The Potential Personal Price of Health Care and Health Insurance Reform
Welcome to this installment of the Weekly Health Insurance News Roundup. This week we will look at a couple of articles -- both from Pennsylvania, oddly enough -- that look at some of the more personal aspects of health care reform and who it might affect. Our first article comes from the Pittsburgh Tribune and is entitled, "Many insured in Pittsburgh worry health reform to hurt."
This article looks at some personal example of how our expensive -- and some would say broken -- health care and health insurance systems are affecting people, especially those who lose their jobs and therefore their insurance benefits. One resident said, "We can go to the moon; gee whiz, we can fix health care," which is the sentiment a lot of people seem to have on this issue, even those with health insurance, who are seeing their health insurance costs go up while their options go down. The article then goes into what some local governments are doing to help, even in a recession, such as clinics. These personal stories, too many of which to go into detail here, show that something must be done, people are clamoring for change, and that hopefully it will happen soon.
The other article comes to us from The Mercury Life, and is entitled, "Elderly have their own concerns on health overhaul." The article starts off with an interesting line, "Turns out you can fear a government takeover of health care even if the government already took over your health care." This is because people who are on Medicare -- the government-run health insurance pool for seniors -- are wary of health care reform.
What are the elderly afraid of? Losing control, for one thing, and being unable to choose their own doctors. This kind of fear, and other factors, are causing seniors to draft a "Seniors' Health Care Bill of Rights," to help let politicians know where they stand on the issue. Their biggest fears seem to be the cut of Medicare benefits, the freedom of choice as mentioned before. These are valid concerns, to be sure.
Overall, while it's easy to look at the larger arguments around health care and health insurance reform, it's even easier at times to forget how such reform will affect individuals such as these. Hopefully lawmakers will remember these people when working on health care reform that covers everyone.
