Health Insurance for $8.50 a month!

[CREATIVE1]

Healthcare for $8.50 a Month?

The Ithaca Health Fund blazes an innovative trail
—By Adam Overland, Utne.com


Utne Magazine--January 8, 2004 Issue

The Ithaca Health Fund proceeds systematically to make preventive and innovative health care more affordable, and to recapture health insurance premiums for local health purposes.

According to the United Nations, our health system ranks 37th in the world, far behind first-ranked France and second-ranked Italy. The main reason for our poor performance is that healthcare here is seen as a for-profit business. In every other industrialized country, healthcare is a right delivered through some sort of national health program.

Activists in Ithaca, NY, have created a local non-profit fund (think co-op supermarket) to pool money in order to reduce health costs, support each other, and make healthy living easier. The need for this arises, they say, from the fact that costs of health insurance and care rose by half in the last decade. Thousands of Ithacans have no medical insurance at all, and others have simply poor coverage, with high deductibles. Their situation is much the same as the rest of the country -- 44 million Americans have no health coverage. But as national health coverage is consistently looked upon with disfavor, by members of congress and the industry which lines their pockets with our cash, Ithacans have taken to a grass-roots plan in hopes that it will grow throughout the country.

Members pay as little as $100 per year for limited coverage for catastrophic care and emergency services. However, as membership grows, coverage expands. What's more, members need not pay merely in dollars. They can also pay in community service hours, home visit credits and barter. Further, the plan allows for independence among members, lending credence to naturopathic and homeopathic remedies which have proved useful in the past.

Above all, the plan is an affront to a system which uses 52% of the budget for military spending (past wars and war debt, plus present spending) while health receives a mere 16%. The Ithaca Health Fund is not just insurance, but a collective challenge to a collective (un)consciousness that has left many of us broke, and broken.
-- Adam Overland





 




 







 


      
 





 






     
 





 





       
 

[Amanda_931]

Must be nice.  Although this was just for catastrophic problems.

But I wonder--without seeing at the whole article--what kind of a population they were serving.  

Or whether they had enough clout to beat the medical provider's prices down to what the Blues pay (sometimes 30-40% of what an individual walking in with no insurance would be asked to pay).

And, whether, for instance, they could afford to have as a subscriber (this was a notorious example) a family one of whose children had bone cancer.

[CREATIVE1]

Go to their website for more information about this.  Sure, it doesn't cover everything, but since lots of you are doing things that can result in accidents, most of that is covered.  This plan is mostly available in New York, but could spread throughout the country.  

www.ithacahealth.org

[glenn kangiser]

Good idea, Creative.  Kathy pays so much for us at her work we could almost finance our own major medical coverage --but then there's always the chance of  the big one. :-/

[Amanda_931]

The worst about trying to self-insure is that something that the Blues (Cross or Shield) or other big companies would pay $1000 for would end you up with a bill of from $1500-$4000.  And I'm afraid that the range really is that big.  In other words, the uninsured are subsidising the insured.  

There were a couple of low-cost clinics in the Nashville area.  But with the most available--no catchment area, for instance--those guys catchment area is New York state, the minute you got sent out for x-rays, for instance, you got to pay that place's prices.

[glenn kangiser]

The $1500s to $4000s are not the ones that worry me although bad enough --- it's the $100,000.00s and up that are a bit bothersome. :-/

[CREATIVE1]

That's when its good not to own stuff so you can file bankruptcy.

[glenn-k]

Seems they just put a cork in some of the simple bankruptcies for the common people.  I'm not sure what it will effect but there was a big rush to file a few months back.

[CREATIVE1]

Seems they just put a cork in some of the simple bankruptcies for the common people.  I'm not sure what it will effect but there was a big rush to file a few months back.

What happened is that fewer people will qualify for Chapter 7--wiping away debt--VS Chapter 13--paying back a percentage of the money over time.

[harry51]

Quote from Amanda:[highlight]The worst about trying to self-insure is that something that the Blues (Cross or Shield) or other big companies would pay $1000 for would end you up with a bill of from $1500-$4000.  And I'm afraid that the range really is that big.  In other words, the uninsured are subsidising the insured.
[/highlight]
My sister-in-law was diagnosed last year with two different types of rare cancers that attack the salivary glands and lymph nodes. After surgery and chemo, she needed neutron ray radiation treatments to finish up the protocol. This particular treatment is available only in Boston or at Washington State University in Washington state. She was uninsured. The price quoted for the regimen was $55,000.00.  Through a personal friend in the insurance industry, and a University clerk who made the mistake of supplying her with the Medicare code for the procedure, she was able to discover that Medicare pays $12,000.00 for the same procedure, and insurance companies are billed around $26k to $29k. She bargained with the University powers-that-be to no avail. They had all the cards in their hand, and she had to borrow the money to pay for the treatment.

I don't see government controlled health care as the solution, but it's abundantly clear to me that there is plenty of room for improvement in the current system.

[CREATIVE1]

There are actually insurance cards that are simply designed to get around this problem.  I don't know who's selling them now, but I think they cost $20.00 or so per month.  All they do is reduce your cost, but hey--it's something.

[CREATIVE1]

http://www.insurekidsnow.gov/

Look at your state for insurance information for your kids.