Healthy Care

Most (if not all) of you know that we had a scare last week with our baby. For a couple days, we had an increasingly fussy infant on our hands, followed by a very lethargic day of him mostly sleeping. As Saturday afternoon became Saturday evening, his symptoms increased to the point where we realized that he HAD to see a doctor. In the emergency room, the staff appropriately informed us that if he was going to need extended care, he would have to be taken to Las Vegas, as Lake Havasu City does not have the facilities to care for an infant (a different discussion for a different day). Later, they informed us that he would be flying to the child care facility in Vegas, as it required immediate attention.
As with any good mother, my wife's attention was completely on comforting and caring for the little guy. As the father, my mind starts processing through the many other issues we are now facing...
-what to do with the other kids
-did my wife eat dinner?
-how to politely, but firmly, tell the doctor that my baby is not flying to Vegas without his mother
-how to efficiently get myself to Vegas (cause I would be driving) with the things we need for our stay
...and not the least of my concerns...
-how much of this is my insurance going to pay?

In short, at that point (as far as insurance claims go) we were facing:
-the trip to the Havasu ER
-an ambulance ride to the airport in Havasu
-medical flight from Havasu to Vegas
-ambulance from Vegas airport to Sunrise Children's Hospital
-urgent care surgery
-recovery in the hospital.

This all leads me to the topic of this post... health care. First off, let me say that I am categorically against state-run programs. I don't see the logic behind paying more of my money to the government for them to decide how to spend it. I know it sounds great to have "free" health care, but all that really means is that the people who are paying most of the taxes in this country will be paying more, and the pool of individuals who are actually getting truly free health care (already receiving health care through the government and not paying their portion of the bills, i.e. taxes) will just increase in size. Let me also say that I have been on state health care. In fact, my wife and kids are on a modified state care program now (we pay our premium directly to the state). I understand the benefit of welfare medical insurance. This is difficult for me, considering my ideals; while we are not a poor family, we certainly can't afford to pay the $492 a month it would cost to cover my family.

Now on one hand, I can say that my family and I haven't historically required a great deal of medical attention. When you consider the the amount of money being spent each month by myself and my employers towards insurance over the years, I have got to think that the insurance companies are making a killing off of my family. On the other hand, this little trip to the emergency room combined with the air ambulance, etc., surely cost the insurance companies a lot of that money they have made off of me over the years (not sure the cost of all this stuff, but of what I can find, the transportation alone probably cost around $30,000).

So, what is the deal with this? I can't be doling out close to $500 per month on health insurance. Still, the insurance companies need to charge enough to pay our claims. And, yes, it is a business for them, too; they need to make some money off of us. I appreciate that President Obama is trying to reform health insurance, as it clearly needs reforming. I just obviously have concerns over how he plans to reform health care.

The way I see it, one of three things needs to happen:
- Either we need to just accept - as citizens - that it is going to cost A LOT of money to insure ourselves (and I recognize Americans have been doing for some time now), which will (continue to) result in millions of under- and uninsured Americans... which will effectively mean that taxpayers will be picking up the tab anyway as these uninsured can't pay their hospital bills.
- Or government needs to step in and make a pay schedule that will be (what they believe to be) fair to everyone so all can receive "free" health care.
- Or... the cost of health care needs to drop into a range that allows insurance companies to lower their rates, thus making it possible for people to be able to afford health care. This would also mean that insurance companies need to pay the claims as they are billed, so there isn't this circular problem of over-billing to compensate for underpayment, and underpayment to compensate for over-billing.

I recognize that I may be oversimplifying this, but it seems to me that when considering all things, the third option would be best for our country. The hard part is figuring out how to make that happen (maybe someone who reads this will know and leave a comment, cause I certainly don't know). I imagine at the very least it would require people in the medical fields and the insurance companies (and the ambulance-chasing lawyers) to function within a moral and ethical fair zone in regards to money. Again, I just don't know how that is going to be enforced, but I take consolation in the idea that there are representatives for us right now working on this trying to do the right thing and give us strong, positive health care reform... and I hope (I am trying very hard not to being cynical here) they make the right long-term decisions that are best for all Americans.

What I can say is that my little boy is doing better and I appreciate all the love, prayers, and concern over him.