An e-mail currently making the rounds
turns out to be true (Truth
of Fiction)
San Jose Mercury News – 'Sicko'
Ignores What is Good
June 11: Michael Moore was in Sacramento
on Tuesday to testify before a state Senate committee, lead a rally for
universal health care with the California Nurses Association, and, of
course, promote his new movie "Sicko," which opens Health Net June 29.
No one would deny that there are serious
problems with the American health care system, and Moore's new film
eloquently dramatizes the suffering of people caught up in it. There is
no doubt that it will jump start the debate over health care reform in
America.
Yet it is
curiously incomplete.
Moore ignores the positive side of
American health care. For all its problems, the United States still
provides the highest quality health care in the world. Eighteen of the
last 25 winners of the Nobel Prize in medicine are either U.S. citizens
or work here. With no price controls, free-market U.S. medicine provides
the incentives that lead to innovation breakthroughs in new drugs and
other medical technologies.
U.S. companies have developed half of all
the major new medicines introduced worldwide over the past 20 years. In
fact, Americans have played a key role in 80 percent of the most
important medical advances of the past 30 years.
Instead, Moore focuses on life
expectancy, suggesting that people in Canada, Britain, France and even
Cuba live longer than Americans because of their health care systems.
But most experts agree that life expectancies are a poor measure of
health care, because they are affected by too many exogenous factors
like violent crime, poverty, obesity, tobacco and drug use, and other
issues unrelated to a country's health system.
When you compare the outcome for specific
diseases like cancer or heart disease, the United States clearly
outperforms the rest of the world.
Take prostate cancer, for example. Even
though American men are more likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer
than their counterparts in other countries, we are less likely to die of
it. Fewer than one out of five American men with prostate cancer will
die from it, but a quarter of Canadian men will, and even more
ominously, 57 percent of British men and nearly half of French and
German men will.
Similar results can be found for other
forms of cancer, AIDS and heart disease. When former Italian Prime
Minister Silvio Berlusconi needed heart surgery last year, he didn't go
to France, Canada, Cuba or even an Italian hospital - he went to the
Cleveland Clinic.
As one would expect, Moore frequently
refers to the 47 million Americans without health insurance, but fails
to point out that most of those are uninsured for only brief periods, or
that millions are already eligible for government medical programs but
fail to apply.
Moreover, Moore implies that people
without health insurance don't receive health care. In reality, most do.
Hospitals are legally obligated to provide care regardless of ability to
pay, and while physicians do not face the same legal requirements, few
are willing to deny treatment because a patient lacks insurance.
Treatment for the uninsured may well mean financial hardship, but by and
large they do receive care.
On the other hand, Moore overlooks the
flaws of national health care systems. He downplays waiting lists in
Canada, suggesting they are no more than inconveniences. He interviews
apparently healthy Canadians who claim they have no problem getting
care.
Somehow, Moore failed to find any of the
nearly 800,000 Canadians who are not so lucky. Nor apparently did he
have time to interview Canadian Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverly
McLachlin, who wrote in a 2005 decision striking down part of Canada's
universal care law that many Canadians waiting for treatment suffer
chronic pain and that "patients die while on the waiting list."
Similarly, Moore presents a truly funny
sequence in which he struggles to find the payment window at a British
hospital. But it might not have been so funny if he talked to any of the
850,000 Britons waiting for admission to those hospitals.
Every year, shortages force the British
National Health Service to cancel as many as 50,000 operations. Roughly
40 percent of cancer patients never get to see an oncology specialist.
Delays in receiving treatment are often so long that nearly 20 percent
of colon cancer cases considered treatable when first diagnosed are
incurable by the time treatment is finally offered.
The American health care system clearly
needs reform. But it would be a shame if Moore's latest piece of
propaganda stampedes Americans into sacrificing the quality, choice and
freedom that our health care system provides today.
Lumenos Consumer
Directed Health Plans
Blue
Cross of California has taken an impressive step in product development
with the introduction of their individual and Small Group Lumenos
plans.
The
Lumenos products encompass integrated consumer-driven health care,
utilizing Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) and Health Incentive Account (HIA)
plans. Distinguishing characteristics of these plans include:
Enhanced preventive care benefits
An award-winning online health
site with the industry's most robust collection of health tools
available through a single, secure long-in
A single Customer Service
organization for both the health insurance and health account
components of the Lumenos plans
HSA Plans
Lumenos Health
Savings Account (HSA) plans include 100% coverage, with no deductible,
for preventive care benefits delivered by network providers, no Rx
formulary, plus full maternity benefits. Blue Cross of California has
partnered with Mellon
Trust to simplify the process of establishing and managing your
Health Savings Account. Blue Cross will even set up your account once
you're approved for coverage.
If you'd rather use another financial institution,
that's okay, as Blue Cross doesn't require you to use Mellon Trust for your HSA.
However, there are distinct advantages to combining the Blue Cross Lumenos health plan with a Mellon Trust account.
Health
Incentive Account Plans (HIA and HIA Plus)
The Blue Cross Lumenos Health Incentive
Account (HIA) plans are primarily designed for people who like the idea
of a low-cost consumer-driven health plan, but are unable to fund a
Health Savings Account.
Lumenos HIA insurance benefits look
a lot like those of the Lumenos HSA plans, but there's an extra
benefit. Blue Cross will provide incentive account allocations when covered
persons engage in certain healthy activities:
Completing an Online Health
Assessment
Participating in
a Personal Health Coach Program
Completing a
Smoking Cessation Program
Completing a
Weight Management Program
Health Incentive Account funds are used to pay your
covered expenses and are also charged against your deductible. In other
words, healthy activities are rewarded with an offset to your deductible
expense.
With a Health Incentive Account Plus (HIA Plus)
plan, you get the same healthy activity allocations you get with the
regular HIA plan plus Blue Cross makes an annual incentive account
allocation of $500 per individual policy or $1000 per family policy.
This creates additional offsets to your deductible expense, and unused
incentive account funds rollover into the next calendar year.
In theory, the financial rewards help lead to a
healthier lifestyle, which leads to less medical expense. Unused Health
Incentive Account (HIA) funds rollover into the next calendar year.
Rand Study of Consumer-Directed Health Plans
Health care premiums comprise a
growing percentage of corporate spending, leading employers—large and
small—to search for new ways to contain costs.
Under the rubric of
"consumer-directed" health care, employers are adding high-deductible
health plans, personal health care spending accounts, such as Health
Savings Accounts (HSAs), and tiered benefit designs to their plan
offerings. They are also providing tools to help employees make more
informed decisions.
Proponents of high-deductible plans
believe that financial incentives, coupled with decision-making tools,
will encourage consumers to eliminate unnecessary care and seek
lower-cost, higher-quality providers. Critics wonder if such incentives
(or disincentives) may lead patients to skimp on care that could drive
up costs in the long run.
Consumer-Directed Health Plans: Executive Summary (40K)
What is a
Consumer-Directed Health Plan?
Core concept is to
increase consumer awareness about health care costs and provide
incentives for consumers to consider costs when making health care
decisions.
Gary Claxton, Vice President and Director, Health Care
Marketplace on CDHP.
View Tutorial
The High Cost of
Prescription Drugs - Both Brand and Generic
Did you ever wonder how much it costs a drug company
for the active ingredient in prescription medications? Some people think
it must cost a lot, since many drugs sell for more than $2.00 per
tablet. We did a search of offshore chemical synthesizers that supply
the active ingredients found in drugs approved by the FDA.
As we have revealed in past issues of Life Extension,
a significant percentage of drugs sold in the United States contain
active ingredients made in other countries. In our independent
investigation of how much profit drug companies really make, we obtained
the actual price of active ingredients used in some of the most popular
drugs sold in America.
- Cost of general active ingredients: $8.63 -
Percent markup: 4,059%
Zoloft: 50 mg - Consumer price: $206.87
- Cost of general active ingredients: $1.75
-Percent markup: 11,821%
Since the cost of prescription drugs is so outrageous,
I thought everyone should know about this. Please read the following and
pass it on.
It pays to shop around. This helps to solve the
mystery as to why they can afford to put a Walgreen's on every corner.
On Monday night, Steve Wilson, an investigative reporter for Channel 7
News in Detroit, did a story on generic drug price gouging by
pharmacies. He found in his investigation, that some of these generic
drugs were marked up as much as 3,000% or more. Yes, that's not a
typo.....three thousand percent! So often, we blame the drug companies
for the high cost of drugs, and usually rightfully so. But in this case,
the fault clearly lies with the pharmacies themselves. For example, if
you had to buy a prescription drug, and bought the name brand, you might
pay $100 for 100 pills.
The pharmacist might tell you that if you get the
generic equivalent, they would only cost $80, making you think you are
"saving" $20. What the pharmacist is not telling you is that those 100
generic pills may have only cost him $10!
At the end of the report, one of the anchors asked Mr.
Wilson whether or not there were any pharmacies that did not adhere to
this practice, and he said that Costco consistently charged little over
their cost for the generic drugs.
I went to the Costco site, where you can look up any
drug, and get its online price. It says that the in-store prices are
consistent with the online prices. I was appalled. Just to give you one
example from my own experience, I had to use the drug, Compazine, which
helps prevent nausea in chemo patients. I used the generic equivalent,
which cost $54.99 for 60 pills at CVS. I checked the price at Costco,
and I could have bought 100 pills for $19.89. For 145 of my pain pills,
I paid $72.57. I could have got 150 at Costco for $28.08.
I would like to mention, that although Costco is a
"membership" type store, you do NOT have to be a member to buy
prescriptions there, as it is a federally regulated substance. You just
tell them at the door that you wish to use the pharmacy, and they will
let you in. (this is true) I went there this past Thursday and asked
them. I am asking each of you to please help me by copying this letter,
and passing it into your own e-mail, and send it to everyone you know
with an e-mail address.
Sharon L. Davis - Budget Analyst
U.S . Department of Commerce
Room 6839 Office Ph: 202-482-4458
Office Fax: 202-482-5480
E-mail Address:
sdavis@doc.gov
Cheap Insurance Can Cost Everything
San Jose Mercury News –
Aug. 1: Doug Christensen
owned a welding and fabrication company, but he didn't have health insurance. So
the Southern California man was intrigued when he was offered a plan promoted by
a sales agent for the National Association for the Self-Employed, a non-profit
with 200,000 members. The agent in 2001 assured Christensen that he'd be fully
covered even if his cancer, in remission for seven years, returned, according to
court records.
But three months after
signing up, his bone cancer came back. His policy, issued by Mega Life and
Health insurance, covered only 17 percent of his medical bills. By the time
Christensen died two years later, his wife was left more than $500,000 in debt.
"We thought we had a good policy," said Dana Christensen, 47, a self-employed
court reporter who lives in Marina Del Rey. "We really did."
What Christensen didn't
know was that the policy imposed caps on nearly every type of coverage, from
chemotherapy to the cost of a hospital stay, conflicting with what the agent
promised. She subsequently sued Mega in Los Angeles County Superior Court,
winning a $1.7 million settlement last year.
Christensen also was
unaware of the National Association for the Self-Employed's close ties to Mega
and its parent company, UICI of North Richland Hills, Texas. UICI agents recruit
members for the association and sell insurance policies on the association's
behalf. UICI also sells marketing services to the National Association for the
Self-Employed while a company controlled by the children of UICI's chairman
provides administrative service to the organization, according to UICI's
Securities and Exchange Commission filings.
As health insurance
premiums continue to soar, more small-business owners and individuals are
looking for affordable plans. It's a need filled by outfits like the National
Association for the Self-Employed, which touts itself as the "leading resource
for the self-employed" and businesses with fewer than 10 employees. But concerns
also are on the rise.
Consumers may assume that
by obtaining a health plan through an association, their pre-existing conditions
are covered, as they would be in many group plans. But policies sold through
associations often exclude pre-existing conditions. These "association health
plans" sold by companies such as Mega are increasingly being scrutinized by
state regulators and subject to litigation from disgruntled policyholders. Over
the past two years, UICI and Mega have faced 15 lawsuits in California over
their marketing and insurance practices, and relationship to the National
Association for the Self-Employed and a similar organization, according to SEC
filings.
Members of such
associations get access to health insurance as one of their membership benefits.
Some say these association health plans are merely doing what no one else will
do -- offer affordable health insurance in a country where an increasing number
of people have to fend for themselves.
"The notion that you get
health insurance through your employer is being strained by the way the labor
force is changing," said Merrill Matthews, director of the Council for
Affordable Health Insurance, a business trade group. "The association group
model is stepping up to meet a growing demand in a changing workplace. "Matthews
said the non-comprehensive policies offered by UICI are "peculiar" to that
company. Matthews said plans offered by other associations are more
comprehensive. Association health plans also often fall through the cracks
between federal and state oversight.
Legislation passed this
week in the U.S. House of Representatives and supported by the Bush
administration would exempt association health plans from many state
regulations, a move federal officials believe would allow more people access to
some form of health insurance. But state insurance commissioners believe this
could hurt consumers.
`Slimmed down plans'
Policies are legal, Garamendi says California Insurance Commissioner John
Garamendi said the problem is that it's entirely legal for companies to offer
limited coverage. He refers to such policies as "slimmed down plans" and said
they're a typical feature of association health plans. "There's no requirement
that it provide comprehensiveness or pay a percentage of hospital care," said
Garamendi, who launched an investigation into association health plans two years
ago. "They can write these plans any way they want as long as they are not
illusory."
Condé Nast Traveler
January 2005
Playing it safe
Think
travel insurance is a waste of money? Think again. Krista Carothers
deciphers the fine print and shows you how to choose a policy that
could save you a bundle.
Unlike most
elements of vacation planning, travel insurance doesn’t exactly
conjure up images of distant delights that send the pulse racing.
Insurance isn’t alluring, exciting, or even remotely interesting,
which might be why so many travelers don’t even consider it when
planning their trips. Big mistake. When it comes to protecting your
vacation investment and, sometimes, even your well-being, nothing is
more important than determining whether you need insurance and, if
so, choosing the policy that best meets your needs.... (read
more...)
