An admitted hatchet job from the WSJ points to the failings of the current state of health insurance in the US:
When Lisa Kelly learned she had leukemia in late 2006, her doctor advised her to seek urgent care at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. But the nonprofit hospital refused to accept Mrs. Kelly's limited insurance. It asked for $105,000 in cash before it would admit her.
Huh?
Hospitals are adopting a policy to improve their finances: making medical care contingent on upfront payments. Typically, hospitals have billed people after they receive care. But now, pointing to their burgeoning bad-debt and charity-care costs, hospitals are asking patients for money before they get treated.
What follows in the article is a detailed account of the hardships Ms. Kelly endured trying to get her leukemia treated. It is not a pretty story.
As more and more employers back away from providing health insurance to employees, as they shift more and more of the cost burden, and as employees are forced to seek insurance in the individual market, more and more of them will be un- and under-insured.
It's not something that the market can solve, not in the current form as the market is geared to limit the risks they take on in an effort to maximize profitability. It's something that must be addressed on a national level or else stories like this one will be commonplace.
