Health Care Reform – What I Want
Digg This!Lately, it seems I can’t turn around without another news snippet abut how health care reform is going to happen now. In every snippet one side or the other is discussion whether there is a problem, how to solve it and how the solution will help or harm the American people. My personal favorite is the question, “Will health care reform lead to socialism in America?” I am intrigued by this whole process. But part of me just wishes we could get on with it already.
I’m old enough to remember the “first” go round at health care reform back in 1993. At the time, I believed that everyone had health insurance through work (like my parents) and I couldn’t fathom why the government couldn’t just give health care to the few people who didn’t have it. (As a note to my readers, at the time I applied this same level of understanding to the provision of other basic need items like food, shelter, clothing and the latest Nirvana and Pearl Jam CDs. I was, after all, 11.) This time around, I know that we can’t wait another sixteen years to try again and that we have to figure out more than how to pay for it.
I’ve learned that under our current system, paying for health care doesn’t always mean getting health care and that paying a lot doesn’t guarantee better health care. With deterrents like high deductibles, co-pays, prior-authorization, pre-existing conditions, and excluded services (to name a few), it is easy to understand how that happens. $5000 for a family deductible may seem affordable to a Congressperson making $174,000 in a year, but when I consider that the median income for an American family is $50,233 per year, that deductible seems daunting for starters. Furthermore, plans with deductibles that high almost always have co-pays and other hidden costs that continue to apply after the deductible is paid. I think the first thing we should do to insure American families is guarantee affordability. I define affordable as less than 7% of a family’s income – and that’s total cost, not just out of pocket expenses. This will enable a family to use the insurance they have.
Beyond making health care affordable, reform must provide Americans with the benefits they need. For women, this is particularly critical. Primary and preventive health care access is a given. Beyond that, women need to have access to comprehensive health care. This is particularly true when it comes to reproductive and sexual health. Health care reform plans must include the following provisions for reproductive and sexual health:
- Confidential Care
- Choice of health care provider that is not limited by an HMO or PPO network
- Family planning education and methods
- Preconception Care
- Prenatal Care
- Labor and Delivery Care
- Access to hospital and non-hospital birth settings
- Postpartum care
- Miscarriage management
- Abortion and related after-care
- Prevention and/or testing and/or diagnosis and or/treatment of sexually transmitted infections, HIV/AIDS, sexual and erectile dysfunction, and reproductive cancers.
Now is the time for health care reform. To do my part, I’ve contacted my Representative and Senators to tell them what I think. I hope you’ll do the same. Click here to contact your Representative. Click here to contact your Senators.
