America’s Healthcare Crisis is Getting Worse

[marmar]

from In These Times:



America’s Healthcare Crisis is Getting Worse

Thursday
May 19, 2011
10:10 am

By Roger Bybee

"I don’t think the American people want shared sacrifice. I think that they want shared prosperity." — John Watson of Chevron, testifying this month against a proposed $2 billion cut in oil-companies' annual tax breaks in a year when they are on track to make $100 billion in profits


Gas at $4 per gallon (or higher) has left working families very cautious about using their cars during a time of falling wages, food-price increases and widespread economic insecurity. Similarly, millions of Americans with health insurance are now afraid to actually use their insurance to seek treatment.

The reason: Employers have successfully shifted a huge portion of costs to their workers, so working families face such a daunting barrier of high deductibles and co-pays that they have become reluctant to go to the doctor or the hospital or request a particular course of treatment.

The New York Times’ Reed Abelson concisely captured the cruel reality that working families now confront while insurers rake in record profits and CEOs collect record salaries and bonuses:

The nation’s major health insurers are barreling into a third year of record profits, enriched in recent months by a lingering recessionary mind-set among Americans who are postponing or forgoing medical care.

The plight of typical patients was outlined in a Times interview with a California grocery worker:

For someone like Shannon Hardin of California, whose hours at a grocery store have been erratic, there is simply no spare cash to see the doctor when she isn’t feeling well or to get the $350 dental crowns she has been putting off since last year. Even with insurance, she said, “I can’t afford to use it.”

..............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/7323/americas_healthcare_crisis_is_getting_worse/

[lovuian]

1. I think we have reached the REALITY marker

1 that Insurance greed like a virus eating eats host ...has killed it
Most Americans can not afford it

so they are opting not buying it...not going to the hospital ....not buying drugs

and here is the Reality

Socialized countries will have a better life than Americans


we have entered the title third World country


Soon the military complex will collapse also....Reality check coming

[ErikJ]

2. Get rid of the Health Profiteers

Get rid of the Health Profiteers; the private for-profit health insurance oligopoly,
the AMA which severely limits the number of doctors,
the private for-profit hospitals who charge 5 times the price for everything.

I think we should nationalize health insurance, doctors and hospitals. We have computers now to streamline everything for maximum efficiency. The system we have now and Romney/Obamacare are all hopelessly complex and based on huge profits.
The rest of the world has made it highly illegal to make profit off health care insurance. Profit over people does NOT work.

[drpepper67]

3. I know I'm late to the party

Others have been facing this for a long time.

My health insurance has been getting steadily worse and steadily more expensive every single year.

So much so this year is the first year I've had a high deductible plan.

I know I'm lucky to even have that. But all I can say is it doesn't feel good.

I hope no one gets sick. It shouldn't be this way.

[closeupready]

5. Death by a thousand cuts.

nt

[Cleita]

4. Nothing is going to get better until our medical

care givers and politicians realize that they need to get insurance and big PhRMA out of the business of health care.

[Southerner]

6. The Total Profit of the 11 Most Profitable Health Insurance Companies...

...last year was about $11 billion according to this:

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2010/industries/223/index.html

Google alone made that much profit the same year.

Is this topic a nontopic?

[marmar]

7. "Is this topic a nontopic?"

Are you serious?

[Fumesucker]

8. Welcome to DU..

To the best of my knowledge Google does not make a profit by denying desperately ill people health care.