(no subject)
The health care system is so @#$%ing broken in this country.
My dad's somewhat involved in the running of his company. One issue that's facing them this year is the company's employee health insurance package. Currently, it sucks up $750 a head per month. And next year, it's going up. Not just a little - it's going up 35%. Nothing in this country is even CLOSE to increasing at 35%, except perhaps the width of its inhabitants' enormous arses, but health insurance companies are perfectly happy with a $250 monthly increase thanks very much.
So obviously, my dad's company, not being large enough that the insurance cares at all about keeping their business, must go elsewhere for a cheaper, and therefore presumably inferior, insurance package - higher deductibles, less coverage, a trade has to be made somewhere.
Currently a major concern for him, both as an executive in the company and a cancer patient, is whether the new insurance will even accept anybody in the company who is currently sick, never mind cover their "pre-existing conditions" - it's bad enough when people get laid off, get sick, and then can't get insurance again when they get a new job, but the prospect of losing insurance just because your employer had to go with a different plan? It's disgusting.
And just what was he getting for his $750 a month, anyway? The bandages hadn't even come off when large bills started rolling in for the surgery. Deductibles, stuff the insurance company just doesn't feel like paying for... and he's lucky, in that his company will reimburse him for some of it. I can only imagine at this point how screwed average people on cheaper plans with stingier companies are.
Being socialist eurotrash or whatever the palindrones would term me these days, obviously I believe strongly in some form of universal health system. Whether it's a government-run effort like the UK's, single-payer like Canada/France, or provided by a heavily regulated private industry like Switzerland, or somewhere in between, caring for the health of a society should just be one of those shared burdens, like its defense and its public infrastructure. But while I resignedly accept that America is unlikely to get anything even close to that for a long time, this shit with the insurance companies HAS to be fixed, and fixed NOW.
It's frankly unconscionable that these companies are allowed to rampantly profiteer at the cost of human lives. 35% rate hikes in one year, "pre-existing conditions", enormous deductibles on expensive plans, refusal to pay out on legitimate claims, canceling on a whim because of one illness or accident, it's all bullshit, and no reasonable society should allow it. If nothing else comes of the giant mess they're screwing with in the Senate right now, putting a stop to this crap needs to happen. I wouldn't be nearly so vehemently opposed to this country's approach if it actually worked as advertised instead of just squeezing sick people for every penny it can get out of them.
My dad's somewhat involved in the running of his company. One issue that's facing them this year is the company's employee health insurance package. Currently, it sucks up $750 a head per month. And next year, it's going up. Not just a little - it's going up 35%. Nothing in this country is even CLOSE to increasing at 35%, except perhaps the width of its inhabitants' enormous arses, but health insurance companies are perfectly happy with a $250 monthly increase thanks very much.
So obviously, my dad's company, not being large enough that the insurance cares at all about keeping their business, must go elsewhere for a cheaper, and therefore presumably inferior, insurance package - higher deductibles, less coverage, a trade has to be made somewhere.
Currently a major concern for him, both as an executive in the company and a cancer patient, is whether the new insurance will even accept anybody in the company who is currently sick, never mind cover their "pre-existing conditions" - it's bad enough when people get laid off, get sick, and then can't get insurance again when they get a new job, but the prospect of losing insurance just because your employer had to go with a different plan? It's disgusting.
And just what was he getting for his $750 a month, anyway? The bandages hadn't even come off when large bills started rolling in for the surgery. Deductibles, stuff the insurance company just doesn't feel like paying for... and he's lucky, in that his company will reimburse him for some of it. I can only imagine at this point how screwed average people on cheaper plans with stingier companies are.
Being socialist eurotrash or whatever the palindrones would term me these days, obviously I believe strongly in some form of universal health system. Whether it's a government-run effort like the UK's, single-payer like Canada/France, or provided by a heavily regulated private industry like Switzerland, or somewhere in between, caring for the health of a society should just be one of those shared burdens, like its defense and its public infrastructure. But while I resignedly accept that America is unlikely to get anything even close to that for a long time, this shit with the insurance companies HAS to be fixed, and fixed NOW.
It's frankly unconscionable that these companies are allowed to rampantly profiteer at the cost of human lives. 35% rate hikes in one year, "pre-existing conditions", enormous deductibles on expensive plans, refusal to pay out on legitimate claims, canceling on a whim because of one illness or accident, it's all bullshit, and no reasonable society should allow it. If nothing else comes of the giant mess they're screwing with in the Senate right now, putting a stop to this crap needs to happen. I wouldn't be nearly so vehemently opposed to this country's approach if it actually worked as advertised instead of just squeezing sick people for every penny it can get out of them.