A Spork in the Road

If you live in the Tampa Bay area, please drop by our office on Saturday, June 6, 2009 between 3:00pm and 5:00pm for a Health Care Organizing Kickoff.

A bunch of folks have already confirmed — we’ll talk about what needs to change in the US health care system, and how to make that happen this summer.

We’ll watch a quick video about the current Administration’s plans and what challenges and opportunities we face. We’ll swap stories. We’ll plan for constructive action instead of just griping (although griping is fun, is it not?).

Plus, Barack Obama will be there in person to answer questions.

(Okay, maybe I lied about that last bit, but the rest is true. Come. It will be worth it. RSVP online so I know to expect you.)

Dear United Healthcare “Golden Rule” Bureaucrat:

Today I read an article from the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune entitled McGuire’s payday is a shame, if not a crime, which discusses notorious former United HealthGroup’s CEO Bill McGuire who was a hot topic in 2005 until he had to step down from his position:

“Dollar Bill” has made lots of news with cash-and-stock paydays that have topped $100 million in recent years — and he’s still sitting atop stock options valued at $1.6 billion.

Now, the intellectual in me is deeply curious about the real economics of this issue. I am, for example, hesitant to support government-mandated CEO salary caps, even while I find exorbitant salaries repugnant on a personal level.

Still, the Star Tribune article points out that there is a demarcation between rewarding excellence and indulging a corrosive greed:

“Even if there’s nothing illegal at United, this is the extreme of obscenity in corporate governance,” said Brother Louis DeThomasis, the chancellor of St. Mary’s University, a onetime successful entrepreneur and a veteran board member who writes and lectures about business ethics. “We must reward excellence in performance. But handing people eternal paradise … $1.6 billion worth of options is a bit much.”

All this gets me to thinking about the underlying issue. Is health care, ultimately, about profit margins? Could we try to measure a company’s success by how well it serves its customers while still turning a reasonable profit?

My dear bureaucrat, I must believe you are at some level sensitive to the injustices of American health care. I cannot imagine that you are taking home six- or seven-figure bonuses, or passels of backdated stock options. I suspect your typical mode of travel is coach, that your vehicle is closer to a Ford Focus than a BMW Z series, that your evenings out are at places more like Olive Garden than French Laundry.

So I think you might understand me when I say that I’m not looking for eternal paradise. I just want reasonable health care. And I don’t want to die at 31.

Sincerely,
Beth Adele Long

Dear United Healthcare “Golden Rule” Bureaucrat:

My Canadian friends have begun expressing their compassion for my being American and insurance-less. Karina (a Toronto native) points out: “I’ve heard horror stories about the American health system, but it is always that much more real, more shocking, when such things happen to someone that you care about.”

Our country has its share of nationalists, as does every political region in the world. It does strike me as odd, however, that one of the things I hear nationalist Americans rail against is the health care in other Western nations. I mean really, you may not like the French, and the gods know they have their share of problems, but does an American really have a leg to stand on when it comes to criticizing French (or Canadian, or British, or…) health care? And if the American doesn’t have a leg to stand on, is it considered a pre-existing condition?

Sorry. Health care humor.

On a completely unrelated note, I’d like to thank you for daily practice spelling the word “bureaucrat.” I no longer stumble while ordering its vowels, which makes me much happier than it probably ought.

Sincerely,
Beth Adele Long

Dear United Healthcare “Golden Rule” Bureaucrat:

Riddle me this, Bureaucrat: if you were going to deny my insurance claims if my doctor found anything wrong with me in the first two years of coverage, then why didn’t you require a physical examination before you would issue a policy at all?

At least we would all have known where we stood. “We will issue you health insurance, but only if you are completely healthy. We won’t take your money unless we are guaranteed that it will cost us nothing.” I could have dealt with that. We all would have been on the same page.

But let’s not focus exclusively on the past; the future, full of possibility and (dare I say it) hope, still looms before us. So here is some exciting verbiage, which I would like to share with you. It’s taken from our President’s Fact Sheet on Health Care (PDF):

“(1) GUARANTEED ELIGIBILITY. Obama and Biden will require insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions so all Americans, regardless of their health status or history, can get comprehensive benefits at fair and stable premiums.”

Did you HEAR that? “Comprehensive benefits.” And “fair and stable premiums.” And “regardless of health status or history.” I mean, how nutso is this: they want to offer health insurance to people who need it. I’m excited. Are you excited? I’m excited. Definitely, definitely excited.

Not that this will cover the quarter of a million in medical expenses I’ve racked up in the past seven months, even if Obama and Biden succeed in passing their health care reforms. (How much of the “retail” cost of my bills would you have had to pay if you’d been stuck with providing me health benefits? I have yet to do the calculations, but I estimate in the $70,000 to $90,000 range, not counting my $5,000 annual deductibles and lo the many items you would have excluded from my coverage. That last part would have been entirely my own fault, though, for ever letting that dogged eHealthInsurance sales rep talk me into purchasing your crappy ass coverage.)

It’s rainy and cool here in Florida: the weather is here, wish you were beautiful.

Sincerely,
Beth Adele Long

Dear United Healthcare “Golden Rule” Bureaucrat:

I would like to thank you for denying my insurance claim and rescinding my coverage while I was in the middle of chemotherapy.

For many years, I experienced a deep and paralyzing fear of making noise. I don’t mean audible noise: I mean Making Noise, attracting attention, asserting my will in a noticeable way. I am particularly phobic of that childhood bugaboo, “Getting in Trouble.” I am hyperaware of, and hypersensitive to, social conventions. I am convinced of my own culpability.

I am ashamed to speak out.

When first I received the news, halfway through my treatment for the deadly disease of lymphoma, that you were denying me health insurance, I choked on fear and impotence. I wrote a half-hearted letter announcing my intent to contest your decision, but I felt helpless and hopeless standing on the shore of your unfathomable bureaucracy. I considered cashing your check and giving up. I wallowed in my own inadequacy.

But now, thanks to you, I am shedding my fear, shame, and doubt. I am making phone calls. I am writing letters. I am doing my research. Most importantly, I am daily reclaiming my power to speak out not only for myself, but also for all those who have been violated by our health care system. I am waking up and making noise and floating on the buoyant realization that I cannot control the injustices of the world, but I sure as hell don’t have to take them quietly.

And for that, I’d like to thank you.

Sincerely,
Beth Adele Long