msdcourierObama’s controversial universial health care plan must be enforced
Posted by msdcourier on October 14, 2009
In a group of 1000 teenagers, three to five will develop severe scoliosis and ninety-one will suffer from asthma. Both of which fall into the category of pre-existing conditions and cause an inability to obtain coverage once teens are ruthlessly kicked off their families’ insurance plans. The current health care system discriminates against and exploits people every day, teenagers not an exception.
Research conducted by Healthreform.gov confirms that the current system denies 12.6 million non-elderly people health insurance because they have pre-existing conditions. Pre-existing conditions include medical issues that people have before they apply for a new health insurance plan. Insurance companies stick these labels on hard working, kind human beings to justify not providing them with medical care. Pre-existing conditions range from cancer to conditions even more prevalent among teenagers including asthma, respiratory illness, epilepsy, diabetes, and scoliosis. Two years ago, I was diagnosed with severe scoliosis and I had a spinal fusion operation to treat the condition. My type of scoliosis can lead to lung collapse and death, if left untreated. When I finish college, I will no longer receive coverage from my family’s plan, it will become almost impossible to receive quality health insurance. If my mother ever lost her job, my pre-existing condition would prevent my family from obtaining private insurance because the government fails to regulate private insurance companies correctly. When these companies see scoliosis and spinal fusion under the medical history on an insurance application, they can deny the application claiming that, “it’s too big of a risk.”
Insurance companies kick young adults off their parents’ plan either when they turn nineteen, or when they finish undergraduate college. All of the major insurance companies, including Blue Cross Blue Shield and United Healthcare, practice this policy. The SCHIP program (the government run children’s health insurance program) also requires young adults to re-enroll for Medicaid, in which fewer people are eligible. This does not account for graduate students or the number of young people who work at service oriented jobs that do not provide health care coverage for their employees. “Obama-care” reforms would allow young adults to stay on their parents’ insurance plan until age 26. This will relieve young people of the burden of paying for health insurance, while allowing them to still receive the medical care they need.
We keep hearing the words from politicians and the news media, “the current health-care system is unsustainable.” The words we need to hear are that, “The current health-care system is wrong.” According to the National Coalition on Health Care, over 22,000 Americans die every year solely because they don’t have health insurance. The United States claims the title of the land of opportunity, but how can we boast if we deny medicine to the people who need it the most? We as teens can make a difference by contacting our congressmen and senators to urge them to vote for health care reform and by raising awareness of the need to change the status quo of health care. The state of the health care system impacts our lives everyday and we can create a better America for now and the future by supporting Obama’s health care reform.
