The Health Reform Act, Obamacare Facts

Here in the United States we have had an ongoing problem for many years now regarding our healthcare. Costs have been steadily climbing for over a decade and many people have been affected by these increasing costs.

A few years ago the Affordable Health Care for America Act was passed. This bill was drafted to help address some of these out of control costs and to help every American get reasonably priced health insurance.

Obviously this bill has been under incredible scrutiny from the congressional debate process to the President signing it into law. Legal challenges have been filed regarding some of the constitutionality of pieces of the bill, like the mandate requiring all citizens to purchase health insurance. It could be a very long time before all of this gets resolved through our court system.

I admit that there are portions of this bill that I do not like, but there are parts that I do. Personally I’m glad that something was actually done to address the health care industry situation because it has been spiraling out of control for too long. There is plenty of opposition to this bill as is but, honestly, how many bills get passed by our legislators that everyone agrees with? It’s kind of impossible in my book.

I remember going into open enrollment at work every year dreading how much of a jump my health premiums were going to take. It was such a helpless feeling because when you have a family you just have to get insurance.

We are a young family of four and have been relatively healthy. Recently I switched our health coverage to my employer backed one because our big HMO was just costing way too much. For our family, where both adults were in their early thirties, the premiums had gone up to about $125 a week just for the privilege of saying you had insurance. Of course there would still be extra costs for visiting the doctor, lab work, etc. I switched coverage because I just couldn't justify spending over $500 just to have insurance. I can only image what the older generations were going through because I’m sure they are being charged more.

I work for a fairly large corporation. They were almost in the middle of the pack on the 2011 Fortune 500 list with revenues over forty billion dollars, definitely not a small operation.

I share my company’s size because in August of 2011 I noticed something wasn’t right during a self examination. Being a part time hypochondriac I initially thought the worst, cancer. After my scare I tried to surf the internet to get an idea of what might be causing my uh, condition. That was probably the worst thing I could have done because I got even more scared seeing all of those traumatic images.

I bit the bullet and made an appointment with my doctor to get his expert opinion on what was going on with me. He had an initial diagnosis that I was retaining fluid but he wanted an ultrasound to confirm that there weren’t any troublesome masses.

The ultrasound confirmed his diagnosis and I had what is called a hydrocele. I will spare everyone the details but if you really want to know what it is Google it. To state the obvious I didn’t even know that this was possible because I had never heard about it before.

For some people this condition develops and just stops with no further development, if you will. For others it can continue to increase and surgery is recommended. Guess who needed surgery?

The surgery is called hydrocelectomy and is an outpatient procedure. To be frank the operation was pretty quick. I showed up at 12:30 in the afternoon and I was gingerly getting into our truck to go home at 3:00. The actual “surgery” took less than thirty minutes.

Here is why our insurance system in this country is a problem. I work for a decent sized company and I have health insurance. Even with insurance this minor outpatient procedure will cost me, out of pocket, over four thousand dollars. I shudder to imagine what this would have cost if I had no insurance whatsoever because I know that there are plenty of people that don’t have any coverage at all.

Did you know that a large percentage of bankruptcies here in the US are because of medical bills and some of these folks actually have health insurance? The reports vary but some say this percentage is as high as 60%. To further emphasize this issue the percentage jumped almost 50% in just a six year period from 2001 to 2007. That is a very sad statistic and we simply have to be better than that.

Personal and political affiliations aside, this is the United States of America. We shouldn’t have to fear getting sick because of how much the doctor’s bills might cost. Maybe this bill isn’t the cure all but it does have everyone discussing this nationwide problem, that will only get worse, if we don’t figure out a solution and very soon.

No one knows what is going to become of the Affordable Health Care for America Act once it gets through the meat grinder that it is going through. Will it remain as signed or pieced out? My guess is that some parts are going to make it though the process unscathed while others get dissected; the less fortunate parts might get amputated from the bill completely.