Universal Healthcare, No One Has Proposed It!

Did you know that there is not one proposal before Congress that offers universal healthcare. All the proposals are about, requiring people to have health insurance. So what's the difference? In countries with universal health care, the patients do not make a payment when going to the doctor or the hospital. With our proposed mandated health insurance, you can still have a policy with a huge deductible. The original Senate Finance Committee proposal, called for up to a $6000 deductible/co-pay for individuals and $12,000 for families. An entire election campaign was run on the fact that people are not getting needed healthcare because they can't afford it. We heard, “Americans should not have to make choices between paying rent and getting healthcare”. But, the fact is, that everyone in Washington knows that our system would be unsustainable if Americans could access healthcare and never worry about a bill. So how does this translate to birth? The fact is, for prenatal care and labor and delivery Medicaid reimburses providers so little that it would not add up to a $5000 deductible. It is quite possible that even with health reform, a large percentage of the costs from un-complicated birth would still be paid for “out of pocket”. I am just pointing this out as a reminder, that with the massive reform bill pending through Congress, the devil is definitely in the details Alan.