Who Likes To Play Russian Roulette With Their Health??

The jury is in – Delaying Necessary Medical Care Kills. If you want to commit suicide this is one of the best ways to do it. You can delay an oil change on your car, you can delay a payment on your credit card but if you delay needed medical it may be the last time you delay anything. Oh by the way, cost sharing and shifting also kills and consumer-directed health care is a death sentence for the poor and uninsured.

We knew 20 years ago that creating financial barriers to receive health care services kills, this is not a new but an old concept. Creating financial barriers for people to receive health care services MUST STOP. Do you know what happens when people delay needed medical care ? Well, they either die or their medical condition worsens and then the cost of their treatment quadruples. Cost sharing and shifting are inflationary health care financing concepts.

The health insurers and politicians are as dumb as rocks if they think that cost sharing and shifting are going to save anybody any money.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/30/opinion/30mon2.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

Editorial
Maybe I’ll Get Better on My Own

Published: June 30, 2008
While politicians have been debating endlessly over the best ways to reform the American health care system, the plight of American patients has rapidly worsened. A new national survey found that an alarming 20 percent of the population, some 59 million people in all, either delayed or did without needed medical care last year, a huge increase from the 36 million people who delayed or did not seek care in 2003.

As expected, people who have no health insurance — there are some 47 million of them — were most likely to make that difficult choice. But insured people also chose to go without care in ever-larger numbers.

According to the survey, the main reason is soaring medical costs, which have outstripped the modest growth in wages in recent years. High costs are deterring not only the uninsured from seeking care, but also many insured people who are struggling with higher deductibles, co-payments and other out-of-pocket expenses as their employers or health plans shift more of the cost burden to them.

Many patients with insurance said they went without care because their health plans would not pay for the treatment or their doctors or hospitals would not accept their insurance. Both insured and uninsured patients said they skipped treatments because they had trouble getting timely appointments, were unable to get through on the telephone, or could not make it to a doctor’s office or clinic when it was open. No doubt a weakening economy, high fuel prices, the home foreclosure crisis and general economic anxiety also played a role.

Sadly, previous gains in caring for low-income children have reversed, largely because their parents lost employer-sponsored coverage.

The telephone survey of some 18,000 Americans was conducted by the Center for the Study of Health System Change, a respected nonpartisan research group, and was financed by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. It relied on respondents’ views that they needed the care and did not explore what health consequences resulted.

Champions of so-called “consumer-directed health care” might argue that the market is working — people are wisely delaying or forgoing care of low marginal value. But it is disturbing that unmet medical needs increased the most for people in poor or only fair health — those most likely to get even sicker if they don’t get treatment.

The new survey further strengthens the case for universal coverage, with moderate cost-sharing provisions. All Americans should be able to get medical care when they need it.