According to the Kaiser Foundation, the average premium for individual health insurance costs about US$150 per month in the United States. A typical plan with a premium in this range often includes a deductible varying from $1,000 to $5,000. In addition, patients generally have to shell out “co-payments” varying from 10 per cent to 30 per cent of the cost of any given treatment. The average premium under an employer-based group insurance plan in the U.S. in 2005 was US$335 per month. These plans are also subject to limitations.
And that's the average cost. As you get older, your premium category rises every 5 years. Not because you're sick, or have any claims, just because you're older--trust me on this. I'm now paying a bit over $300 a month for major medical with no dental or vision. They can still decline to pay for any treatment they want to, as shown in Sicko. And they can cancel me whenever they want to--which I suspect would happen if I started to make a lot of claims.
Canada’s universal health insurance system costs the government about $183 a month per person (or US$160), and the “premiums” are collected through the tax system.
I've heard plenty of stories of rationed care in Canada and the UK, and of people having to wait for treatment considered non-essential. When I was in Scotland, my driver told me people in emergency rooms often have to wait a long time because everyone is so casual about going that they're very overcrowded. But the funny thing was that he assumed that I, as a tourist, should go see a doctor for a bad cough. It never occurred to him that I wouldn't or couldn't.
Those systems are not perfect. I read the British press online every morning, and there are plenty of problems with the National Health Service. But nobody is talking about scrapping it, just demanding it be fixed. I've also read about patients fighting to get the NHS to cover new drug treatments that are not currently on the list--sort of like fighting an HMO for treatment. They don't all win in either case.
But, in any system that is based on universal insurance coverage--rather than single-payer healthcare--the insurance companies have a profit motive to deny us care. That includes most of the proposals by Democratic presidential candidates and our own dear governor Schwarzenegger. As long as "cancer is a profit center"--as John Stewart put it, Americans will continue to suffer and die needlessly to make money for others. It should be a crime.
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