Post
by Bobbi Snow » 11-21-2013 03:08 AM
I don't think President Obama meant to lie… What he said about people being able to keep their policies was basically true; what he didn't know was just how many health insurance companies were making a financial "killing" (literally) by big name companies who were selling policies which were deficient - in other words, they were selling inferior policies and charging rates which weren't worth the premiums people were duped into paying.
Some friends of mine had Anthem Blue Cross PPOs (private, not HMOs), but there were caps on the amounts these policies would pay out.
EXAMPLE: Some of the cheap policies covered some cancers, but not all cancers, and after $500K, the policies wouldn't pay any more.
Well, if anyone you know had one of these cancers and needed radiation and chemo after surgery, by the time any surgery was completed, there was little left under the cap to cover chemo and/or radiation.
Unless these people actually got cancer, they had no idea there was a $500K cap, so in the middle of whichever post-op treatment came first, they were advised, "You only have $100K or $200K left on your policy; you will have to pay all the rest of whatever treatments you need." And since these people now had a "pre-existing condition" they couldn't get insurance through any other insurance healthcare carrier.
I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis in 1995. I was put on a regimen of treatment to keep my joints in my fingers and toes from twisting, and that treatment was a low dose every week of chemo.
At the time I was diagnosed, my policy cost me $366 every two months. By the time I was eligible for Medicare coverage 6 years later, my monthly rate was $1568 per month, and it took ALL of my retirement savings to pay the co-pays from the tests I had to endure every 3 months that showed how much the chemo was causing my organs (liver, pancreas, kidneys, bladder, esophagus & stomach) to deteriorate.
By the time I was on my last year of coverage before Medicare kicked in, Blue Cross was covering only 40% and I was paying 60% of the co-payments, PLUS the deductible AND the regular premium, and every 6 months more of my covered prescriptions were being eliminated from my insurance plan. Meanwhile, my esophagus became irritated to the point where I was diagnosed with Barrett's Esophagus (pre-cancer) and Blue Cross deleted - wouldn't pay for the anesthesia I needed to be scoped, 4 times a year, to keep track of its progress, nor for the stomach acid prescription to keep the acid reflux from doing further damage. And I was on the PLATINUM Plan! I had gone through ALL of my retirement savings and was depending upon my partner's retirement money to take up the slack.
These are the tricks of the insurance healthcare providers.
The people who had the basic plans were in far worse financial shape that I was… Every year their current policies were being cancelled and replaced by more expensive policies which didn't cover nearly as much, but were costing up to 50% more.
The people who are paying $266/month are in a heap of financial trouble if they come down with a chronic illness as I did. And they don't know it, because most people don't really read what their policies, and the changes being made every 6 months to their coverages, really mean. Plus, they always raise the deductibles.
Before I was diagnosed with R.A. I had a $500 deductible. By the time I went on Medicare, my policy had a $5000 deductible with a $1500 prescription mandatory which had to be paid by ME before any prescription coverage kicked in. And anything else that went wrong with me - if Blue Cross could tie it in to the R.A. and the R.A. medications - the following policy period things such as acid reflux, prescriptions for it, and upper respiratory problems (relating to the chemo drug) carried less and less coverage under their policy.
The upshot of this is that half a million dollars I had in retirement savings was totally exhausted, 6 months before my Medicare kicked in.
President Obama wasn't told about all these providers doing this kind of crap to insureds, and the policies our tax payments provide for the First Family, Congress & the Senate don't have these problems. If I weren't living with someone who loves me and chipped in from his own retirement funds to supplement what Blue Cross was screwing me out of, I'd be in a state-run nursing home, and they would be taking my entire Social Security and Medicare allotments just to house me until I die.
One of my classmates had a healthcare plan through her employer, so when she came down with skin cancer and needed surgery and chemo, none of the doctors and hospitals in her county would accept her insurance. She had to drive 90 miles one-way, three times a week, for her treatments. And when she reached her cap of $750K, her policy no longer paid a red cent. She had to dip into her own retirement savings to cover the rest of her chemo.
This is why the sub-standard policies were outlawed in 2010 by Congress. They were robbing their insureds blind, and when they needed what they thought they'd have covered, they learned lots of the meds and the treatments didn't cover nearly what they needed to fight their problems.
No one can expect the President to know everything about everything… He's got an entire country to try to keep safe, foreign countries to deal with, and a Pentagon that's been out of control, budget-wise, for more than 3 decades.
Just imagine if you were in his shoes and everyone in this country wants to blame you for everything that goes wrong. He is, after all, just a human being like most of the rest of us. No one knows everything all of the time. All any President can do is handle whatever he can to the best of his ability, and take the blame for everything no one in his staff tells him needs to be fixed. If I were in his shoes, my hair would be totally white, I'd look 15 years older, and be trying not to lose my temper from all the stress I'm under.
You should be giving him credit for all the good things he's already done, and all the good things he's been trying to do, while the GOP controlled Congress won't bring any Bills to the floor just to ruin the legacy of the first Black President who is half white.
If you're still breathing, it's not too late!
