Posts Tagged ‘health care NY’

No Health Insurance

Monday, May 31st, 2010

There are millions of individuals of all age groups without any health insurance to help them as they go about their daily lives. Where do individuals and families go when they need medical health care and they have no health insurance coverage? You certainly are not able to visit the local medical physician in your neighborhood because the first question you are asked is who is your health insurance carrier?

When you explain you are without medical health insurance at this time, but you are able to pay cash for the medical physician’s services you are still refused an appointment, so where do you turn? Most individuals who are alone will turn to their local drug store and scour the shelves to see what is available for their own health care practices.

Other individuals with young children will turn to the emergency rooms of the local community hospital and hope their children will be afforded the needed health care and medication they so desperately need. You wonder why the local community hospitals are always filled to capacity in the waiting room.

You will find the health insurance industry played a role in causing this build-up by negotiating with the health care providers to the point where they are not allowed to take in a patient, treat them, and accept a cash payment. Oh have we come a long way when the medical health care provider could make house calls without asking if you have any low cost health insurance to cover the expenses.

When you listen to the news reports, you will hear from time to time how we, as a nation have come a long way in the health insurance industry, yet have we. If you are unable to pull out your health insurance card to prove you still have health insurance coverage you are blatantly turned away with the suggestion you visit your local community hospital.

Private hospitals in your local area will refuse you medical health care  assistance faster than any medical health care provider so be sure you visit your local community hospital if you want an opportunity to see a medical health care physician. This includes children too and makes the entire situation very sad.

When you have a parent taking a child to the emergency room for medical health care do you think they stop to read the sign on the front of the building to see if it is a community hospital or a private hospital? Of course not, the child may have sustained a broken arm or broken leg while attending school and all the parent wants to do is get their child medical health care as quickly as possible.

Sadly, this same occurrence happens every day of the week to many parents at a time when they are upset because their child is hurt. To have everyone in the medical health care community turn his or her back on you is a travesty that is unacceptable, yet it still happens. Why is the medical health care community exempt when it comes to the private hospitals?

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Health Insurance, health care | Comments Off

Are Misguided Policies Contributing to the Shortage of Doctors in America?

Friday, September 25th, 2009

Just as there are major shortages of nurses in America, the shortage does not end there, doctors are also in short supply.  American citizens are getting older because of the abundant baby boomers generation and effects of health and aging, are taking its toll on the health insurance companies and the doctors who are trying to meet the demands.

 

Many reasons have contributed to the shortage of doctors over the decades.  Some of them could best be described as misguided polices. Doctors traditionally flock to large cities where the pay is better and the medical headhunters have the job of finding specialists for some towns and rural or remote areas.  This in turn places the added stress on Americans who need specialized care to have to travel to bigger cities and many of these Americans are elderly or too sick too make the trip.  Others do not have the financial means to do the traveling.  This too produces a domino effect as the general practitioner can become too stressed and overloaded with work that they retire or move away from these remote locations. 

 

Instead of meeting the demands for more doctors certain policies such as restricting qualified medical doctors from other foreign countries to practice in America has also added to the problem of doctor shortages and has contributed to the major health care crises facing America today. Furthermore, applications for medical schools have been frozen through the last decades as well.  How then do we have enough doctors to fill the demands of sick Americans when medical school enrollments are down and foreign doctors are barred.  The answer is we don’t fill the demands. Instead we make them more severe especially when doctors become overburdened with the workload, and there is no relief in sight.  Some retire as they are aging themselves and some quit the profession or move to other countries in hopes of obtaining a better practice and a better life style over all. However, instead of increasing the supply of medical doctors in rural and even inner city locations, the Association of American Medical Colleges blamed the high demand on health insurance companies who now made it easier for doctors to order as many tests as they wanted without limitation and therefore their argument has been the misuse of physician and doctor time and not the shortage of doctors in the first place.

 

The health insurance industry especially the large HMO’s have begun to limit unjustifiable testing and procedures and monitor the activities of the doctors they employ.  Some are no longer giving doctors carte blanche funding by putting them on a salary.  More effective means of health care management is being employed but still it is not enough. There is still a shortage of doctors to meet the high demand of medical care in America.   For people needing tests and operations are having to go on long waiting lists because there are not enough doctors and other medical personnel available to meet the demand. One study showed that 87 per cent of hospitals in America are actively seeking doctors in different specialities. As a result of cutting back on medical school enrollment and the ban on foreign doctors in the 1980’s, we are still suffering the consequences in America in 2009. 

 

In the example of Canada, Canadian medical programs are fully accredited and Canadian doctors are fully qualified to practice in the USA. Canadians were actively employed as doctors in the USA prior to 1976.  Afterwards it required a green card before the Canadian doctor could come over.  That meant that any facility willing to employ a Canadian doctor had to keep the job open for over a year so that the green card requirements were met.  This is totally ludicrous when you think about it, if you need a doctor how can you afford to keep the job open for a year?  Is it not more important to keep Americans healthy and have a good health care system that meets the needs of the American demand?

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Crisis Situation, Health Insurance | 1 Comment »

The Need for Legislation against PVC’s in Children School Supplies

Tuesday, September 8th, 2009

The most precious people in our lives are our children. Not only do they grace our lives, but also they are our future if the human race is to survive.  However, what kind of life will they have if we do not take care of their health care now?  Of course we take measures to insure their health and welfare safe, but do we do it fast enough?  Do our governments act as fast as they can once they realize that there is a health threat present?

No matter where we go, no matter what we do, we are exposed to phthalates; they are at home, at work, in the hospital – they are in our environment everywhere.  Phthalates is a chemical resembling vegetable oil and is has been used in plastic products for at least the last 50 years. It makes PVC’s (polyvinyl chloride) more soft and flexible which is important for many plastic found such as garden hoses and other products, which need a measurement of flexibility to be functional.  Our world is saturated with plastic products and until recently it was not discovered just how much our health care is suffering from it. From plastic garden/rubber hoses to plastic bags, there are PVC’s all around us.

Through various testing done on animals, we are now finding how ingestion of this chemical substance can be toxic both to animals and to humans as well. Governments are now restricting the use of PVC’s in canned foods and plastic materials.  Major manufacturers from the food industry to the children’s toy industry must be more vigilant about our health care and stop using PVC’s in the production of their products.

In 2008, the American government banned the use of PVC’s in the manufacturing of children’s toys.  Research on children health care with regards to products made with phthalates and PVC’s shows severe developmental issues interfering with the children’s hormones. But wait, that is not the only horrible consequence of children being exposed to PVC’s. Birth defects have been noted in baby boys resulting from the influence of phthalates, and there has also been reporting of testicular cancer, liver problems, and early onset puberty in girls, which is also a risk factor for breast cancer in latter years.

The government banned PVC’s in toys but neglected another area just as important. They neglected schools supplies. There are so many schools supplies such as backpacks, lunchboxes, binders, pens, pencil cases, thermos, crayon cases, and more that have PVC’s in them.  Children are inundated with PVC’s and it does not stop there.  There are other toxins such as cadmium, and/or organotins and lead that are a danger to children’s health care.

These toxic substances may be ingested, or seep out and distributed in the air where your children will breathe in the vapors.  It doesn’t matter how much or how little exposure a child gets to these substances, they are toxics and therefore dangerous. We need to put pressure on the government to ban the use of these toxins in school supplies as well.  Our kids are at risk and so is their future, not to mention the drain on the health care system for all the medical attention that will be needed to treat our children as these toxic substances destroy their young bodies.

You can detect PVC products by looking at the label, if it says vinyl it contains PVC’s. Some products will be labeled PVC or V, or number 3 and that can be found under the recycling symbol. Avoid these products, as well as shiny backpacks with plastic designs, modeling or Crayola Air-Dry clay, notebooks, which have plastic on them, or plastic spirals holding them together, and colored plastic paper clips.

Don’t be fooled by shoes and shoe brand knock offs. For example even though the brand names shoes like Crocs are PVC free the charms on them may not be.  Crocs knock off, Kamid Doodle are made with PVC’s.  However you may be happy to know that brand names shoes such as Nike, Puma and L. L. Bean are PVC free.  

Until the government is willing to take action and legislate against PVC’s in children’s products and until manufacturers of children products take their social responsibilities seriously and stop using PVC’s on their own, we as parents have no choice but to monitor everything that goes anywhere near our children.  We must boycott the products that have not conformed to standard and save our children from future damage to their health care and well being. We must avoid a catastrophe before it happens.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Children, Health Insurance | 44 Comments »

The Need for Proper Health Care Coverage for Fibromyalgia Sufferers

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009

It goes without saying that healthcare coverage in the United States of America is extremely expensive, so much so that 47 million Americans are not covered at this time.  However, for people with chronic illnesses even with coverage, they may not have access to all the services afforded other Americans with complete coverage.  Times are hard and paying for insurance coverage or even having proper coverage is even harder.  Victims of chronic illnesses are under a lot stress stemming from their maladies and this pressure is also transferred onto an   already strained health care system.

People with chronic illnesses use the services more for doctor’s visits, medications, treatments and diagnostic testing.  However, not every illness is picked up by diagnostic testing at this time. This happens quite frequently in the case of chronic pain. Certain types of chronic pain will be seen on x-rays, blood testing or resonance imaging tools such as the MRI, and then there are others like fibromyalgia that do not leave telltale signs. The diagnosis for fibromyalgia is defined by widespread pain and 12 out of 18 trigger points (tender points) must be notated. Fibromyalgia is a disease of the central nervous system where the body detects pain yet there are no physical indicators as to why this pain occurs.

According to the American Pain Foundation, fibromyalgia is one of the leading chronic pain disorders facing Americans today.  They report that it affects 2-5% of Americans and that translates to 6,000, 0000 people. The onset of this disorder is between 20 and 55. Different studies have shown that sufferers of fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome not only use health care services more often than other pain sufferers they are also mostly unemployed due to their debilitating illnesses.

Furthermore, women are 9 times more likely to contract the disease than men are.  Women are already in a precarious position when it comes to health insurance. Generally speaking they have lower incomes, and less insurance.  Many women are not even insured at all.

People with fibromyalgia who have not been diagnosed are in a very precarious position.  They know they have pain, and the go from doctor to doctor trying to get a diagnosis so that they can qualify for medical benefits.  Since this illness is not readily detected on standard tests many doctors still scoff off the illness by arguing with the victims that they do not have pain, or it is a psychological disorder the proverbial, “it is all in your head,” or they are hypochondriacs.  This too will lead to more stress and illness. The figures of 6 million individuals may be understated at this time due to the reluctance of many doctors to recognize this type of chronic pain (48% of doctors surveyed according to the National Fibromyalgia Association findings in 2007).

The American Pain Foundation is sponsoring a petition, supporting the American Health Association’s efforts to combat restrictive health insurance practices for people who suffer from fibromyalgia and to make sure that they have access to all the medical benefits that they require.  This petition is being sent out to state insurance commissioners, attorney generals and other federal officials such as the secretary of health.  The aim is to get decent health insurance coverage for fibromyalgia patients and to standardize this coverage through developing a code of ethics for health insurance companies, which will provide regulations and guidelines for health insurance coverage and benefits, payment issues, and the surveillance of compliance by health insurers in this area.

Every American should have access to the FDA approved medication to relieve symptoms.  They should have access to any treatment options including physical therapy, cognitive therapy and more. Beside access to these medications and treatments they should be affordable.  Health insurance companies as well as large pharmaceuticals need to put profit aside and do the ethical thing.  In a country as big and as wealthy (in comparison to other countries of the world) as the United States, there is no reason why fibromyalgia sufferers should be singled out in this way.  Fibromyalgia is a real disease like any other.  It is not a figment of a hysterical woman’s imagination.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Health Insurance | 1 Comment »

The Need for Proper Health Care Coverage for Fibromyalgia Sufferers

Thursday, June 25th, 2009

It goes without saying that healthcare coverage in the United States of America is extremely expensive, so much so that 47 million Americans are not covered at this time.  However, for people with chronic illnesses even with coverage, they may not have access to all the services afforded other Americans with complete coverage.  Times are hard and paying for insurance coverage or even having proper coverage is even harder.  Victims of chronic illnesses are under a lot stress stemming from their maladies and this pressure is also transferred onto an   already strained health care system.

People with chronic illnesses use the services more for doctor’s visits, medications, treatments and diagnostic testing.  However, not every illness is picked up by diagnostic testing at this time. This happens quite frequently in the case of chronic pain. Certain types of chronic pain will be seen on x-rays, blood testing or resonance imaging tools such as the MRI, and then there are others like fibromyalgia that do not leave telltale signs. The diagnosis for fibromyalgia is defined by widespread pain and 12 out of 18 trigger points (tender points) must be notated. Fibromyalgia is a disease of the central nervous system where the body detects pain yet there are no physical indicators as to why this pain occurs.

According to the American Pain Foundation, fibromyalgia is one of the leading chronic pain disorders facing Americans today.  They report that it affects 2-5% of Americans and that translates to 6,000, 0000 people. The onset of this disorder is between 20 and 55. Different studies have shown that sufferers of fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome not only use health care services more often than other pain sufferers they are also mostly unemployed due to their debilitating illnesses.

Furthermore, women are 9 times more likely to contract the disease than men are.  Women are already in a precarious position when it comes to health insurance. Generally speaking they have lower incomes, and less insurance.  Many women are not even insured at all.

People with fibromyalgia who have not been diagnosed are in a very precarious position.  They know they have pain, and the go from doctor to doctor trying to get a diagnosis so that they can qualify for medical benefits.  Since this illness is not readily detected on standard tests many doctors still scoff off the illness by arguing with the victims that they do not have pain, or it is a psychological disorder the proverbial, “it is all in your head,” or they are hypochondriacs.  This too will lead to more stress and illness. The figures of 6 million individuals may be understated at this time due to the reluctance of many doctors to recognize this type of chronic pain (48% of doctors surveyed according to the National Fibromyalgia Association findings in 2007).

The American Pain Foundation is sponsoring a petition, supporting the American Health Association’s efforts to combat restrictive health insurance practices for people who suffer from fibromyalgia and to make sure that they have access to all the medical benefits that they require.  This petition is being sent out to state insurance commissioners, attorney generals and other federal officials such as the secretary of health.  The aim is to get decent health insurance coverage for fibromyalgia patients and to standardize this coverage through developing a code of ethics for health insurance companies, which will provide regulations and guidelines for health insurance coverage and benefits, payment issues, and the surveillance of compliance by health insurers in this area.

Every American should have access to the FDA approved medication to relieve symptoms.  They should have access to any treatment options including physical therapy, cognitive therapy and more. Beside access to these medications and treatments they should be affordable.  Health insurance companies as well as large pharmaceuticals need to put profit aside and do the ethical thing.  In a country as big and as wealthy (in comparison to other countries of the world) as the United States, there is no reason why fibromyalgia sufferers should be singled out in this way.  Fibromyalgia is a real disease like any other.  It is not a figment of a hysterical woman’s imagination.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Health Insurance | 5 Comments »

Obama’s Reform and how it will Affect Individuals and Health Insurers Alike

Thursday, June 25th, 2009

The state of healthcare in America is in dire straits, 47 million Americans are without any healthcare at this time and many more are under insured.  Unlike any other industrial country in the Western hemisphere, the United States is the only country without universal healthcare coverage for its citizens. Universal healthcare is needed and has proven to be an affective healthcare system in other major countries of the world providing public access.  Is it not important for the citizens of the USA to have proper health coverage?  Questions right or a privilege always surface.  These questions will probably be debated for years to come but why has the USA not adapted universal health to date?

People will argue that public health care could never work in the USA due to the size of the population.  The population of countries already using a public healthcare system is much smaller than that of the United States.  Public officials of all levels of government have visited neighboring Canada to speak with Canadian government officials and study their healthcare system now for over 20 years.  However, each time whether it is a president of the United States or the Mayor of New York City, they go back home shaking their heads and saying due to the size of the population it would be too expensive to implement.

Another reason for not having a public system at this time is the healthcare infrastructure at present.  Healthcare in the United States is a function of the private sector not the public sector.  Furthermore the system is not based upon individual or family access; instead the USA employs an employer-based system where the onus of health coverage is placed upon the employer to provide for healthcare.

At present the system is crumbling, less and less employers are providing coverage for their employees and small companies are feeling the brunt in these less than favorable economic times.  The crisis is that even though employers are finding it hard to afford group insurance coverage for their employees due to rising healthcare costs in a world recession, the individual and family is faced with even higher costs when they try to obtain private healthcare coverage.  The costs are astronomical and it is getting to the point that only the wealthy and financially stable upper middle class can afford to get personal and family insurance at this time, yet people who are not with means are suffering at this time. Americans want healthcare, they just cannot afford to purchase it.

President Obama is in favour of public health care to go hand in hand with the private healthcare system currently in place. Obama has said that Americans need to have that option available to them.  Public health care will also provide competition for the private sector and as Obama put it, “keep them honest.”  Obama expects to have a Bill tabled by October concerning a major overhaul in the health care system.

Although the populace is divided on the issue of whether or not there should be both a public and private healthcare system available to all Americans, it comes as no surprise the health insurance companies would be against this plan.  Let’s face it; it would cut into their profits.

The AHIP (American Health Insurance Plans) is the national association for over 1,300 insurance companies providing health care coverage to over 200 millions Americans.  In order to remain competitive they to have announced major cost saving reforms to keep down the rising costs of healthcare. They intend on doing this by standardizing administrative cost throughout the system.

Insurers now feeling the crunch of a different system in the wind are now promising to make healthcare more affordable for personal and family coverage.  They are considering lowering the coverage so that it is not based on the healthy versus the ill and they will sell insurance even to people with pre-existing conditions.  This major reform will make health care more affordable to an additional 50 million people.  They have not yet addressed the issue of people in small businesses, or self-employed who remain uninsured at this time.

This market is very lucrative for private insurers, and some are not even willing to acknowledge that small business and self-employed individuals need health care reform as well.  Well Point, for example states the system in place for small businesses and self-employed works well as it is.  Well Point is a Blue Cross provider.

Blue Cross Blue Shield is actively against Obama’s healthcare reform.  Where Obama states that the crisis in the healthcare industry is what is adding to the current recession, naturally a private insurer who stands to lose money if there is competition from the public sector will strongly disagree.  They claim that providing insurance to the uninsured at this present time would only jack up the cost for people who are currently insured, as they will bear the brunt.  Blue Cross Blue Shield is planning a very aggressive campaign to oppose Obama’s reforms.  They stand to lose a lot of money should the reform go through.

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Crisis Situation, Health Insurance | No Comments »