Lutheran Medical Center where costs can be high w/o insurance like other hospitals[/caption]Carol Forsloff---“The Cost per day for hospitalization averaged $3,949 in the U.S. In 2012, followed by Chile at $1,552. The average hospital cost for a U.S. patient’s total stay was $15,734; Germany was next at $5,004. “
A one-day stay at a first-class, brand new Kaiser Hospital in Portland, Oregon was $275. Why so inexpensive? Insurance and integrated medicine. And the quality of that stay? The very definition of compassionate care that virtually anyone around the world would agree was exemplified on that day.
The quality of hospital care in the average hospital? Medical errors have risen, together with prices; and so the emphasis on care has been swamped by costs instead.
Interestingly enough the statistics for a person's chances of being hospitalized are unavailable, but the numbers hospitalized for certain conditions reflect the problems exist. Diabetics, in growing numbers, are a group that requires frequent hospitalization for various conditions, some of which, like heart disease, can lead to death.
For many people the lack of insurance means serious financial burdens that can drive people out of business, cause people to lose homes and allow many people to die prematurely, as they bargain with themselves not to get help when they need it because of the costs.
Yet fear drives much of the discussion instead of the reality check that declares that those without insurance, and under the past rules set by insurance companies alone, meant that folks paid a high price both in personal health and wealth.
An entrepreneur who goes into business who lacks health insurance risks that business the moment the door says open. So rather than causing a business to flounder because of being required to have insurance, it is more likely than not that business will have a better chance of success if the folks who manage the business and those who work for it have health insurance and don't have to worry about that average hospital stay of 5 days with the cost at more than $15,000. That absorbs much of the start-up costs that people need to initiate a business, and that stake can be lost with health risks.
A high percentage of Americans maintain they aren't happy with their jobs. According to Forbes magazine only 12% of employees are happy with their jobs. How many might go into a business or work at something they really like, as opposed to working for an employer just to have health insurance. For without group coverage, most insurance companies have rejected individuals with certain preexisting health conditions.
So the business person given an option for insurance regardless of health conditions can go into his/her own business without fear of losing everything just because of an illness or accident and the resulting medical costs.
Tonight as people go to bed, the US Congress squabbles over health insurance, with demands that the newest offering be abandoned for at least a year, and according to some, forever. And many of the poor who need it have been afraid of the plan. And why? Because those who were part of the ever-growing schemes that multiplied costs and passed them along to consumers, while not taking persons with health risks so they might have to pay health care bills too high, have stood in the way for years. And without everyone's participation, insurance costs will continue to increase, as greater participation spreads those costs over more participants.
The father who can't get health insurance because of a heart condition, the woman who is sole support of her and her ailing mother gets pneumonia, stays home, and enters the hospital emergency without insurance and too late for that hoped-for resolution to health, number in the millions each year that health insurance is unobtainable or available only at prices so exorbitant that only the well off can pay.
It's time for that reminder, as the evening closes the day that workers' health is the true basis of a nation's future, for without it everything else will fail.
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