Essay 1

I am taking an English course this semester.  I have decided to post each essay I am required to write for class.

The following is the first of the essays:

There is an ongoing, polarizing debate occurring in the United States right now concerning the idea of health care.  There seems to be a common belief that there is a lack of affordable, quality healthcare in the U.S..  The response to which has become a debate about how we are going to get people insured. On one hand, conservatives appeal to private industry to insure as many people as possible, while, on the other hand, liberals look toward governmental solutions requiring taxation and the consolidation of insurance.  I fear, however, that, we as a society, may be asking and debating the wrong question.  Articles such as the one I recently found by Chad Terhune entitled "Healthcare’s High Cost” have me suspicious of the need for insurance.  Perhaps we should shift our mindset from our dependence on, and our addiction to insurance as a solution, to questioning the place of insurance, and thinking of affordable solutions to healthcare outside of the insurance paradigm.  

Though this article is was written over a year ago, and draws on information from David Belk’s research which predates the article, it is more timely now than ever.  Mr. Terhune’s article and Mr. Belk’s research speak to the greater community of Americans, who are currently scared.  Many people are losing the insurance policies they once held.  Many employers, in response to the climate of uncertainty that the Affordable Care Act has unwittingly created, have cancelled the health insurance policies upon which their employees have relied. The target audience for this article may have originally been those who were afraid of what the healthcare landscape would look like going into the implementation of, what was then, the new legislation, but now shifts, seamlessly, to those facing the fears of unaffordable healthcare costs.  For all those fearful of their lack of insurance and increasing healthcare costs, this article brings the timely message of hope that one may be more able to afford healthcare by cash payments than through insurance.

    
In his article, Mr Terhune quotes Dr. Belk with an example of the cost of healthcare paid in cash versus the cost under insurance coverage: “Billing for MRIs are generally in the $2,000 range, he said. "Why on earth should it be that much? Imaging centers will do it as low as $350. But they'll bill $800 knowing Medicare pays about $500.”  I was taken aback to see examples of how the true cost of medical care is exploited for those who believe they are “covered” by insurance. I suspect that we have been brainwashed into thinking that the answer to all of our healthcare woes lies somewhere with more, and better insurance. What if we dared to challenge that notion? What if we dared to think that insurance is the problem? What if we dared to innovate beyond the insurance paradigm? This article is not the ultimate authority on the matter, it doesn't answer all the questions, or solve all the problems, but it just might point out a crack in the armor of the god of insurance to which we, as a society, bow.

Chad Terhune. "Healthcare’s High Cost'"
     The Huffington Post. The Huffington Post, June 18, 2012. Web. Updated Feb 27, 2013.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/18/pay-cash-to-your-doctor-s_n_1571564.html