Nancy Pelosi's Health Reform Press Conference

I didn't catch the whole thing but, Nancy Pelosi had a press conference this morning and dragged out cancer patients who each had specific tales of woe with regard to their existing health insurance companies.

The one woman I did hear was a woman who had cancer and racked up substantial medical bills and almost lost her home.

First, the woman complained about the having to get stuck with a $500-a-day charge to control her nausea while receiving chemotherapy. I might be wrong but, I think that $500 a day shot might not even be covered under the proposed tamped-down and government dictated health care system; simply because it would be too expensive under the government guidelines. That's one of the primary complaints about nationalized health care in many other countries.

Second, it appears she survived her cancer. However, in both Britain and in Canada, many types of cancers have lower survival rates than in the United States. Much of this has to do with the long queues and delays in receiving care. For sure, cancer never takes a vacation while you wait to see a doctor or wait to get any needed procedures. Furthermore, the newer and better, but more expensive, procedures and drugs aren't always available in many countries with nationalized healthcare. Again, purely because of the costs. This, too, is responsible for the lower-than-U.S. survival rates in places like Britain.

Third, she apparently had a low cost but high-deductible insurance policy. Not all medical insurance policies are equal. Some have low monthly costs but have high deductible rates when it comes to certain types of medical procedures, like surgery, or, as in this case, chemotherapy. People don't seem to understand that many insurance policies only pay 90% or 80% of their medical bills for much of the medical care that is outside of routine tests and doctor's visits. It is truly a pay me now or pay me later kind of situation. If someone has a policy that covers 80% of the cost of surgical care and they have a bill for heart surgery that is, say, $200,000, they will owe $40,000 of their own money against that billing. When people buy insurance, they need to understand this.

Lastly, she acknowledged that she had a sub-prime loan on her home and that she was, at one time, about to lose it because of her medical bills. She also said that she was only able to keep it because of the intervention by her Congressional Representative, Jim Cooper. That says to me that she apparently is a person who went on the "cheap" for both her home mortgage and her medical insurance. It is truly too bad that she has had these problems on top of cancer. However, people get themselves into problems by not understanding or reading the contracts they commit too. Further, no one should ever assume that their life will be a life without problems. All too often people gamble that they won't get sick or they won't lose their jobs. However, life hardly ever deals anyone that lucky of a hand. In fact, more than 1/3 of the 46 million who "don't" have health insurance could afford it but elect not to buy it. In most cases, they are younger people who think they're to young to get seriously ill.

Contrary to today's dog and pony show by Nancy Pelosi, the health care reform that is being proposed by the Democrats isn't better care. This woman has her life; even though she's got some financial problems. Under the government-run health care system that is being proposed, every patient will get their medical care with, figuratively, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid looking over their doctor's or surgeon's shoulders and advising that physician as to what they can or cannot do. What Pelosi did today was what most lawyers do in medical malpractice lawsuits to garner even bigger jury awards. Nancy found the worst of the worst examples of people who had problems with the current health care system. But this is a distortion.

I think everyone wants some kind of reform of our health care system. But, people are balking at Obama-Care because they see less care and higher costs. Many don't trust the Democrats after the debacle of the failed Stimulus Package. Even many Democrats are now having trouble buying into Obama-care.