Diagnosing & Curing The Nation's Health Care Ills
Tuesday, June 23, 2009SUSIE GHARIB: President Obama said today there's room for a government-run health insurance plan to compete with private insurers. At a news conference, the president said he's optimistic about the progress health care legislation is making in Congress and it's time for a sweeping overhaul of the system. Now when it comes to footing the bill, the president said his reform plan will not add to the nation's record deficits.
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We simply can't have a system where we throw good money after bad habits. We need to control the skyrocketing costs that are driving families, businesses and our government into greater and greater debt.
GHARIB: While President Obama wants quality, affordable health for all Americans, deciding what that coverage actually includes is a big part of the health care debate on Capitol Hill. Without a defined standard you may think you have enough coverage, but you may not. The American Cancer Society says one in seven cancer patients ends up in serious debt. As Stephanie Dhue reports, it's because for many patients, insurance coverage hits all the wrong notes.
STEPHANIE DHUE, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT CORRESPONDENT: Jamie Drzewicki is singing the blues and while it sounds cliched, who could blame her. After a cancer diagnosis and six months of treatment, her insurance company told her she had reached her coverage limit for the year. The bills since have left her with nearly $100,000 in debt.
DRZEWICKI: The envelope please. As the envelopes started coming, I realized I was in trouble, but I was deathly sick. So what do you do? You put them in a pile and you try to deal with it.
DHUE: Dealing with it has transformed Drezwicki into an advocate for health care reform. She wants insurance coverage to be easy to understand.
DRZEWICKI: You just don't call the 1-800 number on the back of your card and say I've got cancer. What will it cover? How will I cover this?
DHUE: There is no standard definition of what health insurance covers. Dan Smith of the Cancer Action Network hopes lawmakers will give patients certainty over costs.
DAN SMITH, PRESIDENT, CANCER ACTION NETWORK: One of the things we'd like to see concretely done in this health care debate is actually to put some kind of limitation on out of pocket costs for patients, some number that's a reasonable number, that if you cross this line and you actually end up in a different kind of insurance area, where you are going to get coverage, so you don't end up in medical bankruptcy.
DHUE: House Democrats want a cap on money patients spend on services. Their plan also envisions a basic package that includes free preventative services and also mental health services, dental & vision for children. It would set up an advisory panel to recommend a benefit package standard. Health care advisor Gail Wilensky says defining health insurance and what's covered will ultimately involve tough choices about care and cost.
GAIL WILENSKY, CHIEF ECONOMIST, PROJECT HOPE: In the United States we are pretty open ended about if you're insured, what you can get access to. In a lot of other countries, it's much more standard, traditional. We have good evidence that this is a responsive treatment for your problem and if it doesn't work, that's where we're stopping.
DHUE: What could stop health care reform are the disagreements over just how it should be done and who pays, even as lawmakers generally agree the system needs fixing. Stephanie Dhue, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT, Washington.
