A new survey revealed that a majority of “big employers plan to shift a larger share of health-care costs to their workers next year,” reports David S. Hilzenrath from The Washington Post. The survey found that 56 percent of employers plan to make their employees pay more of the costs next year. A lot of companies say they might “charge more to cover spouses, tighten eligibility standards for their health plans and dispense financial rewards or penalties based on the results of certain lab tests,” states Hilzenrath. Some companies even say that overweight employees might be excluded from the most desirable plans.
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Amanda Bennet lost her husband of 20 years to a grueling battle with kidney cancer December 14, 2007. Bennet’s husband, Terence Bryan Foley, fought for seven years, and had been told several times that he was going to die, yet somehow made it through. Bennet and her husband were forced to make several difficult decisions throughout the seven years, and every choice they made was made to save Terence’s life regardless of the price. They had “robust” medical insurance, which allowed them to keep on fighting. Bennet says, “We didn’t have to think about money, allocation of medical resources, the struggles of roughly 46 million uninsured Americans, or the impact on corporate bottom lines.”
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A new study revealed that food-borne illnesses cost the United States $152 billion a year in regards to health-related expenses, which is much more than what was initially estimated. Christopher Doering from Reuters states, “The price tag includes medical costs, lost productivity and quality-of-life.” “Food safety advocates are hoping the study will boost efforts in Congress to overhaul the nation’s antiquated food safety system that has seen consumer confidence plunge,” reports Doering.
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For heart patient Frank Amend, an engineer from North Carolina, his heaviest expense is healthcare, unlike the average American family whose mortgage would be at the top of the list as their biggest expense. Reuters states, “That’s why Amend and tens of thousands of patients with similar conditions find themselves at the center of debate over how to reform the $2.5 trillion U.S. healthcare sector — and whether the country can afford it.”
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Dr. Pauline W. Chen from The New York Times says being a doctor involves knowing the clinical facts like the back of your hand, but it also involves being aware of a patient’s economic reality. She recalls a time when she told one of her patients that he was to pack gauze into his open abdominal incision every day in order to keep it clean and healthy, and then come back in a few weeks for a check-up. However, when the patient arrived for his visit, Dr. Chen noticed the patient had not been changing the gauze as ordered, and his wound was no longer healthy and clean. When Dr. Chen began to stress to him the importance of changing the dressing, he pointed to a stack of unopened gauze, and said, “Hey, Doc … Do you think I could have the extra? This stuff isn’t cheap.” She says she filled the patient’s pockets with gauze, and then began to realize the importance of embracing the social and economic aspects of health care. She says, “It [is] possible to learn about the economic and social aspects of health care while immersed in the details of biology, physiology and pharmacology. And it [is] impossible to become a good clinician without doing so.”
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Kjersten Forseth from The Huffington Post says that in order for our economy to recover, we must reform the nation’s health care system. She reports that, “884,000 families have been forced to file bankruptcy because of medical bills and over 44,000 people have died from lack of coverage all while medical costs continue to rise. Medical debt is the leading cause of bankruptcies and foreclosures in this country and health care costs account for one-sixth of our nation’s economy.”
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