Small Business Owner Speaks Out on Health Reform

Hear, Hear! Everything that Lou says is absolutely true.

Great Job! All small business owners should watch this. As we say in Jersey Single Payer is Simple, Economical and Human.

I will post this on my coalitions website.www.njoneplan.org

Thanks Lou

Have you joined your local “single payer” group? If not, go to Healthcre-NOW.org to find out where the local groups are in your state.
It is the grassroots that must push Congress and Obama to enact a single payer bill, HR 676.

A healthier economy, a healthier populace.

I was a small business owner, 15 employees and 5 family doctors. I was embarrased not to be able to provide really first class insurance to my employees because it was too expensive. It is hard to make a living in primary care when the insurance companies cause your overhead to be 65% in order to hire the staff to jump through their hoops. And while the companiy is denying care to my patients and bundling my charges and underpaying doctors (I know that is hard to believe, but true) the CEO of United Health Care took home $20million . I support single payer. Go to PNHP.org for the truth about single payer.

In this small business man;s honest and crttical statement about the need for single ;payer instead of his private insurance plan. The insurance plan gets steadily increasing rise in costs but doen’t provide the service exprected which create a groundswell of disgruntled staff who don’t get the care needed..

this video should be made available in the highest quarters of heath care planners in the democratic party– from Baucus, and kennedy to President Obama and his staff..

Lou,
I agree that something must be done. I cannot tell you what that solution would look like since I haven’t spent much effort on that thought. My time is spent trying to educate the average employee on how to simply utilize the complicated insurance plan we have in place. It is not only the very small businesses that are gritting their teeth at renewal. I work for a company of approximately 115 employees and can tell you that we start dreading renewal upon receipt of our mid-year utilization report from the carrier. Most public documents are written at the 8th grade reading level. Take an average American and ask them to explain their basic health plan and you’ll not get much of a response. Try explaining to them that they must pay a weekly premium for coverage out of their paycheck, then a co-pay at the doctors office, a co-pay for brand, preferred or generic (depending on the prescription written) to the pharmacy. If the individual needs outpatient surgery the cost will go towards the deductible. Oh, and if are not too ill and can plan the outpatient surgery they may be required to make a substantial deposit prior. On top of all that, I hope someone did not miscode a procedure. That will surely further complicate the issue.
Let’s talk about trying to be an educated consumer of health care. What a joke. I personally had a procedure and could not determine what the cost would be for me and I work directly with employee benefits. The lab couldn’t tell me how the carrier would pay. The carrier couldn’t tell me what they would pay until they received the coding. The doctor’s office could not tell me how the lab would code the procedure. Can someone please tell me how to get out of this vicious circle? Let’s not talk about introducing the high deductible health plan to the average employee. We’re still trying to educate them on the way the current plan works and get them participating in FSA. FSA – That’s another conversation in itself.
I could go on…
If you want the simple twisted and turned into something unrecognizable just give it to Washington. This is exactly what has happened to our health care “prevention” system.
I fully support your efforts in getting the ear of Washington!