Barack Obama's Healthcare Solution Is Not A Solution
 Friday, February 29th, 2008

Guest Blog: Gina Robins Be a guest blogger!  Submit your article today.

As much as I hate talking or writing about this, I'm going to, because I find it to be very relevant to the healthcare problems in America, and to the non-solution of Democratic candidate Barack Obama's healthcare proposition.  Without going into the specifics of the condition, I was diagnosed with a genetic, chronic, recurring, and probably lifelong condition for which there is no cure, back in the year 2000.

Last year - seven years later - the condition returned (as recurring things tend to do).  It is not contagious, nor life-threatening, but is quite painful when not treated.  That being said, around the time that I got sick again, I simultaneously lost my job.  Being unemployed, I could not afford extra expenses.

Upon seeing the doctor, I was told that I needed to go to tri-weekly treatment appointments to make my condition more manageable.  Three times a week, I drove to treatment appointments.  Though each treatment was just a matter of seconds long, I was told by the hospital administration that by standard healthcare procedure (and my plan) I needed to make copayments each time I came in.

That meant, on top of the fuel expenses of driving back and forth, I needed to pay $20 at the desk before I could get each treatment.  Since I had to go three times a week, that would have made it $60 a week that I could not afford.

But as I relayed this to the supervising nurse, she told me that wasn't true, that I could come up the employee entrance and get my treatments and a copay wouldn't be required.  That is what I was told.  I asked her if she was sure - if that violated any procedural rules - she said, "You're not going to pay $240 a month for a few minutes of treatment.  The copayment does not apply."

I began the treatments, and about a month later, I got a bill from the hospital for $240.  My insurance company refused to cover the treatments without copayments--furthermore, my healthcare provider was threatening to charge me $60 per treatment (totalling around $720), if I didn't come up with the $240 right away.

Not only did I have to discontinue treatment due to the expense, but I was harassed by a collections agency for $240 that I couldn't afford to pay.  Instead of meals with the vegetables and fruit I so desparately needed to build up my immune system, I was stuck filling my stomach with diet pop all day because I couldn't scrape together the money to go grocery shopping.

So I stayed sick.

Under Barack Obama's healthcare plan--I'm sure you've seen the commercials--the object of his proposition is to provide every person with health insurance "as good as our members of Congress."

Our members of Congress still have copays.

If you already have insurance, your plan stays the same, except for a change in the "amount of money you will spend on premiums," according to Obama.  Or, "if you are one of the 45 million Americans who don't have health care insurance, you will have it after this plan becomes law."

The plan will not address so many of the serious issues affecting our health care system today--like mine.  Other countries get by well without charging any fees at all for treatments; a standard amount for healthcare is deducted from every working citizen's paycheck just like our Social Security or Medicare is for us; subsequently no one has to pay, as I did, a copayment for treatments that could be multiple times a week, every week, every month, and for some people all of their lives.

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