I recently read an article about a couple of kids who live near me, Sean and Cody Merrill.  They have Mucopolysaccharidosis (MPS), an exceptionally rare disease whose treatment costs $800,000 dollars a month.

Through an extraordinary turn of good fortune, their father, Eric, had insurance through work that covers all the expenses.  Most insurance policies, even “good” ones, top out at one million a year, which would cover less than a month for Sean and Cody.

But as the boys reach 18, they can no longer be covered as dependents, meaning they would either have to find their own insurance (yeah, right), or earn less than $600 a month to qualify for Medicaid.

Legislation is now before the House to help remedy this situation.  From the article:

“If the Ryan Dant Act passes in its current form, anyone whose medication costs more than $200,000 annually would be allowed to work and receive Medicaid benefits.

While that would include the fewer than 1,000 individuals with MPS in the United States, it would also cover thousands of others who suffer from diseases whose treatments are prohibitively expensive, such as hemophiliacs.”

Why does our mercy stop at $200,000?  Why not $180,000?  Why not $100,000?  Why not *gasp* everyone?

Sean and Cody are essentially in the same boat as millions of Americans without insurance.  For them, insurance is either prohibitively expensive or impossible to get because of pre-existing conditions.  The boys stand out because of the extreme cost of their treatment, but all uninsured Americans face the threat of crippling health care costs, poorer health, and shorter lives.

Are these kids any more or less deserving of medical care than the millions who are uninsured?  Although the news article frames their plight as a problem with Medicaid, it is also a failure of private insurance.  No insurance company would cover them with a pre-existing condition costing millions to treat each year.  If their father was uninsured, would they be less deserving of medical care?

The answer is yes.

We’ve collectively embraced an idea; our country is uniquely meritocrious, and the only difference between rich and poor is the ability to work hard.  Not only is this demonstrably untrue, but also carries with it a smug justification for the inequalities all around us.  Poverty, according to the American Mythos, is a moral failing on the part of the individual.

And so we do have rationing of care, right now.  Instead of recognizing health care and access to it as a human right (like nearly every other country in the world), we allow the insurance and drug lobbies to hold the health of the nation hostage to ever increasing extortion.  They decide who lives and who dies, and how much we pay for the privilege of their wisdom.  They are the “bureaucrats coming between you and your doctor” right now.  We have hospitals turning patients out into the street, a practice that should be a shame to any nation with a conscience.

But it’s not the fault of the hospital, it’s the natural outcome of a system that prioritizes dollars over health. For all the talk about personal responsibility, no one can seem to stomach an ounce of social responsibility.  Yes, we live in a society, meaning we have certain responsibilities to that society.  The uninsured are our people, fellow Americans, for better or worse. Our ideology has such a stranglehold on our discourse that advocates of a single payer system, which most other industrial countries have, are virtually absent in the mainstream media and such a program is ruled out from the start by our key legislators.

Does being an American have any meaning when your fellow Americans can so casually turn their backs on you in a time of need?  Perhaps the inscription at Liberty Island should read, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, but after you get here, it’s every man for himself.”

Ultimately, you spend money on what you value.  We pay exorbinate amounts of money to health insurance companies to cover some people some of the time, while other countries spend much less to cover all the people all the time, and get better outcomes.  So when we spend all this money on health insurance, are we paying for our health, or the health of the insurance companies?

Right now, the Senate finance committee is considering allowing insurance companies to lower their payouts from 76 to 65 percent of medical bills, leaving their customers to pay the other 35 percent.  That’s after premiums, which are $3,900 for a family of four with employer sponsored coverage.

So the average hospital stay in 2006, which was $19,400, would require $2,100 more out of pocket.  It comes to a total out of pocket expense of around $6,800, for the insured, on top of premiums.  Considering the median household income in the US is around $50,000, it’s a devastating expense, sapping 21.4 percent of their gross income altogether.  Not to mention the impact on ability to work following an injury.

But we will break our backs to pay it, because we value our health and the health of our families.  What do the insurance companies value?

Guest Contributor

The economy. As if we have not heard enough about the economy. Well, we may not have heard enough. Or, in the least, we are not hearing the right things.

The Obama administration has a tremendous task on its hands: to correct decades worth of bad governmental policy and greedy business policy.

Who has been looking out for all of us all along? Obviously not big business, and certainly not our elected officials.

This week, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner testified in front of the grandstanding congressmen that make up the House Financial Services Committee. While accountability now is more important than ever, let’s stop pretending these congressmen are respectable men and women with our best interests at heart.

To begin with, one of the big outrages in the past two weeks is the AIG bonus situation. Granted, it is despicable that these lowly businessmen get any money at all, especially even a penny of money you and I earned and paid our corrupt government. But, really? 150 million is what finally breaks things open?

The 2009 salary of a rank and file congressman/senator is $174,000. Not even counting the massive House, let’s do the math on the Senate alone.

A six-year term, times 100 senators, equals over $104 million. Unlike the executives at AIG, these men and women were elected specifically to help us. Have they succeeded? Only at lining their own pockets.

Not only are congressmen pulling down prime salaries, but Newsweek reports that some of that bailout money is being funneled right back to the politicians as campaign contributions.

Bank of America has paid out over $24,000, and Citigroup over $29,000. Again, our congress is proving it looks out for itself, not the people. Blame AIG, but those executives did not have the ability to read and negate the original legislation did.

Our congress, however, did, and they chose not to. Both are profiting, but I see only one body of white men grandstanding their morality.

Secondly, we must stop pretending that insurance is good. Period.

AIG is an insurance company. What exactly do insurance companies insure? When is the last time anyone felt good about insuring themselves or something he/she owns?

With jobs falling like prices and principles at Wal-Mart, the news constantly tells us to make sure we stay insured. Is insurance not one of the reasons we are where we are today?

The company for which I work handles retirement plans. We are directly related to the market. Recently, we had to take a pay cut. It came to light that this company spends about $2 million each year on health insurance for its 500 employees. $4,000 for each man and woman employee.

Wouldn’t the company be better off investing that money in my physician? Instead, I cannot go to the doctor when I get sick because I have no co-pay. I cannot get an x-ray for months when I think my hand is broken. I paid nearly $300 for an eye injury I suffered while merely riding my bicycle.

For $4,000, I could have had all of these items taken care of, and still had some spending money. Instead, I am out my monthly due and often do not get the help I need.

Furthermore, if not for that insurance company, those doctors would not have to charge three to eight times what they should be charging anyway. The doctor charges the insured patient $70 because he knows the insurance company will only pay half. The doctor is content with the difference. The un-insured, however—the ones who probably struggle the most financially, are forced to pay the entire inflated amount.

Finally, there are the banks. The banks have been getting us all along. The easiest example: I have excellent credit and got the “best” interest rate on a vehicle. This 8 percent interest quickly turns into 50 percent when I end up paying $24,000 on a $16,000 vehicle over the course of six years.

Furthermore, I bought a house several years ago. It’s roughly double the price of my car, and my monthly payments are nearly the same. Logic dictates a 12 year note (let’s even say 15 to be generous to those poor banks). But is my home loan a 15 year note? Nay. Try 30 years. In that extra 15 years, I will have paid an extra $57,000 towards my home—nearly twice the original purchase price on top of the same amount already paid in the first 15 years.

I do not know who is more to blame. We ourselves elect our government that serves business instead of us. Heck, we even work for some of those companies. Our media knows about all of this, but has pushed it under the rug for decades. Instead, they get us angry about toy issues: bonuses, hot-button issues, cute issues (yeah, yeah Dora the Explorer now has a tween version…why did I hear that on CNN?).

Fortunately, we have a president who wants to make some changes. He’s told every day that he cannot change it all. That’s true, and I’m sure Obama knows it. But what is the alternative? The alternative is the American bureaucracy that has existed since 1777. Keeping with that system is the best way to get nothing accomplished.