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Health Access Weblog
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It's not a joke....
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
This story from the satirical newspaper, The Onion, is actually supposed to be a joke -- but really, it's dead on:
After years of battling crippling premiums and agonizing deductibles, local resident Michael Haige finally succumbed this week to the health insurance policy that had ravaged his adult life. Haige, who had suffered from limited medical coverage for nearly a decade, passed away early Monday morning. According to sources, the 46-year-old was laid to rest at Fairplains cemetery, surrounded by friends, family members, and more than $300,000 of mounting debt.
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According to an independent study released last month by the Mayo Clinic, health insurance is the nation's No. 2 cause of death, claiming the lives of some 400,000 Americans each year. A silent killer, health insurance often strikes without warning, its harmful and profit-based policies avoiding detection until it is far too late. Although the cruel bureaucratic disorder does not discriminate, statistics have shown that senior citizens, young dependents, and those woefully underemployed are most at risk.
Actually, there is a statistic, which relates to the uninsured. According to the Institute of Medicine, it's more like 18,000 annually who die from lack of insurance, making it the sixth most common cause of death Labels: Funny, MedicalDebt
posted by Hanh Kim Quach |
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8:30 AM
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Radio break...
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
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You really had to be there...
Saturday, July 05, 2008
So this blogger walks into a bar... At least that the premise of a recent post by Julie Barnes at the New America Foundation's New Health Dialogue Blog, talking about a performance by comdian Jake Johannsen: When we saw him, he was on a "How The Man Sticks It To The Little Guy" run when he used health insurance as an example. First, he mentioned how lucky most of us feel if we can buy insurance through our employers (unspoken subtext: because if we get health insurance at work, we don't have to worry about being denied coverage because of preexisting conditions). But then we don't feel so lucky if we get sick and, even with coverage, get a pretty big bill. At least then, Jake joked, we could complain about how our boss was "sticking it to us." But some of us have to purchase our own insurance directly, so, he deadpanned: "I end up sticking it to myself! That doesn't seem right."
Then, in surprisingly fluent health insurance-speak, Jake went off about how he could barely keep up when his insurance broker was trying to explain his policy choices: an HMO, an HMO with a POS, a PPO, and variances between the deductible, premiums, co-pays, co-insurance and out-of-pocket maximums.
Jake asked "but which one is best" and the broker replied "it depends on the individual." And Jake, being a comedian, said: "Let's say, hypothetically, that the individual is me." The broker responded: "You have to make your own decision about what's best for you." At which point, Jake made a funny face that meant "You've got to be kidding" and the audience responded with gales of laughter. Ha ha. To be honest, the retelling doesn't seem that funny... it just seems sad because it's so true. Some have argued that we don't need reforms to standardize the individual insurance market--like the pending SB1522(Steinberg)--because people have access to brokers. If you are lost (as many consumers are), it is useful to ask for directions, and it is useful to have a map. One doesn't obviate the need for the other. Both are helpful. The blogger from the centrist New American Foundation agrees that the humor doesn't quite translate: As things currently stand, no one (not even those of us who work on health policy for a living!) can make truly informed decisions about which health care policy is best for us. It is difficult to determine whether paying more up-front or taking the risk of paying more later or having more or less provider choice is the way to go. This kind of confusion is not funny, which is why transparency and consumer-friendly decision support tools (real ones, that real people can understand) must be part of any health reform.
Labels: Funny, Insurers, Legislation
posted by Anthony Wright |
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3:01 PM
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A Constituency Against Health Care?
Thursday, July 03, 2008
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Zonker would know what to do...
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
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Laughing or crying?
Friday, October 05, 2007
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Funny and sad...
Friday, September 21, 2007
After his well-deserved Emmy, Jon Stewart of The Daily Show has taken brief breaks from their war coverage for some short commentary on health care. On Wednesday, he spotlighted the coverage of Hillary Clinton's health plan, and the howls of "HilliaryCare," "socialized medicine," and "big government" from the right-wing pundits. He corrected a clip of Newt Gingrich, who suggested to call the plan "Daughter of HillaryCare"; Stewart responded, "Wouldn't that be ChelseaCare?" He spotlighted CNN's chiron, which really did state, remarkably, "Clinton on Health Care: Why is she trying again?" On Thursday, Stewart mocked the President's attack of the SCHIP program as a "government-run" program: "Oh my god, there's gonna put communism in our kids' drinking water! And inject them with the gay and load them onto Micheal Moore and float them to Cuba! Wake up America!" In responding to Bush's statement that he instead wanted "to empower people and their doctors...," Stewart said, "I figured out the disconnect. You see, he thinks the uninsured have doctors." It would be funny if it wasn't sad. Back to the war. Labels: Federal, Funny
posted by Anthony Wright |
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12:16 AM
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The view from 10,000 feet.
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
As somebody looking at and trying to understand the specific details of the new health reform proposals this year, such as AB8(Nunez/Perata), it is a bit surreal to then hear the kind of very broad debate this afternoon in Assembly Health Committee on SB840(Kuehl). When the debate over other bills was largely haggling over wording and amendments, the discussion between the Democratic legislators in support of SB840, and the Republican legislators in opposition, was a view from 10,000 feet, strident arguments that resembled this Tom Tomorrow cartoon.  Some might say that SB840 lends itself to this kind of debate, since the Governor has stated his intent to veto the proposal again, yet the Democratic legislators continue to pass the proposal as a statement of their values and goals. But the legislative discussion is similar to that of the many previous debates for this and other health reforms, this year and last. Perhaps when the ideological issues are so big, the details don't matter. But they do, to the health care consumers who have to live with them. That's the work of this summer. Labels: Funny, Legislation, Sacramento, SB840, YearOfReform
posted by Anthony Wright |
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4:22 PM
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Piling on...
Thursday, June 14, 2007
New Health Wonk Review out. Also, Matthew Holt at The Health Care Blog points out that high-deductible and consumer-directed health plans (CHDP) are failing in the market--ironic, since they are often promoted by those who have absolute faith in the market. He pulls no punches, ending with: "the CDHP is the bastard child of a one night stand between a benefits consultant with nothing to sell and a right-wing think tank that can’t do basic math." Labels: Funny, OtherBlogs, Underinsurance
posted by Anthony Wright |
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1:07 PM
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Conan (the Barbarian)
Thursday, April 26, 2007
From Conan O'Brien last night: "Wal-Mart has begun opening 400 health clinics in their stores. Wal-Mart says the clinics are important because 50% of the people they will treat there won't have health insurance. Those people are called Wal-Mart employees."Future "Tonight Show" host O'Brien is broadcasting from San Francisco next week. Bets on what California politicians might visit the show? Maybe talk about health reform? Labels: Employers, Funny, InTheNews
posted by Anthony Wright |
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1:32 AM
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How to control costs, and more...
Some laughter at an unexpected part of the conversation at the hearing yesterday... Senator Perata was detailing the various measures in his bill intended to control costs. For example, he stated that "we are in the freaking stone age in terms of medical records," and said that we "are killing people" by not using modern electronic technology to deal with medical records. Beyond his own bill, he went on a short rant about prescription drug advertising, and the large amount of money spent on the television commercials for "the little blue pill," and the impact it has on health costs in general. He was very skeptical that as a patient he should be asking his doctor about any medication beyond aspirin. "What the heck do I know?" he inquired, wondering why he should be pestering his doctor about drugs, rather than the other way around. He said if one looks at the sports show, all the advertisements are for "beer, cars, and pills--and not in that order." With a bemused smile, we commented on all TV commercials "and all those smiling men." Not finished, he even interjected "you don't see the women smiling, only the men." And then the conversation went back to health reform. On a more serious note, one way to deal with the issue of prescription drug advertising is at the federal level, in a bill by California Congressman Henry Waxman, as described in this blog post by Steve Blackledge of CALPIRG. Not so seriously, he managed to invoke a comparison to Steve Martin in The Jerk. Labels: CostContainment, Drugs, Federal, Funny, Legislation, OtherBlogs, Perata, YearOfReform
posted by Anthony Wright |
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1:20 AM
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Late Night Health Policy
Monday, April 02, 2007
Apparently, entertainers who get into politics have a tendency to be interested in "universal health care." Satirist Al Franken--and candidate for the U.S. Senate--was on David Letterman's show last week, and that was the first policy goal he mentioned, in the midst of a running commentary about whether he could funny, while "trying to do serious things for people." So Letterman asked "what are issues that made you want to run?" Franken reponded, "We gotta get to universal health care. We just have to. This doesn't mean single-payer, where the government pays for everything; we can get to it different ways in different states." He has previously said he supported a universal single payer system; his joke last night was that he understood people's distrust in government, given the leadership of the last several years. Letterman, who often gives a surprisingly good political interview, didn't want to let the topic go, and asked, "In terms of the world picture. where does the United States rank among nations that provide health care?" Franken: "According to the World Health Organziation study, we rank number 37 in health care, even though we spend more than anybody per person. We spend 16% of our GDP, no other nation spends 11% We are 37th as a health care system, right between Costa Rica and Slovenia. And Slovenia, I think, is making its move." Labels: Funny
posted by Anthony Wright |
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10:01 PM
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Would Blue Cross' Tonik cover ass herpes?
Friday, March 16, 2007
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Dilbert-Care
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
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Good golly, Miss Molly...
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Humorist Molly Ivins passed away today, after battling breast cancer. May she rest in peace. Here's a 2002 column of hers on the need for health reform. And here's a 2000 column that mentions her battle with cancer, as part of a witty but accurate review of what works in health reform, and what doesn't. It also happens to critique President Bush's health care plan, which doesn't seem to have changed in seven years--in fact, it seems to have gotten worse... Just don't get sickby Molly IvinsSeptember 14, 2000AUSTIN, Texas -- When I was in my 20s, the subject of insurance was so vastly boring that it was a way to describe a bad date: "like talking to an insurance salesman." It's still sort of like your teeth -- something you'd rather not think about but have to take care of -- so let's plunge in. As Jonathan Cohn pointed out in the May 1 New Republic, the object of health insurance is to get as many people as possible into one big pool, mixing the sick with the healthy. This way, the healthy pay a little more than they otherwise would, but those who get sick pay a lot less.
Since everyone gets sick eventually, if only from old age, it works out fairly. Your chances of never being sick a day in your life and then dropping dead of an undiagnosed heart condition at an early age are less-than-lottery-slim. In most advanced countries, this led logically to national health insurance -- everybody in the same pool, only one administrative agency instead of hundreds...
As a cancer survivor, I am now part of a network regularly called upon to help raise $300,000 to $400,000 for some individual whose insurance company has found a way to drop her. Always a life at stake. The hundreds of thousands of you who have had your HMOs fold under you know how chancy the present system is.
George W. Bush's solution is to promote medical savings accounts -- MSAs. Individuals buy a cheap insurance plan covering only catastrophic illness and then put money aside, tax-free, to cover their medical bills. If there's any left over at the end of the year, they get to keep it. The theory is that this will discourage people from spending frivolously on health care. "In reality, MSAs simply allow people who expect to be healthy to opt out of larger insurance pools," said Cohn. "Small businesses like the accounts because they transfer the onus for medical coverage more squarely onto individuals. But most experts who have looked at MSAs have concluded that, by further segregating healthy and sick in the health-care market, they make it tougher for people likely to incur high health-care bills to get insurance."
The other piece of the Bush plan is to set up association health plans allowing small businesses to clump together to buy health insurance as cheaply as the big corporations do.
The Catch-22 is that most states already have small businesses clumped together in an insurance pool. The only difference the Bush plan would make would be to exempt those plans from state regulation -- i.e., requirements for minimum benefits like mental-health coverage.
The result would be further segregation of health coverage -- employees healthy, rates go down; a couple of employees get very sick, rates go up; company can no longer afford coverage, drops policy; end result, more uninsured. Neither move is going to help the 44 million uninsured in this country, and both are likely to increase their number. This is not a solution. For the uninsured, Bush proposes a $2,000 tax credit per family to allow them to buy their own health insurance -- but $2,000 doesn't nearly cover the cost, and nothing is more expensive than buying health insurance as an individual....
For those whose faith in the free market is religious, this is not something to debate. But even Adam Smith admitted that the free market can't take care of everything. And one of the things that no country has yet found a way to make it do is health care. The upside to having government as the only insurer is that it's cheaper because profits don't enter into it.
Worth considering, even if boring.
COPYRIGHT 2000 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC. Labels: Bush, ExpandingCoverage, Funny, Insurers, Underinsurance
posted by Anthony Wright |
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5:47 PM
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Hilarious....but accurate?
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Steve Weigand in the Sacramento Bee sums up -- with humor -- how different sectors are feeling about the gov's healthcare plan. In other reading, an interesting piece on national interaction with California's health care debate on The Health Care Blog. Labels: Funny
posted by Hanh Kim Quach |
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12:10 PM
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Webmaster: webmaster@health-access.org
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Anthony Wright is the executive director, |
| with a background as a consumer advocate and community organizer on many issues, including health issues for the last ten years in California and New Jersey. |
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Hanh Kim Quach is the policy coordinator; previously serving as |
| a newspaper reporter covering the Capitol for the Orange County Register and other papers for eight years |
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