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Chronically Ill Who Forgo Care Highlight Need for Health Care Reform
Reforming the nation’s failing health care system was a key concern of voters on Nov. 4 and will be a major focus of the new Congress and Obama administration. Yesterday, Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) unveiled his blueprint for health care reform, and Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) is expected to offer his plan before Inauguration Day.
Highlighting the desperate need for comprehensive health care reform, a new survey by the Commonwealth Fund finds more than half of U.S. adults with chronic illnesses went without recommended medical care because they were unable to afford the costs.
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney says Baucus
has rightly sounded the urgent plea to get comprehensive reform done early in the next Congress and recognizes that the failure to act has dire and unacceptable consequences for working families, businesses and our national economy.
Sweeney says there are several “laudable” proposals in the Baucus plan, including allowing 55- to 64-year-olds to “buy in” to Medicare, a public plan option, subsidies to make coverage affordable and a requirement that larger businesses offer workers coverage or pay into a fund to cover the uninsured. But he adds:
One area where we have concerns, targeted reform of the tax code for those who have employer-sponsored coverage, is considered with the appropriate caution against undermining the coverage that more than half of all Americans now have. Employer-sponsored coverage is largely preferred by workers not because of this tax treatment, as economists may suggest, but because it is the most stable source of affordable coverage for most Americans and is the best, natural pooling mechanism available in our fractured health care system.
The Commonwealth report, In Chronic Condition: Experiences of Patients with Complex Health Care Needs in Eight Countries, surveyed 7,500 adults in Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Netherlands, New Zealand and the United States. Each of the adults suffered from at least one of seven chronic conditions: high blood pressure, heart disease, lung disease, diabetes, cancer, arthritis or depression.
While 54 percent of U.S. respondents said they went without recommended care, seeing a doctor or filling a prescription because of the cost, only 7 percent of the chronically ill Dutch and 16 percent of British patients reported that costs kept them from care.
The survey also found that U.S. patients had far higher out-of-pocket costs for the health care they did receive. Forty-one percent said they spent more than $1,000 out of pocket for health care in 2007, while just 4 percent of British and 5 percent of French patients spent that much. According to the report:
Lack of affordable access, waits for primary care, and inadequate coordination put chronically ill U.S. patients, especially those with multiple chronic conditions, at high risk for poor health outcomes.
The Commonwealth Fund recently released three other reports on the U.S. health care system. Click here for the August report on working families forgoing health insurance because of the soaring costs. Click here to read about how the U.S. system stacks up against other industrialized nations and here for a look at the growing number of U.S. workers with health insurance who are going without medical care because of inadequate coverage and high costs.
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3 Comments
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Interesting 16% of British patients reported that costs kept them from care, when they have universal health care in Great Britain. Americans pay more out of pocket because the insurance companies decide what services/procedures they are going to pay for.
With single payer, EVERYONE is covered, no matter if you have pre-existing conditions. Everyone gets services, even the patient decides who their doctor is and which hospital they want to go to.
As long as the insurance industry holds on to the reins and continues to profit on the backs of those who are ill, and those trying to stay well, health care crisis will never be resolved.
Mr. Sweeney, it’s time to get on board and endorse single payer. It’s expensive at 1st to get it off the ground, but billions of $ will be saved in the long run. 20,000 deaths a year because people don’t have health care is a crime!
What kind of health care plan do you have?
HR 676 has been endorsed by 473 union organizations in 49 states including
117 Central Labor Councils and Area Labor Federations and 39 state AFL-CIO’s (KY, PA, CT, OH, DE, ND, WA, SC, WY, VT, FL, WI, WV, SD, NC, MO, MN, ME, AR, MD-DC, TX, IA, AZ, TN, OR, GA, OK, KS, CO, IN, AL, CA, AK, MI, MT, NE, NY, NV & MA).
A sick, malnourished and impoverished population is easy to control. Now let’s see who is really on our side, and who is strong enough to enact the necessary changes to assure our nation’s survival and well-being.
Employer-paid coverage is “the best, natural pooling mechanism available in our fractured health care system”? That’s like saying eating grass is the best natural diet for a community of people who are slowly starving to death.
I’m a retired postal employee, and paying for my health coverage is one of the biggest financial burdens the USPS faces right now. The auto companies are in the same boa. Instead of throwing money at the Big 3 with a bailout, to God knows what effect, why not relieve them of the burden of paying for employee health insurance by instituing universal, nationwide, tax-supported health care?
Ultimately, an insurance pool that does not include everybody is going to be undermined by the existence of people outside the pool. That’s why insurance costs are soaring, employers are opting out of the system and the ranks of the uninsured are growing.
The AFL-CIO should be providing leadership on this issue instead of wasting time on half-measures that won’t work. Support HR 676!