Terry Thompson’s Blog

The heated debate over health care reform centers around what health insurance concept we are going to have in place for the future.  The big question is about the roles government will have relative to the private insurance industry.  Rather than get into that controversy today, I want to address a critical issue concerning insurance for cancer patients under a “reformed” health care concept.

When my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1998, I had a good primary insurance plan and a good secondary supplemental policy.  The primary paid 75% of allowable costs of medical care, and the supplemental paid the other 25%, both after reasonable annual deductibles.  If the treacherous disease comes your way, this insurance set up is the best possible situation.  When Connie passed away in 2001, we had amassed a total cost of over a half-million dollars for her cancer treatment.  During those three years, my only out-of-pocket cost was the few hundred dollars in deductibles each year.  Everyone should have this type of insurance coverage.  Personally, I do not believe the government would or could ever ensure the type and level of cancer treatment we got for virtually no cost to us.  It would be a bureaucratic nightmare and bankrupt in a few years. 

The private insurance that we had, and that I still have, is the best of all worlds.  If that is unaffordable or unattainable for some people, there is private catastrophic insurance at reasonable cost that just covers such conditions as cancer or heart disease.  The unaffordability and inaccessibility of health insurance is more a factor of high health care costs and lack of employment benefit packages with sufficient coverage.  These are also complex problems, but problems we should be resolving rather than leaning on the government to pay for our high health costs and to cover our missing benefits.

Two major reductions in health care costs would solve much of the problem.  First, tort reform would permit doctors to avoid paying half of their income on malpractice insurance, so their charges could be less.  Second, progress in integrative medicine would mean drugs would be more efficient and less needed.  Encourage your government representatives to focus on the real problems.  

This entry was posted on Friday, August 21st, 2009 at 15:59 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.