Health Care Implications

The implications of limited health care delivery to physical and psychological development are ominous at best, at times life threatening. It is sad that as a country we continue to allow around 20,000 Americans to die each year because they can't get the health care they need. (National Academy of Sciences) The preceding statement in itself illustrates how warped our national value system has become. 
Another indication of how far our nation’s values have fallen is that the health insurance companies which supposedly exist to provide “health security” to their paying customers award their employees bonuses based on the amount of policy rescissions they are able to make. Insurance companies justify this rescission as protection from fraud. However the insurance companies abuse this authority to routinely rescind policies after a customer has filed a costly claim, scouring the medical records of these customers to find a notation that will allow them to rescind their policy due to “failure to disclose information”.   In just such a case Frontline brought this company protocol to the attention of Samuel Nussbaum, M.D., Exec. VP & Chief Medical Officer, WellPoint, and asked him to comment, to which he replied,” Yeah, and I- and I can't speak to that circumstance.” Though the answer is obviously litigious in nature, this writer’s rhetorical question to Dr. Nussbaum is, “Why not?”

It is despicable that our American capitalist system is a part of what makes it possible for these providers of “health security” to accept their customers’ premium checks month after month, and just at the time of greatest need abandon their customers by rescinding their policies leaving them utterly vulnerable, all in the quest of the “almighty buck”.  There is no easy fix for the broken health care (and values) system of America.  However, it is this writer’s hope that the health care reform process initiated by President Obama will prove successful in bringing all Americans true health security.