Proof of insurance. In the simplest of terms, in some way, shape, or form, those three words are key to receiving healthcare in the United States of America.
If you as a patient dont have some form of insurance (and I use insurance in a very generic sense as any entity that picks up some of the cost for your care) you are responsible for the bill or you dont get the care unless, of course, you seek out the emergency room, where you wont be turned away. For some few Americans the ER can become a very expensive primary care provider to whom they will go because they have no healthcare insurance.
Thinking outside the box, I see one aspect the American health care system being at least partly maybe primarily? responsible for the federal government shutdown: healthcare insurance subsidies tied to the Affordable Care Act aka ObamaCare. It seems to me bottom-line that the GOP would like ultimately to entirely eliminate the ACA and replace it with a plan of its own but with what they dont say; but I suspect it would be with a plan that would ultimately pass more of the cost of healthcare onto the consumer via increased market competition and giving states more control over health care. In charliekirkese: Prove me wrong.
Im not the sharpest knife in the drawer and Ill admit I dont understand the complexities of the American healthcare system. Who does? However, since Im 14 years beyond my biblically allotted three-score years-and-10 and enjoying the benefits of Medicare, a cost-sharing program, as my primary care provider and having a reliable secondary care provider, I pretty well understand the statements they both provide me on a regular basis. First I look for the words that say: This is not a bill.
And I have no wish to consider a Medicare Advantage Plan, despite the many ads I see on TV. Ill admit I dont understand them but they sound too good to be true. And since were now in that dreaded time of year called open enrollment youll be seeing a plethora of ads telling you how wonderful this companys plan is. The viewer seeing the ad is given, in huge you-cant-miss-them, a telephone number to call and check it out. But if you dont understand their TV pitch, understand one thing: THEY ARE TRYING TO SELL YOU HEALTHCARE INSURANCE. If you call that huge flashed-on-the-screen phone number, you will be talking to an agent who wants to sell you insurance.
One thing I find puzzling about these ads is that the U.S. government doesnt endorse any specific plan. And yet you might get the impression that the government would like you to enroll in a Medicare Advantage plan; the government endorses MA plans by paying private insurance companies a set amount per person to cover healthcare costs. Confused? I am.
It can be tempting to ditch your basic Medicare and go for an Advantage plan because of the assortment of medical and dental benefits that can be tacked on. I recently had a phone call from my old buddy Jimmy Schmucatello, whom I hadnt seen for awhile, asking about an Advantage plan he was looking at, because of one particular individualized offering he liked: if his mother-in-law was coming for a stay-with-her-daughter visit and it was deemed so stressful for his mental health and wellbeing for him to be around his mother-in-law 24/7 that with a doctors prescription she could be put up for up to 14 nights in a private hotel or Airbnb and the plan would pay up to 75 percent of the tab for her stay; however, the hotel or Airbnb had to be in network. Of course, Im kidding, exaggerating but.
With some simple thinking-outside-the box (and this is not an original idea), I suggest the time has come for the United States of America to seriously consider a single-payer healthcare system, maybe a sort of Medicare for All Americans approach for starters. Let President Trump take the lead and bring the GOP and Democratic leaders to the table and, in LBJ fashion, look to Isaiah 1:18: Let us sit down and reason together.
The president prides himself on being a deal maker. Pull it off and what a legacy that would be for him and for the Republican and Democratic lawmakers of our nation: for healthcare is truly a human right. The United States could then truly call itself a Christian nation rather than some sort of Nationalist Christian nation envisioned by some in the GOP via Project 2025 and there would be no government shutdown of the nature of this one ever again.
Have a nice day.
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