As I write this in early April (we work on long lead times here), I am hoping that by the time you read this the rhetoric over health care reform will have cooled.
I’m not interested in revisiting the politics. I’ll make no claim to know just how the new law will affect health care in the end. I do suspect that the law will require quite a bit of fine-tuning before we arrive at health care reform that truly serves the country well.
What does interest me is how the health care system – as it exists today – affects readers of this magazine. I welcome you to share your stories of where the system has failed you, or where it has served you well. In that spirit, here is my story.
Survivor son
My wife and I have always had health insurance through an employer. At times that employer has been me. Health care for our family has never been a crushing expense, even when we’ve had to buy insurance on our own.
There were a few glitches, such as when, after my wife left her teaching job, we were turned down for individual coverage because of some pretty minor medical issues, and we had to continue her insurance through the school district under the COBRA law, at a rather lofty price.
The trouble began when the COBRA period expired and we had to buy insurance for ourselves and our 18-year-old son, who is a cancer survivor. I found a company that would overlook the issues my wife and I had, but none that would pick up my son.
Because Wisconsin, where we live, is an enlightened state, we were able to enroll him in a high-risk insurance pool. The coverage was good, but whereas we could have added a young person with no bad health history to our family policy for just a small amount per month, we had to cover our son separately through the pool at a substantial price – one that kept rising rapidly.
Because we had a good income, we could well afford it, but we wondered what would happen to a family in a less fortunate position.
The difference in insurance
And that was where we saw the health care system as having failed. When we buy car insurance, we expect to pay more if we have a bad driving record. That’s our own fault. It’s within our control; we can learn to drive better and in a few years qualify for lower rates.
But where health insurance is concerned, our son did nothing to cause his cancer. At the time we asked the doctor why Todd got sick. He said it basically boiled down to “bad luck.” So under our system, a person who has the “bad luck” to fall seriously ill gets cut off from health insurance – cannot buy it at any price – on the private market. And high-risk pools, possibly such a person’s only recourse, can be very costly. And what if you live in a state with no such program or one that’s severely limited?
A great many people are in the same position as our son. So to me, personally, the most important fix to health care is to enable everyone to have coverage regardless of pre-existing medical conditions. The new law provides for that, although it remains to be seen how well the specifics will work out.
Give and take
So for us, the health care status quo has been both good and bad. What is your experience? Conventional wisdom says that the system is hardest on small business owners and their families. Please share your stories about the successes and shortcomings of the current health care structure from your personal perspective.
I’m not interested in whether Republicans have been “obstructionists” or whether the Democrats have engineered a “government takeover of health care.” I’m interested in how the system affects real live people.
We’ll report your comments in a future edition of Cleaner. Because while a health care reform law has been adopted, no one thinks it’s perfect. The debate is likely to continue for years, and that can be a good thing, especially if the discussion can stay focused on people and not on party preferences.
Send your thoughts to editor@cleaner.com.
