A year ago I decided to shed my company health plan and buy an individual plan with a high deductible for my family. The cost of my employer plan had reached nearly $900 for my family of 4 who never use health insurance, and the deductible was $1000, which meant that any care we have received in the last 10 years would have been unreimbursed. I found a plan with a deductible of $7000, which I could combine with a Health Savings Account for $481 a month. How clever, I thought. I have really bucked this system! I just got my bill for the health insurance plan that Premera Blue Cross decided to provide for me in place of the plan that I signed up for a year ago. A few weeks ago I had received a glossy color sheet describing how my plan was changing, due to health care reform. My new plan would cover all health maintenance with no charge to me out of pocket, but would no longer have any coverage for various alternative medical services or eye care services. The overal...
The cost of health care in the US is higher than anywhere else in the world, and yet we are not healthier than our peer nations. In fact, in terms of such measures as infant mortality and life span, we don't measure up. Why is this? Many people involved in providing or receiving care have some pretty good ideas about what costs so much, and what we can do to reduce costs and improve quality. Sharing these stories is an important step in creating affordable universal health care.