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Today, I responded to a request for support for President Obama's push for health care reform. They asked for a statement of my health care story. Here's my comment:
Several years ago, I was an administrator in a mental health program. I am also a mental health consumer. In my position, I was advocating for mental health parity. There was much political fighting in the legislature. Our agency’s health care provider solicited my support as administrator for killing the mental health parity bill, telling false scare stories about why I should support THEM. We finally got a watered down “compromise”. Because the “minimum” standards in the bill were less than my coverage to date, I was informed by the insurance company that our coverage was being reduced because of “requirements” of state law. Another lie, but it cost me and my family hundreds of dollars a year.
Over the years, we’ve been pushed into higher costs and lower coverage. Our medications have gone from reasonable co-pay to a slight discount on market pricing. We accept this because that’s the only way we can keep up with the rising insurance costs. We have no choice but bad or worse. I am only thankful that our jobs are such that we are able to take care of ourselves without descending into bankruptcy or poverty… yet.
The problem is that the fragmentation of our system, while claiming that we have “choice”, is just an on-going scam to divide and conquer the consumer. What I fear now, is that the compromises ahead of us will be called “socialism” while the power of the insurance companies remains unabated; that they will actually find a way to make matters worse for consumers as they did with my mental health care.
While I admire the president’s criteria, my greatest fear is that it isn’t strong enough. We desperately need single payer (National Universal Health Care) but I’d at least settle for a public managed option like Medicare buy-in. The insurance companies fear that and will fight it with a two edged sword: what they can’t win by fear-mongering, they will dilute with concessions and promises that will go away when the pressure is off.
Please, Mr. President, don’t sell us out. Lead and encourage the Congress to give us a public funded option for health care. Anything less will squander the power of the moment. At a time when we need real change, anything less will be undone before the ink on the bill is dry.
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