Nancy Welch, Professor, Burlington
When my husband was diagnosed with tumors in both kidneys and his brain, our health insurance provider assigned us a case worker–not to help us coordinate his care but instead to restrict his access to care. Each time he needed to see a specialist, each time a doctor ordered a test or a radiation treatment, we had to contact the case worker who would later inform us that our request had been denied. We then had to appeal and wait critical days and weeks before each request was finally approved. The tumors in my husband’s kidneys were on the verge of metastasis; the brain tumor threatened the vision in his only eye. The practice that private insurance must pursue if it is to squeeze a profit from health care–the practice of limiting access or discouraging use of benefits–was aimed at running down the clock on my husband’s life.
He’s doing well today because, desperate, we called the federally funded National Institutes of Health where he has been receiving no-insurance-companies-involved healthcare ever since. It’s the kind of healthcare we all need. It is also the kind of healthcare that will never be delivered through private insurance. While for every dollar spent through the federal Medicare program, 97 cents goes to care and three cents to administration, for every dollar spent through private insurance, the amount going to care drops to 85 cents, 75 cents, even less. The rest is eaten up by the bureaucracy necessary to assess copays and collect deductibles, to process denials and appeals for treatment–everything for-profit insurers are compelled to do to make a profit. At stake in our legislature passing a single-payer or Medicare for All bill–having the political will to pass such a bill and override the veto that will come–is the health of all Vermonters who when battling catastrophic and chronic illnesses should not also be battling an insurance industry whose interests are vested in restricting and denying, not providing, access to care.