You and Health Care reform?

Well here we go again. Another emergency! The health care reform bill MUST be passed before Congress goes on break! Why? They will be back in a month for crying out loud. As a matter of fact, they should take the month and read the bill. I mean really read it. I bet that there is not a single Representative or Senator who has read anything but an abstract of the bill. They should read it all unlike they did with the stimulus bill. Everyone is still reeling over that one with all the "earmarks" and special interest insertions. Hog Crap! That bill should not have been passed either because no one read it. They may have by now but they had not when they voted for it.

From a small business standpoint, health care is a serious matter. Most surveys show that employees would rather have paid health care than raises in pay if it came down to that. In my case, I have insurance through a small business I am part of (6 employees). Each year our health insurance program is renegotiated in July. The insurance company tells us what the plan we have now will cost and some options to reduce the cost which has usually meant less coverage unless we wanted the accept the 30% to 50% increase in premiums. This year, however, guess what our premium increase was? 0! Really, 0%. Same as last year for the same coverage! Amazing!

The reasons for no increase are pretty simple:
1. No covered employee or their family member had a serious event or required a huge difference in their medications.
2. Our insurance company, Community Care, is local. They are not a big national company with huge overhead and poor judgement. I know the people over there including all their top management. I made it my business to know them. We have had some serious fights but guess what, we worked it out. Did we always win. No. Sometimes they won. But what is important is that they gave us a fair hearing and we worked it out.
3. They have a practical bone in their corporate body. I am diabetic. Before some serious surgeries, it was very hard for me to see the numbers on the syringe I had to use to give myself insulin before each meal. My Primary Card Physician prescribed an insulin pen and I could count the clicks it made to determine the correct amount of insulin if I was in situation where I could not see the numbers. The insurance company said they did not cover that. I called my agent, who knewthe President of the insurance company, and he explained my dilemma to him. He met with his staff and agreed to cover insulin pens for anyone who needed them.
4. Four years ago we switched from a PPO to an HMO and that was hard for everyone. But guess what? We got used to it and now we all think it is terrific. All the horrific stuff you hear about the national company's HMO's may be true, but not for our local group. Different? Yes. Terrible? Not at all. When the President of our company was diagnosed with cancer, Community Care assigned someone to him and gave the family the green light to take him to M.D. Anderson or wherever they wanted to go. They would fly him there. Unfortunately, he died within 7 days of diagnosis, but the insurance company was there and it made a tremendous impact on the family, myself and my family. Imagine that? An insurance company that cares! So do not lump them all in the same category.

So, get off the national kick and find out what is available locally. Seriously, find out before you are sucked in by the Presidents Socialist agenda and Nationalized medicine.

What do you think?