Review: "Medical Bills Still Take A Big Toll, Even With Insurance" - NPR
This was published by Alison Kodjak of NPR on 3/8/2016
http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/03/08/468892489/medical-bills-still-take-a-big-toll-even-with-insurance
Another poignant story of unnecessary Americans suffering. As a provider that sees this day in and out, I shake my head. Not in disbelief but in fury...I'm starting to get upset.
I respect NPR, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health; they even published a poll that "shows that even people with medical insurance are still struggling to pay medical bills."
But what are you DOING about it? (In the interest of full disclosure, I've contacted people at NPR and submitted a request from RWJF and have had no interest in reviewing the plan.)
As my blog is starting to show, there are many fantastic reporters presenting the same information again and again. Insurance is not adequate. People are going without care. Communication between providers is terrible. Medical costs disproportionately affect the poor...we get it. We know this.
This article adds salt to the wound by not interviewing actual "boots on the ground" physicians who are fighting this on a daily basis. While I'm sure Linda Blumberg, a senior fellow in health policy at the Urban Institute, is fantastic at her role, I can name a hundred full time and clinically active physicians who are just as livid about this issue as any academician.
And I know of at least one of those physicians with a comprehensive plan to implement ;-)
My call to Ms. Kodjak: read the plan. Learn the plan. Share the plan. It's that simple. We've wallowed in our collective apathetic misery long enough. Time to stand up and walk towards a better future: Practical Solutions Yielding Comprehensive Healthcare.