EXCUSE ME, BUT I HAVE TO BARF

This was how Don McCanne -- the distinguished physician and policy analyst -- ended his commentary upon reading the Health Affairs study of women who had been switched from Low Deductible commercial health plans to High Deductible Health Plans (HDHP'S), and who had been diagnosed with Breast Cancer. Most of them -- even those who had the money to pay for it -- delayed their care for many months, risking what the study termed, euphemistically, "sub-optimal results." McCanne writes:
We have serious problems with our health care financing system - a system that costs twice the average per capita of other wealthy nations yet falls miserably short in performance. In the meantime, the policy community busies itself with fixes that have clearly failed to bring our expensive system up to the standards of other nations. One of those fixes is high-deductible health plans....The policy community is quite smug now because moving to higher deductibles is working, according to their terms. People are limiting or delaying care because of these deductibles, thus meeting the goal of reducing health care spending. [But,] in our terms, is it really working? Is it smart health care shopping if the financial exposure causes patients to delay diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer? Should women be waiting to be sure that they really need this care by seeing if they develop further invasive or metastatic disease? Just asking that question depresses and even nauseates me. 

Where McCanne was nauseated,  I was enraged! I dashed off a missive -- more like a missile -- to my local network, shouting in bold type:
Hey, all you women out there, and all you men who love them, are concerned about them, and/or who are appalled by the disaster we call healthcare in the United States: We already know that mortality rates in child delivery are higher in this country  than elsewhere. But now, read Don McCanne's commentary, and then, to any of you still waiting to take direct action on behalf of the New York Health Act, I ask:

WHAT THE DEVIL ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!?! VISIT THE NEW YORK HEALTH ACT WEBSITE; JUST CLICK ON: 

https://www.nyhcampaign.org/

and read about all the things you can do, and do something. Don't wait for someone else to do it.

Wake up, people : The war against women is a war against EVERYONE! 

But then I calmed down a bit, and thought, "maybe I should learn more." So I looked at the original document and saw that its authors had suggested a palliative -- the implementation of  something they called,  "value-based features" in the HDHP's. That didn't sound very good to me, since "value-based pricing" means that if you need a pill to stay alive, the Pharma robbers are allowed to gouge you $1000 or more per pill. But no, this was seemingly more benign: 

Value-Based Insurance Design

seemed to mean, among other things, having little or no deductibles for things that are needed to keep you well,  and higher deductibles for things deemed unnecessary, or of no proven value. Leaving aside the question of whether this would work, I noticed that the aim of the authors was "cost-efficient health care services" -- that is more healthcare for the consumer dollar. But that, I realized, is exactly the converse of what the insurance companies are aiming for: more profit from each diagnosis -- more consumer dollars taken in, and less spent.  

In short, the authors of the study supposed that the only viable solution to the problem was within the current profit-driven health care system, when in truth, THE ONLY SOLUTION IS A SINGLE PAYER SYSTEM WHICH WOULD, OF NECESSITY, ELIMINATE VIRTUALLY ALL PRIVATE INSURANCE!

Having got that off my chest, I feel better.

Dio

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PPS: We know that there are plenty out there who have stories to tell -- stories of your trying to cope with our dysfunctional healthcare system. Trouble is, we don't know what these stories are! That's where you come in. If you have a story to tell, you can email me at indivisible12401@gmail.com. You can be as anonymous as you like. Thanks!