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Loading ...Neff: Gays and healthcare reform
We have two health insurance plans in a two-person household, and neither plan is going to win any Consumer Reports awards.
Our cost for health insurance is $400-plus per month, too large a chunk of our income, and the actual healthcare costs pile on top of that.When we are making plans to visit doctors, we can’t go shopping for lesbian-friendly physicians. We count ourselves fortunate just to find physicians who work with our plan within a 40-mile radius.
We can’t complain about lack of domestic-partnership benefits from our employers — they don’t offer benefits to heterosexual employees and their spouses either.
Sound familiar?
Statistics for gay households say that should sound very familiar, should hit close to home.
And logic says we should be in the chorus singing for healthcare reform.
The Obama administration is pushing Congress to deal with the nation’s healthcare crisis with the passage of reform measures by the fall break. I trust the push to move quickly is to address the urgency of the crisis and not to pass weak healthcare legislation while our attention is focused on the broader issue of our tortured economy. “Healthcare reform? We did that already. Not single-payer. Not universal. But, let me say this, we did the best we could. You weren’t paying attention?”
The 2008 presidential election delivered a lot of messages, promises and themes. Healthcare reform was most prominent, and it was a losing issue for Republicans.
So why do I worry that a Democratic administration, House and Senate might squander the best opportunity we have had in years to guarantee healthcare for all?
Why did Max Baucus, D-Mont., so early in the session, say all options for reform were on the table except single-payer?
Why has he — or someone working on the issue — not asked the Congressional Budget Office to study the costs of implementing the single-payer bills already introduced?
Nearly 60 percent of U.S. physicians support a single-payer system.
More than 400 union organizations, 116 central labor councils and federations and 39 state AFL-CIOs support a single-payer system such as the one provided for in HR 676, the Medicare for All bill.
The momentum is on the side of a single-payer system, so why do I worry Democrats will not ride the tide?
Thankfully, a number of our GLBT organizations are rallying for the effort, recognizing that healthcare for all is a GLBT issue — universal healthcare was a demand in the 1993 March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation.
Gay couples are twice as likely as married heterosexual couples to be uninsured. When gay couples do obtain health insurance coverage as a partnership benefit, they face tax burdens not shared by opposite-sex married co-workers. Further, securing more partnership benefits in the workplace will not completely rectify the problem. About 40 percent of U.S. employers offer no health benefits to their workers.
Historically, studies show social stigma and discrimination create barriers to GLBT people seeking affirmative, competent healthcare. Our present system helps maintain those barriers, failing to cover treatment from fertility care to transitioning.
There is no guarantee that the healthcare reform being crafted in Washington won’t end up creating barriers, which is why we must help create a new system — one that will provide better care for people living with HIV before they reach later stages of AIDS; one that will not contain “transgender exclusion” clauses and classify transitioning surgery as akin to a chin lift; one that will support gays and lesbians as they make families and one that will address the concerns of an aging GLBT population.
And we must not delay.
U.S. representatives are at work crafting new legislation and the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions will begin work this week on new legislation.
Time to cure the system.
People not having access to health care is not the reason we should have universal health care.
We should have universal health care because under the Kaldor-Hicks criteria, universal health care is pareto-superior to the current situation. It would increase our GDP and improve the economy.
In short, the societal benefits exceed the societal costs. There should never be any other reason to adopt any other economic policy.
As a child I did not have health insurance until I went to college. After, in my line of work, health insurance is not an option. If it weren’t for my gf’s very liberal leanings, I would not be covered under her insurance.
We can see any doctor any time but we are paying hugely for it.
Having said that, isn’t health care a basic human right? In countries where the doctors are comfortable but not disgusting banker rich, they have better health care and better doctors.
In my city baby business is all they care about w/ insurance. I’ve called countless gynos only to be told I have to wait months because I’m not some knocked up idiot nor am I trying to be.
From kidhood to now, it seems that heterosexual americans are the issue and the greedy disgusting american doctors.
I should have to take a pregnancy test EVERY time i go to a doctor which costs my insurance company upwards of 65 dollars when I can tell you so honestly that I am not knocked up nor would I accidently be knocked up?
Going to the gay health centers are often no better. Either they are so backed up or males get appointments first because most of the providers are male. From NY to Philly to Boston the gay centers are just as backstabby to females.
So maybe in addition to heteros and greedy doctors, the real problem is sexism.
Kari – economic benefit is not specific to monetary benefit. Anyone with an understanding of economics should recognize that there are multiple reasons to adopt an economic policy, since different social benefit perspectives bring about different options.
Several months ago I had see a doctor at a Kaiser Perm facility because of a bladder infection. The waiting room was a joke. I was not sure that I had mistakenly walked into the waiting room of a Fat Ass convention. I just wonder if any of these obese individuals had any idea of the problems they were facing as a result of being so terribly overweight. Of course they were all insured or they wouldn’t be there.
Of the terrible cost of health insurance, what percentage can be attributed to the fact that most people do NOT take care of their physical body. How much sickness would be eliminated if each person learned how to “PUT THE BLOODY FORK DOWN.” Fat = $. What part of that is so difficult to understand?
There is no way Medicare is going to be able to afford all the illnesses that will acompany every fatass as they become eligible for Medicare in the next 5 years.
Jonathan: I never said anything about monetary benefit.
Net societal benefit in economics is a pretty simply defined term in economics… And good public policy requires that the NSB of a law be positive.
Political pressure can result in the creation of laws of a negative NSB, but that is not good policy.
Different perspectives provide different options if and only if you are looking to pander to a particular group. The approach that creates the greatest net societal benefit for the entire population, however, is the only one that can be considered unambiguously positive.
Good economic policy is objective, not subjective.
People not having health care is exactly one of the reasons we should have universal health care. And people under-insured is exactly the reason we should have universal healthcare. This is not an economic policy. This is a healthcare policy.
R&R: Overweight and obese people actually use fewer healthcare resources (less $) than people who are thinner, because they die earlier. It’s counterintuitive.
They may die earlier, but during their short life I would suspect that their “office calls” and need for medication is over the top. When 90% of those in a medical waiting room are lard asses they are not there just to say “hi” to the doctor. Their visit and the results of that visit has a price tag and it is that invoice that is helping drive the cost of medical insurance over the top.
@ R&R I just read your comments, and I can’t get over how rude, and obnoxious you are. Please if you can’t be nice ,don’t say anything at all
Jennifer, if you don’t like what anyone says you are not oblitgated to read the comments. Were the comments too close to home? PUT DOWN THE FORK.
Paul G.: Health care is a section of public policy that is almost universally categorized under the umbrella of economic issues.
Frankly, almost any law the government can enact will have some economic effect (whether it’s blocking stem cell research or banning discrimination in employment). What’s most good for the country is what’s objectively pragmatic and creates the best overall situation, not what any ideologues ‘feel’ is best.
Under the current approach favored by the US government, the poor and many seriously ill people are effectively unable to obtain treatment, or at least unable to obtain treatment at the same level as others.
But if we’re truly interested in helping the society, we’re interested in the greatest quality of life for the entire society, not just a particular segment of it.. If the price to be paid for providing health care to everyone is greater than the benefit that it provides them, then we cannot justify doing so. We cannot justify taking from the rich to give to the poor if the rich lose more than the poor get in the process.
The convenient situation for universal health care, which is the *only* sound reason to argue for it, is that the poor gain more than the taxpayers lose.
With most economic policies, there are winners and losers. People who will receive positive benefit and people who will receive negative benefits. A good policy is any where the winners win more than the losers lose.
You know what RR? You just shown how very conceited and narrow minded you are. And after this response I’m not going to spend any further the time and energy to talk to you. First of all , I don’t have a problem with some one speaking their minds. That’s not the issue. My issue is that you seem to put the nation’s heath care crisis on overweight people. And that’s pretty low. What about those people with serious disease. Or with Diabetes, or Asthma. I can pretty guarantee that just if whole good portions of the United States do as you said as ‘put the fork down’ that Heath Crisis would still be there. And before you mention my own weight. Yeah, I’m overweight. But you know what, I had three children that I have to raise by myself, as the cause. What’s your reason for being such a stupid ignorant ass? And by the way, I fine, and happy with the way I look. And I bet you money that I eat less than your skinny as do. And FYI? I hardly have any real cause to go to the doctor. So Before you judge someone why don’t you spend a little time in another person’s shoes, Moron.
Half of the money spent on US healthcare comes from the taxpayer now. There’s this notion that a single-payer system will “ration” care, or that we’ll all drown in bureaucracy, or that taxes will rocket upwards.
Care is already rationed in the US. Not just because of fiscal constraints on Medicaid and Medicare, but private insurance companies are more concerned about their profit than your mangled leg or bum heart. Many millions of Americans have a lifetime cap of $1 million or less on their health insurance. Two cancer diagnoses, or two rounds of bone-marrow transplant, can wipe that out in well under two years. After that you’re S.O.L. If you die and your illness could’ve been treated, there’s a good chance (based on age) that a single-payer approach would’ve kept you alive to pay more taxes, which would offset cost of care.
(Sidebar: when you hear about Canadians waiting six months for a diagnostic scan, remember that there are administrative rules which may limit machine use, and Canada spends roughly 60% per person what the US spends.)
Drowning in bureaucracy? Ever dealt with an insurer? I have Blue Cross, and I called for a urologist referral. There’s a hospital two blocks from me, two others within three miles, another within 5, and two more within 7. They wanted me to see somebody with an office 15 miles away–and four of the hospitals I mentioned are part of the same preferred network. I’ve dealt with Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security when my girlfriend was still alive, and they were each models of efficiency. Moreover, since I’m not paying for their profit margin, please note that CMS (Medicaid/Medicare) has the lowest administrative costs of any large provider in the US (15% or below). Nobody said that single-payer meant that a government agency would take over all administrative functions, either.
Half of US healthcare is already tax-funded. (Ever notice that Medicare tax on your paycheck stub?) Your property or income taxes probably help pay for a public hospital or health district. Property taxes also help pay for mental health care here. Every day I see people who’ve gone without care. Rotting teeth, for example. Oral bacteria are a direct factor in heart disease–the money spent now for dental care is therefore money which may not be spent on a quintuple bypass. Mental health–I’ve seen people who were hospitalized and whose lives basically fell apart because they couldn’t afford medication. As a taxpayer, I would rather see someone with bipolar disorder have access to Abilify than be hospitalized; a 30-day supply of Abilify costs $650 when paying cash. How many of you have $650 for one prescription, every month? I don’t. And that’s why I’m more than ready to see my insurance change and become more of a public service, like Social Security. Our system could be an international model, at lower cost, if we didn’t have this naive idea that nothing can be done effectively without a fat profit margin (insurance companies and Big Pharma have been doing very well these last few years).
One point I neglected. The US spends roughly 16% of GDP on healthcare, the most of any country. Switzerland is next, and Switzerland is seeing the same problems we are. On average, German manufacturing jobs pay more than US jobs do, and part of that is specifically because healthcare financing is treated as a tax rather than an employee benefit. That’s why small and mid-sized German firms can compete against larger US firms–they’re not weighed down by healthcare costs.
We can do better, and there’s no reason we can’t cover everyone for no more than marginal increase in net cost. Individual cost would drop. Congress has the power to require all providers accepting Medicaid and Medicare to hold a summit and create a uniform standard for paperwork; this would eliminate tens of thousands of claim processing jobs, saving billions of dollars, without changing the status quo one bit. Something to consider.
Just want to share my story:
At the age of 30 I became very very ill. I had no energy and had lost 40 pounds. I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. I was fired from my job because I was too ill to keep pace. Type 1 diabetes is VERY VERY expensive. There is a constant supply of medical equipment to pay for: insulin, syringes, blood glucose test strips…the list goes on. I was sick and fired and had enormous medical bills. I had no idea what I was going to do. Thankfully, the company my partner works for extends health benefits to same sex partners. I feel very lucky. I feel the pain of those gay people who are not so lucky to have a partner who works for such an enlightened company. This is a REAL issue that affect REAL people with VERY REAL problems. (By the way my partner works for Williams Sonoma. That have a beautiful attitude about equality.)