Not just about terrorism now



I am seething. Never have I had such terrible health insurance. Granted, Alan works for a small company and they can't afford reasonable insurance, I understand this. But it seems that too much is coming out of his pay check for way too little. And we're not talking about dental either. Never mind that they cover something like 80% of less than half our dental bill. (If that sounds good to you, read it again.) But we're talking immunizations for a healthy six month old. We got slapped with a bill and thinking it was something like Magnus' delivery bill (the hospital billed us instead of our insurance) I called the insurance company. Nope. Apparently there is a maximum on preventative health care and we met that at four months. They won't even cover his immunizations.

This is a healthy baby, folks. This is a baby that is growing in leaps and bounds, that rarely gets sick, has not had any real problems and we're wondering how much more his medical bills are going to cost. He's not even a year old yet. I really feel for those folks who have had health problems with their children and I wonder how they do it.

I visited out two candidates websites and checked out their plans for health care. Both are appropriately vague (it's getting closer to election time, what do you expect?) but I must say, Bush sure doesn't seem to be thinking about basic health costs in America, at least not for middle-income earning households. HSAs are great if you can anticipate your health care costs but put too much in, you loose what's left over. And it does not address the fact that the cost of just basic health care seems to be rising exponentially. You're still spending more to cover just basic costs. And yes, I'd like to see more money go to low-income kids but what about my kid?

Kerry, on the other hand, intends to cut premiums. And he plans to give "give every American access to the range of high-quality, affordable plans available to members of Congress and extend coverage to 95 percent of Americans, including every American child." Now that's what I want. The insurance Alan gets through his workplace is so bad because they know we don't have a choice. (I told them that, too. After I called them dishonest and opportunistic.)

I'm not convinced that Kerry will go after insurance companies that are taking advantage of us the way I want him to. But I don't think that Bush even thought about the cost of health care for the average American. As a matter of fact, I think he thought more about his terrorist alert system (high alert: be careful crossing all bridges, riding ferries, buses, taxis, airplane. It could be in our water supply, it could be your neighbor, it could be your neighbor's dog that is always tied up in front of their house.) than health care. After all, it's easier to get voted in if your scare the nation out of their wits than if you address real issues in this country.

Posted: Wed - October 20, 2004 at 03:33 PM        

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