Everyone—except those at the higher reaches of the conservative movement in America—acknowledges that far too many Americans do not have health insurance. And most people understand that this has costs for all of us. Nationwide, about twelve percent of our insurance premiums go to cover the costs of the uninsured.
But that problem might not be the most severe problem with health insurance in America today. A deeper issue may be the efforts of insurance companies to deny coverage care to people who actually have insurance.
Health Care For America Now (HCAN) is holding a rally tomorrow to address this issue. For more on HCAN see my earlier post.
11:30 am
Independence Blue Cross
1901 Market Street
We know from the anecdotal evidence we are collecting that there are many people in this state who are paying high insurance premiums for policies that
- Won’t cover their chronic diseases because they are “preexisting conditions.”
- Won’t cover diseases that are new to the individual if there is a reason to think they were suffering from it before the policy started.
- Have very high deductibles
- Have very low lifetime limits
- Won’t pay for the best possible care.
And we know that there are many people who are denied decent health insurance because they are too old or sick.
But we don’t know how many people fall into these categories since our insurance companies don’t tell us how many there are.
So tomorrow we are going to demand that the health insurance companies in the state, starting with the three biggest, Independence Blue Cross, Highmark Blue Cross and Aetna, reveal this information.
We are going to call for passage for HB 2005, a bill that would limit the ability of private insurance companies to charge more for those with preexisting conditions
We are opening an 800 phone line which Pennsylvanians can use to tell us their horror in dealing with their health insurance companies, 800 764-1832.
And we are going to ask everyone in this state to look closely at their health insurance policies to see what is covered and what not.
Health care is going to be a central issue over the course of this election year and the following year. Before they reach some conclusion about what kind of health insurance system we should have, Americans need to know what kind of insurance they have now.
We think many Americans are going to be surprised to find out that they can’t really count on their health insurance.