Health Care Insanity

I am one of the lucky ones. My wife works for the Cobb County School Board in Georgia. She is allowed to cover me under her health care insurance. Now she must pay $210 per month for our health care insurance, but we have health care insurance, we are not one of the purported 31 million souls in the USA without health care insurance.
Let me repeat, we are one of the lucky ones, $210 per month is an inexpensive fee for health insurance. What concerns me is this - if $210 per month is inexpensive, then why can I see so many ways to save money in the health care system as it interfaces with me and my wife and as it interfaces with United Health Care, our insurance provider.

I have no complaints to date with UHC.

I have no real complaints with the doctors I see, their nurses and staff, the hospitals in the area, the pharmaceuticals we take etc. No real complaints with the whole health care system.

I do have TWO complaints.

The cost of health care in the USA is nonsensical. Two years ago I was having serious trouble breathing as my COPD symptoms flared up. I spent 5 days in the hospital. I received no special treatment, procedure or operation. I was allowed to leave my bed to go to the washroom and nothing else. For the first few days I did not have the breath or energy to leave my bed anyway. I was nebulized twice a day. I was on IV for fluids and some medication. I was on oxygen. After 5 days I went home where an oxygen system was arranged. The invoice presented for this 5 days of hospital service was $38,000.00. Neither UHC nor ourselves paid that amount.

When I arrived at the hospital, my wife paid $500.00 as part of my yearly deductible. Later we were billed for an additional $1500.00 which completed my deductible with UHC for 2009. UHC received the bill for $38,000 which was then reduced to their special price of$8000. UHC deducted our $2000 from the $8000 and paid $6000. I was very happy that this medical service was available to me as I was very ill at the time. However, the billing practices of a hospital are a complete mystery to me.
If I buy 10 cars instead on 1, then I expect to get a discount, maybe 25%, not 80%.

My second complaint is the media and political handling of the health care and health care insurance issue starting in 2008 and continuing through present times. I am an American citizen by choice. I was born a Canadian and moved to Atlanta in 1985. Do not even get me started on illegal aliens.

The first point is that Canadian health care is not free. Just as our medicare has a small monthly fee, there is a small monthly fee in Canada. More importantly, most Canadians carry supplemental health insurance because the health care does not cover many of the items which are integral to the treatment of a disease or condition. An example is the drugs injected as part of chemotherapy. Canadian friends of our pay $500 per month for this supplemental insurance. Chiropatric and physical therapy are often not covered. There is an extensive list of 'traditional health care items which are not covered. Almost all regular medical visits are handled through clinics. It is difficult in many areas to get a personal doctor even at a clinic which complicates ongoing treatment of medical conditions.

There is current political discussion that a side by side system may evolve where you can choose either the government system or a private health insurance system. For more than 10 years there have been 'private clinics' in the major cities where for a serious price one could obtain serious health care if one wanted to avoid the perils of the government system.

American politicians - stop pointing to Canada as an example of a successful single payer system!

American media - do your homework, your shoddy reporting is a disgrace.