them.

  • But what I am referring to is the number of tests they run so they cover their rears so they don’t get sued when a blip comes up.

    I hereby and officially call Bullshit. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume work auto insurance but the charge of Bullshit stands. In the Health Insurance Industry the doctor must provide a reason for each test. “Afraid of getting sued,” is not a valid reason and the payer will deny payment for those tests. Hell, they deny payment when there is supporting documentation.

    Even when those blips do come up, they still get sued for potentially millions of dollars. If an insurance company (speaking about malpractice insurance costs) knows there is a limit to how much they can lose in any one single loss, they can build their premium structure around that potential loss.

    You do realize this is like trying to say a person’s health care payments are affected by his doctor’s home-owners insurance, don’t you?

    See, it’s all based on the root of the issue: Malpractice suits without limits is harming our entire medical system. Remove that problem, and the house of cards will fall.

    Since you insist: Please provide valid stats (not from a blog) that support the increase in malpractice suits/increase in malpractice insurance correllation. Take your time, we’ll wait.

  • Folk – Don’t bother Brad with facts, his belief system is set. Brad is a religious fanatic that worship at the Alter of the Free Market.
    Please note his absolutes:
    “any time the federal or state governments gets into the mix, costs always go up because of administration and mismanagement.”
    “Government can never do the job as efficiently as private contractors or private companies.”

    And his admittance that he work in the insurance industry places him in the camp where he (his company) loses if the government steps in. I used to work in for health care provider, and over half of our office staff was devoted to playing the “who will pay this bill” game.

    Brad, if you have an open mind, take the electric deregulation situation as the prime example of private markets screwing the consumer compared to government oversight.

  • Couldn’t resist:

    To address your first point, if your friend has to do that just to make an appointment, they’re with a bad HMO. My guess is you are exaggerating to make your point.

    No and it is through a top insurer in a state where the IC rules with an iron fist. I’ve heard stories from people in the mid-west that make that seem like fun n’ games.

    My point was that any time the federal or state governments gets into the mix, costs always go up because of administration and mismanagement of the funds. Government can never do the job as efficiently as private contractors or private companies who are held to stockholders and profitability/competitiveness, because they have no such incentives.

    Just a word of advice, try not to contradict yourself in the same paragraph. Under your model of The Private Sector Makes it All Better, the “Bad” HMO should not exist. The stockholders/the market should have forced it to become a “Good” HMO or driven it to extinction. So either these forces are either slow as hell or someone is lying like a bastard because the “bad” insurers still exist. Yet when someone floats the idea of a different model, people say that it isn’t necessary because the private sector will take care of any problems.

    Success is just around the corner, eh?

  • I actually do work in auto insurance. Buzz, there is a big difference between insurance and electricity, particularly in the fact that there is already a government body in place (the commissioner’s office) who regulate the insurance industry. The problem is consumers don’t raise enough stink to the commissioners when they believe foul play is afoot (denying righteous claims). With the electric company, there was no such watchdog group.

    Anyway, my point of this whole posting is not to prove one way or the other; a devil’s advocate if you will. My point is that I want people to avoid saying “so and so is evil, attacking the x people, and they are doing such a poor job.” I don’t care if it’s Bush or Clinton, just make sure you evaluate all options and arguments before you make your decision. Too many people let the media and the politicians make their opinion for them. While I do believe lawyers bear a lion’s share of responsibility for a lot of things wrong in this country (costs of health care, costs of insurance, being rewarded for being a retard — see the McDonald’s lawsuit and the clearly-labeled hot coffee cup held in between your legs when you drive. Duh.), I don’t believe they are entirely responsible. The general public is responsible as well for letting things get to the way they are. People no longer take the time to critically evaluate things because they either believe the hype machines (on both sides) or they just don’t care any more, assuming they don’t make a difference.

    Example: Why is it that we allow congressmen (and women) to continue drawing pay when they are absent from a massive chunk of votes? I know if I missed 1/3 of my work schedule, I’d get fired. They know they’ve got it good, and they don’t have to work for it once they’ve got it because they’re guaranteed employment for 4 years.

    *shrug* Just food for thought.

  • “… being rewarded for being a retard — see the McDonald’s lawsuit and the clearly-labeled hot coffee cup held in between your legs when you drive. Duh.)”

    Brad has officially pissed me off. The sancrosanct McDonald’s lawsuit gets held up as prime example of over the top craziness and why we need tort reform. Have you ever looked at the case, Brad? The woman in question was 81 years old and was severely burned.
    http://lawandhelp.com/q298-2.htm
    Just type “hot coffee lawsuit” and look at all the hits. And Brad, the auto insurance business is NOT what we’re talking about here. I’m sure it has its similarities, but not to the extent of control they exercise over people’s lives.

  • the bigger issue with the Hot Coffee Lawsuit is that (a) it was newsworthy because it was unsual – the Right may want everyone to believe that every single tort claim filed is a “hot coffee lawsuit,” but that simply isn’t true; and (b) what gets lost is that the system worked. That large verdict was reduced on appeal to about 10% of the jury award.

    Brad, I do not have a statistic handy about the percentage who are uninsured who do not elect such a status. Because the system is largely employment-based (in my view one of its main faults), I suspect most of the unemployed would fall in that category.

  • Not only will the veto be sustained, but the override vote will give these 45 Republican weasels another opportunity to demonstrate their supposed independence from Bush without having any effect whatsoever on policy.

  • crk: I’m not questioning she was severely burnt. And I’m not questioning the coffee was hot. What I am questioning is why she put it between her legs in the first place. The common person doesn’t put something that says “caution: hot coffee” between their legs when they’re driving. It’s common sense. It’s what cup holders were invented for. Age is irrelevant. You need to use your brains when doing things. The fact that initial award was for so much that it needed an appeal in the first place is my problem. And the bigger problem is that the attorney got probably 50% of whatever she won, which I have a beef with.

    Zeitgeist: Ok, unemployed. That’s fair. Our last statistic is that it’s hovering somewhere around 5% (March was 4.7%). While that may be numerically a lot of people, as a population base it is not a lot. Of 301 million people in the entire US, not all of them are of working age (many fall below 16 years old, and many above retirement age, especially with the baby boomers). So I’ll say 50% are employable. Down to 150 million. Now 5% of that is 7.5 million people, nationwide. This does bring into account that these people are not continuously unemployed. Many of the jobless claims are figured around an extended period of time (I forget the specifics, but it’s more than a couple weeks, to thin out those who are just between jobs for a week or three). So let’s just make it 5 million.

    Now you may say “But there are those who have jobs that can’t get insurance.” That’s true. But McDonalds offers health insurance, and I know they’re always hiring. It may suck, but it’s health insurance. It’s available. It’s a choice to not utilize it. So let’s make it an even 8 million to account for those in the work force that are either truly extended unemployed or truly have jobs that don’t offer insurance.

    So, we want to create a program that is going to require more money from everyone (that means we all pay more taxes for this) — 150 or more million — to pay for 8 million to have so-so health care. And by so-so, I’m comparing this to Canada’s government-run health care program. I’ve talked to people who live there. They hate it up there. You have to plan a month in advance to have a heart attack.

    So we’re looking to become a socialistic system? The many must be sacrificed to pay for the few? Because that’s precisely what you’re asking for when you’re demanding a public healthcare system to be put into place. I’ve gone to countries that have public healthcare, free ed, etc. All these great socialistic programs. And their tax rate is about 40%. And those who like the drink: try closer to 100% taxation. Mm mm good. Do we really want to pay that much money to our government? I know I sure as heck don’t.

  • And here’s your RDA of Irony folks:

    People no longer take the time to critically evaluate things because they either believe the hype machines (on both sides) or they just don’t care any more, assuming they don’t make a difference.

  • Pingback: Holy Buck, Fatman! | Bush To Poor Kids: Get A Job, Ya Deadbeats!

  • There’s a difference between “national health care” and a single-payer system. Medicare would be the omodel of a single-payer system – and I don’t hear too many people complaining about Medicare – other than the doctors, who think the reimbursement rates are too low. The government doesn’t tell you who to see or when – you are no different, really, from someone who has “private” insurance.

    A program run like Medicare is not like the National Health Service, where you see a government-employed doctor.

    Finally, it would be to our economic benefit to have more people receiving basic health care. It costs all of us in the long run – and the short – when people get sick, when manageable conditions go from being chronic and treatable to acute and life-threatening. It is less expensive to make sure people get mammograms and colonoscopies than it is to absorb the cost of treating a cancer that could have been prevented, or caught early.

    “Sink or swim” is one way to deal with the problem of health care, and easy enough to believe as long as you have insurance or can otherwise afford the cost of health care. The problem with it, though, is that all of those who are sinking are grabbing onto our ankles, weighing us down in the long run, making it harder and harder for the swimmers to stay afloat.

  • Yes Brad, there is such a ground swell against single payer healthcare in Canada. It’s as popular as eating kittens.

    People do complain, but it’s about reducing wait times not abolishing it.

    Perhaps you might be better off not talking to Frazier Institute and CD Howe types who want short term tax cuts over long term benefits to society.

  • Brad # 11,
    Are you dishonest, ignorant or just running off at the mouth. I will not try to refute most of your “facts” but there is one where you have no idea what you are talking about. Social security is and has been administered for less than 5% “red tape” cost. That fact alone throws into doubt the remainder of your posts and opinions. Look it up yourself, I am not willing to expend the time and energy to refute the rest of your dubious facts. Read “Authoritarians” then get back to us. Then we’ll talk!
    DC

  • Anne mentioned that her insurance initially denied a doctor’s request for an MRI in regards to the radiating pain her husband presented with.

    My question? In any of you found yourself in the same situation; would you have agreed to pay for the MRI out of your own pocket if the insurance company refused to pay for it?

    Don’t get me wrong, I do not like the way insurance companies treat health care providers, but there are certain doctors who tend to order specific tests without first trying less expensive options. In the case of Anne’s husband, a Chiropractic Doctor would have ordered some X-rays and the bone spurs would have shown up as well. The difference is that X-Rays are about 30% of the cost of an MRI.

    I feel for what Anne’s husband goes through as I treat clients with his condition on a regular basis.

    In my practice it is not unusual to hear from people that once they hear from their health insurance that my services are not covered under their policy, they decide they do not need my services. Which makes me ponder the following questions:

    How many people in America expect the best medical care but are unwilling to pay for it out of their own pocket? They’ll see a health care provider (Chiropractor, Acupuncturist, Physical Therapist, Massage Therapist, etc) IF their insurance covers it or the co-pay is low, but won’t pay for the reasonable low prices those providers charge themselves. Those type of practitioners are very good at offering affordable preventive health care. The traditional medical model of seeing your medical doctor for everything including a hangnail is not effective and raises the cost for everybody. Unfortunately most people tend to go see their doctor because their insurance will pay for it. As far as the so called uninsured people out their: some of them don’t want to pay for insurance and find themselves in trouble when they need one for a true emergency. Some of them truly can’t afford it but they end up receiving treatment free of charge.

    It’s the entire system that is screwed up, not just the ambulance chasing attorneys, high priced doctors, insanely high insurance premiums, and exorbitantly priced medications, but also the palatial offices and hospitals; the excessive compensation for CEO’s running the big pharma, insurance companies, and hospitals, as well as the fact that not everybody chooses to purchase insurance regardless of whether they can afford it or not, and the unwillingness of another segment of the population who think they should not have to pay anything related to health care because they think it’s an entitlement.

    Once America, as a country, has a plurality of people who are willing to spend the equivalent of a proverbial ‘night out on the town’ on preventive care for their own body with their own money – not insurance covered – we will see a lowering of the total cost of health care. When people have to pay for services themselves, something interesting happens: they become more informed about what their needs are, the start really caring about ‘who’ they see. Most people covered by insurance usually end up going to an ‘approved provider’ not necessarily their first choice. Ordinarily that isn’t a bad thing, but since doctors have somewhat regulated pricing, their isn’t an incentive to go the extra step when offering their services – they get paid the same thing regardless. Hence some of the complaints about mediocre service and malcontent about the medical profession in general.

    Here’s a question: If you had to pay out of your own pocket, would you put up with having to wait for 45 minutes in a generic doctor’s office? Or would you take your business to a doctor who cares about your time as much as he does his own time, and will actually cater to what your personal needs are?

    As you could have guessed, I’m one of those health care providers who caters to his clients’ personal needs, and the appointment are on time, and the cost of my services cost less than a ‘dinner for 2’

    Oh I forgot to mention that I do support the SCHIP, and I support common sense universal health care where each individual has to at least pay a portion of their care as well. Nothing like taking responsibility for your own health care.

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