 "Photo: David Walters/The Daily Gamecock")
When Charles Bierbauer, dean of the College of Mass Communications and Information Studies, was asked by a friend to explain the new health care reform bill he said, “I am helpless in describing health care reform.”
So are many others, and in order to clear up the many questions people have, the University of South Carolina held a forum called “De-Mystifying Health Care Reform: What it Means to You.”
The goal of the presentation was to “demystify health care by explaining it’s contents through meaningful dialogue and interaction” according to Darcy Freedman, an assistant professor and centenary faculty in social disparities in built community environments in the College of Social Work.
While the official bill is just short of 2,000 words, John Ruoff, research director of South Carolina Fair Share, tried to explain it in a manner easy to understand. He explained that the actual bill is complicated, long, and even most politicians have only read a short-hand cheat sheet of it. He also said that while Democrats and Republicans disagree on a lot of details in the bill, there are main points on which they agree.
“If the plan passes, it would probably require all United States citizens to have heath care, large employers to provide health care to their workers, prohibit co-pays on preventative services and have more people eligible for Medicare and Medicaid,” Ruoff said.
The main goal of the plan is to have health care be affordable for everyone, organizers say. In addition, contrary to what Rep. Joe Wilson believes, “the new health care plan will not cover illegal immigrants,” Ruoff said.
According to Ruoff, the new plan will also prevent insurance companies from cancelling insurance, prohibit companies from placing annual caps on benefits and make it illegal to deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions.
The biggest argument regarding the plan is where to procure funding. President Obama requires the bill to have no cost, which means there has to be some other way to raise approximately $900 billion to fund new programs. The House wants to tax citizens whose income is over a million dollars, while the Senate wants to lower incentives for hospitals and save money rather than tax.
For college students, there’s a lot on the line. People under the age of 26 might have to start paying for their own health insurance. Many young people do not have insurance because they can’t afford it, and many people think they simply won’t get sick.
The money would enable the government to pay for the most expensive age group — 50 to 65 years old. The thinking is just like the thinking behind social security, young people must contribute to the system now to get taken care of down the road.
The seminar also pushed college students to get involved.
“You have a major advantage living two blocks away from the state capital. Get involved, get educated and network,” Alan Tauber, president of USC Graduate Student Association, said. “Look online and research health care reform.”
11 comments
Also, I would like someone to get a hold of the pharmaceutical companies and make them behave. It is ridiculous that people I know send away for their daily heartburn medication, blood pressure, cholesterol medicine,birth control pills & whatever else medications to foreign countries because their governments regulate the price of medications and make them affordable for their citizens. Why should I be paying for all that ridiculous advertising the drug companies now seem to think is necessary? I'm going to take what my doctor tells me regardless of all the TV commercials and I'm going to get the cheapest (generic) version available from the cheapest source (be aware people and call around before filling your prescription there is a vast difference in price from pharmacies, and Wal-Mart is NOT always the cheapest. On a recent prescription for an antibiotic I called every pharmacy within a 5 mile radius, including the grocery store and Target. The difference in price ranged from $48 to $30, with Target being the cheapest, but Publix and CVS were very close seconds. AND its different for each medication! So just because one is cheap for that prescription, doesn't meant they will be for another. You must be vigilant and call them all each time you have a different prescription!
And, frankly I'd like to have a doctor. We, our family members, only go to the doctor when we know we need an antibiotic to take care of some problem, which is rare. I haven't had a "physical" in years. And the last time I had a mammogram was 12 years ago, when I though it was covered by my insurance. They tricked me. It was covered if my deductible had been met, of course it wasn't (did I mention we don't go to the doctor?) so I got an unexpected bill for over $550 in the mail. I now read all the fine print and then call for confirmation that I read my policy correctly. By the way they just raised our rate to over $600 a month and that's for no preventive care, a $40 co-pay each time we go to a doctor for an office visit. If the doctor preforms any procedure, then that negates the office visit and it falls under our deductible, $10,000, and we are responsible for the office charge and whatever "procedure" was performed. If we weren't paying any health insurance we'd have an extra $7000 a year and could go to the doctor. But there's always that fear that someone might get really sick, or be in some catastrophic accident and we might actually meet that $10,000 deductible (of course we'll have to borrow that money from somewhere) and then be responsible for 20-30% of all other "covered" depending on what they are. I mean really! And we're healthy people, luckily, we have no "conditions" or known health problems, because we can't afford to find out.Health care should be a non-profit business. It used to be. The doctors took care of the sick who paid him as they could and he made enough to support himself and his family. But somehow it became an industry. Those involved should certainly be paid salaries equitable to their education, skills and experience. But when did health care become big business? Education is not, fire-fighting and police protection, libraries are not. Our health care system has gotten out of hand and the insurance companies, hospital boards, private practices, pharmaceutical companies and all other health related fields are in it for the bucks, their profits, their stock holders and the patients be damned, they are just the revenue. It is sad.