Waiting for Health Care (Reform)?

This is an interesting picture of the fight for health care reform in the key state of Maine, but it’s also frustrating. Because while, as the recent Working America and AFL-CIO Health Care for America survey shows, it’s clear that a majority of working people urgently want health care reform in 2009, reporters always have to track down the person who’s opposed and just repeat what they say, no matter how silly it is.

And this guy…

Stavros Mendros, a consultant from Lewiston, is equally wary of insurance companies but his solution is to avoid them completely and risk going without coverage. Mr. Mendros said that when his 4-year-old daughter got sick recently, he took her to the hospital and paid the $1,200 bill, which he said was cheaper than a single month of an insurance premium for his family would be.

“Not having insurance saves me boatloads of money,” he said. “My biggest concern with the government taking over health care is the waiting lists. My daughter didn’t have to wait. I’d rather have a bill than a dead daughter.”

Ok, first. Waiting lists? Maybe in Lewiston, Maine people never wait for health care, but in many areas of the United States they do. Whether it’s waiting in a crowded emergency room waiting area or waiting weeks to get an appointment for symptoms you have now or waiting to go to the doctor because you can’t afford it, people wait for health care all the time in this country. And being really sick isn’t the thing most likely to minimize that wait. Being really rich is. That’s one of the reasons we need real reform.

Second, Mr. Mendros may have been happy about that $1,200 bill being less than a month of insurance premiums. But in the past year alone I have had three friends with medical bills up to hundreds of times that. You can’t control the bus that comes out of nowhere and shatters your pelvis and your elbow. You can’t control your child’s heart defect requiring multiple hospital stays and expensive surgeries. You can’t control the cancer that’s found right after you’re laid off. It’s wonderful that Mr. Mendros came out with a healthy daughter and a bill he could afford. But a $1,200 bill would push many working families to the financial breaking point. And there’s never any guarantee it won’t turn into a $120,000 bill. That’s why we need to be sure that everyone has secure, cost-controlled health coverage.