In the News Maybe you're next on the "rescinded" list?

Laws must be passed to make this kind of practice illegal, and those that are responsible be held accountable.

It's similar to credit card fiasco, since they just take your money,raising rates and premiums, giving innocent, unsuspecting people a false sense of security that they're paying way too much for, and ability for these "providers" (providing themselves with your money at an astounding profit, and leaving "victims" with no protection and/or benefits).

My daughter had been paying about $200 monthly for health insurance coverage for herself and her child with the company she works for. When it came time to use it the first time in 6 years, the deductible was $3000, and it turned out it didn't cover very much at all, with a lot of out of pocket expense.

Paying $200 month for 6 years is a lot of money that she would have better off putting it in a savings account or some other mode of making the money benefit her, instead of making the health insurance company richer with no return for her and her child. It's robbing a large amount of her hard earned money with no benefit.

Corporation executives and accountants, deliberately planning to dump their health policy customers when they become sick... Sorta reminds me of Premeditated First Degree Murder.

Jack: Oh no...not a big bad universal health care system like the big bad boogie man Obama is trying to obtain for American people! All kidding aside...I totally agree with you Jack. It just amazes me how dumb Americans can be, when I see people protesting health care reform. Not long ago, these were the same people whining about how much their medicines are costing them! When are people going to realize that insurance companies and the pharmaceutical industry are just as powerful as the oil companies? All three of these entities have the American public by the whiskers and have no intention of letting go! Good luck President Obama...nice try...but universal health care or reform, isn't going to happen in a country as backward as America has become.

Jerry: Politicians don't want to bite the hand that feeds them and their political machines. We as Americans vote them into office, but their decision making is not fueled by a concern for their constituents at large. Follow the money and you can get a glimpse of how health care reform is going to pan out...it simply won't happen. I hate being so pessimistic, but now we even have Sarah Palin calling health care reform "pure evil" The majority, middle class, average Americans are going to go the way of the dinosaur; no one is looking out for us.

I had heard that insurance companies try very hard to deny paying out medical claims, and now I know the word, recission, that the industry calls it. Whatever they call it, it is essentially theft. The insurance industry accepts the application, and the insurers also have the power to review the medical records of each individual applicant, so how can the insurance industry claim that the applicant applied falsely ? Moreover, how come each of our state legislatures aren't doing something about this ? I think they also must be in the pocket of the industry as well. We need real health care reform, ASAP !

If you haven't been to a hospital in a long time, this is what happened to us. After graduating from college in 1997, a medical nose surgery cost $100 in co-pay and deductibles; my employer paid about $150 a month in full healthcare insurance (single).

Twelve years later and now laid off with a growing family, it cost $1,050 a month in COBRA to cover my family, $25 in co-pay for each visit with the Internal Medicine or Pediatrician, and that's not the end of it. There are more confusing deductibles and the maximum family out-of-pocket expense per year is $5,000.

Just before the end of the year, my daughter had a surgery. Six month later and a new year, a second surgery was preformed. So, I end up paying $10,000 in out of pocket medical expense within seven months WITH BlueCrossBlueShield medical insurance. Even as a CPA, the job market is very tight and I can't delay or drop healthcare insurance because my daughter has a mild chronic illness.

If I don't find a new job that covers healthcare benefits to avoid going bankrupt, then I'll "retire" in my 30s to qualify for Medicare or pack up and leave this country hall of shame!

This is scare tactics! BS! No one can give clear answers on the Govn't managed health care! How much more will it burden the tax payer? Increase our taxes to who knows how much? I have had private insurance for my entire life with NO Problems! I've been told I can keep my current private insurance by some yet is this a definate? However, I have read that this bill dictates that "big" business has 5 years to convert to the National plan or a hefty penalty will be imposed & the small businesses & self-employed guy has less time to convert? So who is right? I want proof, put your money where your mouth is!

I'm with you John, I'm Canadian as well, although I live in California. I find that while in the pursuit of "free market" and in defense of the "American way of life" corporations are able to manipulate the people into accepting substandard treatment. Its silly. The corporations once they have enacted the power-words like socialism, or communism, wow... just sit back and let the people do the work for them- "laughing all the way to the bank".

The problem with our health care system in america is the fact that the government already has a universal health care plan, you just have to be dirt poor to qualify for it.

So your job fires you if you use your insurance and they wait for you to become dirt poor and sick and then the government covers you, and the hospital gets to charge inflated rates for everything. Thats how socialism already inflates our system.

If you want an apartment in a bad big city neighborhood you have to pay 700-900$ a month rent, minimum for a one bedroom because the governement has a program [Section 8] that pays the rents for low income people who get on a waiting list that takes 3-5 years to come through, then the landlord charges 1200$ to the government.

In exchange, the government gets to quiz you about your finances, your children, your life, you lose your privacy, and if you arent on the government plan, you cant afford an apartment. Where I live, everybody is on the dole, because nobody can afford not to be, thats what is being protested

Socialism already exists in inner cities, and in the UK, Austrailia and Canada they have something that we dont really have here "Tall Poppy Syndrome (TPS)" "a societal phenomenon in which people of genuine merit are criticised or resented because their talents or achievements elevate them above or distinguish them from their peers"

TPS is a MAJOR problem in the ghetto, and why kids are beaten up for being an individual, having opinions and threatening the accepted social norms for a society which is highly regulated, and totally dependent on multiple layers of government programs. Liberty and freedom and sovereignty and individuality is a foreign concept, crime is high, expectations are low and america reinforces its approval by electing a black president who was raised by his white grandparents far away from exposure to the actual black experience in a Socratic school with the full expectation that he would be accepted with open arms into the guardian class.

NO Mr. President - Bush was a fraud and so are you

This overdiagnozing, overtreating, 15 min doctor visit, no preventive care, money hungry profit machine = US Health Care, needs to burn!

Yea, its called private insurance and you are the consumer, but as a consumer you know nothing of the product ot service you are buying, you dont know what the service should cost, or what others are paying. It's like some sort of Nightmarish Supermarket of HealthCare Services with no PriceTags and all the shelves are coverd, and you're really not sure what u're getting, but you're told that you really need it, and that you will die without it tommorow.

Live and work all your life, contributing to society just to be broke latter....

They can call what other countries having SOCIALIST or slap some other BS tags on it, it's still better than having no coverage, at least its not "PROFIT ONLY" coverage.

All those talking heads on CNNS and CNBCS discussing debating these issues, and oposing government sponsored plan for everyone, prob never been in this kinds of situations, when they are denied live vital servie care, simply because the CEO of an INS CO needs another private jet.

This coutry has a big share of stupid people, who been taking it up the rear, for a long time, and still dont realize whats going on, or think that will not happen to them, if they are oposing the public plan.

Born in Canada and experiencing the joy and
comfort of having universal health care and
watching my mother also in her eightie's feeling
secure in her skin because she has the medical
professional at her side. They call her monthly
to check on her condition, send medical professionals to make sure she takes her medicine
properly and if fed and bathed if she needs help in that area. The government believes it is better
if she continues to live in her happiest of environment, her own home, rather than spend the money on an unfamiliar assisted living or nursing home, where she would die quicker from the stress! What I don't understand here in
America, living here almost thirty years now,
that the collective view point of trying to
help all peoples of all colors and backgrounds
like we do in Canada, why is this concept so hard
to understand? Love thy neighbor as thyself!
We need more of this law to help those who need the medical help, regardless of the costs! Human
lives are more important than profit margin!
And until we can graps that concept, we are
pretty much doomed to hell...

What a shame.
The United States is one of the richest countries in the world but ranked almost dead last in Health Care to our citizens.

I remember looking at the movie by Michael Moore called SICKO and cried. It’s a dam shame.

The CEO’s of the for profit Health Organizations don’t care about the common person like you or I. They only care about their multi million dollar salaries with their private jets and lavish vacation retreats.

America spends billions of dollars to kill people. Why can we do the same to help people?

God is going to punish us dearly for the way we treat our common man.

Unless the President, White House staffs, Congressman and Senate give up their health care benefits that are paying by US tax payer and come up a new bill that will apply to them as well as the rest of US citizens. Reform is just another dream for election.

I do not profess to having anything near a proficient knowledge, or wisdom to solve this problem or to say which way is best. However, there are some important things to consider when we compare our care to the world's or as we think of possible solutions.
One important point is that when you look at Canada, "Their drugs are so much cheaper!" people tout, one must realize that is because the government mandates them to be so. The Canadian government tells companies what they can charge. Companies can't turn a profit in Canada so they go on, do the rational thing and charge us more. You can see in the section on Switzerland, that part of their pharmaceuticals (1/3)are funded by us Americans. In a sense, they can showoff their cheap and Universal health care, in part because we help them out. Not mentioning the technology our R%D provides.
Don't get me wrong, corruption is a huge problem. Despite the challenges to health care our companies always seem to do fine-more than fine. Obviously, because of their Lobbying. Some of the bills introduced to our representatives our written by these companies. You can see how so many issues really come back to election reform.
It is also important to realize that we are not a free market system. If we were people would know prices, companies would compete to lower them, it would look like a business. We are disconnected from our care and it cost not only because prices are not advertised or standardized, but because this third-party payer system so far removes us from the cost of the care. To those of us employed by a powerful union our premiums and coverage may be manageable, but not profitable to the company. So they are forced to charge higher prices to those in less powerful negotiating blocks, and they get the brunt of it. It can further be said that this disconnect from care to cost causes much inefficiency.
I don't want to take up all the space here so I will conclude with these things to think about. I don't know the answer, but I do believe that many of these countries with Universal care are looking at projected bankruptcy if they stay the course(Japan and Germany specifically). I think one solution that is obvious to all is the Taiwanese technology model that streamlines administration. Put this into effect and stop the lobbying-fed oligarchy by opening up competition and regulating fraud, and we'll see those 22.5% admin costs fall.

If you haven't already, I would highly suggest that you read T. R. Reid's The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care. There is a world of answers in this book pertaining to the various health care systems of industrial democracies or the world and comparing them to ours. The Canadian and German people quoted above are right on! Our system is not only the most expensive in the world (17% of GDP with Germany next at 10% of GDP) it is also ranked only 37th in quality by the W. H. O. We are the only country in the civilized world where a person who contacts a chronic illness or has a debilitating accident can be forced into bankruptcy. 62% of personal bankruptcies are caused by either a chronic illness or debilitating accident. Our present system is a ntional disgrace.