This editorial is not about Obamacare, per say. It won’t be a support for the infamous health-care reform act nor a call for its repeal. Instead, this editorial is about health care in general, and how there’s more than one problem under the umbrella that needs to be solved.
Let us first backtrack and start from the beginning…
Last week, a NBC 4 New York I-Team investigation uncovered the story of Bayonne resident Baer Hanusz-Rajkowski.
Last August, Baer cut his finger on a hammer, an injury that he thought might need stitches. So Baer went to his local emergency room — the hospital, for our purposes, doesn’t matter. Turns out, no stitches were needed, nor was an X-ray. So Baer left that emergency room with a tetanus shot, bandage and antibacterial ointment, all administered by a nurse practitioner.
The total bill for those services: almost $9,000. He was charged $8,200 for the emergency room visit, $180 for a tetanus shot, $242 for sterile supplies and $8 for the ointment.
When asked for a comment, the CEO of the hospital blamed the insurance company, saying it decided to not renew its in-network pricing contract with the provider, which now doesn’t offer fair reimbursement rates.
It’s the expected response. The medical center blames the insurance company.
The insurance company, we’re sure, would blame the medical center or, better yet, blame Obamacare. It’s a blame cycle that never stops.
Baer’s story is a great example of how the health-care system in this country is flawed — dramatically. Obamacare alone won’t fix the problem — at least not as it’s in operation today — because it only attempts to fix one spoke and not the whole wheel.
The problem isn’t just health insurance, it’s also the health-care providers such as this hospital. Medical centers don’t have to charge $8,200 for an emergency room visit, but they do. Why? Because, until recently, they could without batting an eye, and insurance companies would cover it.
But that’s no longer the case. Now, insurance companies are not covering many medical expenses — or not covering them as much as they did in the past — and the patients are the ones who are left to suffer.
The choice ends up being a bad one for the patient — should I go to the doctor if there is potentially nothing wrong with me and pay an exorbitant bill, or should I take the chance that I’m fine and not seek help?
That’s not a choice we should force people to make.
Until we completely reform health care, though — from the health insurance to the actual health-care providers — that’s an increasingly likely scenario for many.
