While flipping channels tonight I caught C-Span and the House of Representitives. Rep. Jim Mc Dermott D-Washington St. 7th District(Seattle)was speaking about a man from his state. It mirrored my situation. The man worked and paid taxes for over 35 years. Went into business for himself. He fell into hard times and was on the verge of financial ruin. Then he was diagnoised with lymphoma cancer (no type given, but slow & terminal)He did not have health insurance and could not qualify for State Health Care. He could not get health insurance beacause it was a "pre-existing" condition. Even if he could get it he could not afford it. Rep. Mc Dermott said that since President Bush has been in office health care has risen an astounding 87%!!!??? A friend of this man brought this case to Rep. Mc Dermott.The man was planning to either move to Canada or abroad to a country that had national health care. When I started my business all my children were over 18. Insurance was about $1200.00 a month for my wife and I. I figured a broken bone here and a couple of stitches there. Anything under $14,000.00 a year we would be ahead. I quess nobody plans on the big "C". Rep. Mc Dermott's point was how incredulous that this is a Citizen of the United States of America. The richest and most powerful country in the world! And one of the few industrialized nations without National Health Care...My retired Uncle says that the quality of health care would drop if the USA had it??

Petey,

Ask your uncle why the US is rated 37th in the world for quality of health care, while we are rated first for the amount spent. We are probably on the cutting edge of most treatments for diseases, but only the well insured or rich can afford it. I agree something needs to be done, it can't go on the way it is. My sister who belongs to an HMO has an individual plan too, since her husband is self employed. Once they have spent $3500 a year/ per person, they no longer have to pay copays for her. Since the first of the year, fighting this C, she has finally reached her limit in copays, but has the monthly premium of around $600 for the both of them which does not include prescriptions. Thank goodness she was able to get the insurance, before she became ill, otherwise like you she would be uninsurable under our system of health care. Good luck to you in your fight for both health care and against this awful cancer. You should have been able to apply all your energies to the healing process, I know this process has to be extremely difficult and challenging for you....never give up!
Best to you and your family.

Nancy

It's not quite that simple and there is much more data to be looked at in terms of ranking our health care system. Certainly it has it's problems and the poor bear the brunt of it. I think that most people agree that this is not acceptable for the richest country in the world. That #37 ranking is only one criteria. If you are poor and uninsured in the US you are probably in trouble but this will vary geographically as well. I have a friend, who was uninsured (and with no property) and she went to the county, recieved state of the art care for lung/esophogeal cancer and survived despite a 5%, 5 year survival rate.

IMO every American should have access to preventive medicine and reasonable minimal health care (like Medicare). I not sure that I believe in socialized medicine however for everyone however. Your retired uncle is only partly right. Private health care should (and will) still be available to those who can afford it.

My wife and I are both self employed, I am almost 60 and she is 54. We have our own private group plan and pay about $1400/mo. For this we get $5 doctor visits, prescriptions, PT, and psychological care, $100 for scans and ER visits, $10.00 for lab work and chest xrays, $150 credit for eye care services such as glasses or contacts and 80% dental coverage. We have been very pleased with the quality of care that we get. It is an HMO and we see the same doctors each time. You can choose what doctors you want in the system and if outside specialties are needed they pay 100%. I could get a lower monthly payment by getting a higher deductible like $20 or $30. Being self emplyed it is also tax deductible. Because it was a private group plan, NO medical questions were asked for membership so pre-existing medical condition would not be an issue. An anonymous donor from my church paid for the first 3 months of our insurance.

Check out this report from the University of Maine:

http://dll.umaine.edu/ble/U.S.%20HCweb.pdf

I am going to move this thread to the insurance topic tomorrow.

I realize that this is not a political forum but cannot miss chance to opine that Bush has nothing to do with rising medical care costs. There are many factors at work that cause the continued rising cost not the least of which is the fault of the individual states. A good example is my State of Georgia and this same situation may exist in other states.

Health insurors in GA are not permitted to market custom plans to where the consumer can "pick and choose" coverages they want and pay for same accordingly. Example, why should my wife and I have to pay for a health insurance plan that provides for maternity coverage when we are 60 years old? Why should we have to pay for a plan that provides for alcohol and drug treatment if we don't want it? This could go on and on and I'm sure someone will respond with their own personal reason as to why this should be.

The point is that we should be able to pick and choose those coverages that we, the consumer, should be able to decide is best for our individual case. Such an arrangement is not permitted in GA and I understand it's the same in most other states as well.

Bill D.