Today, there are many who advocate a “Medicare for All” approach as a way of providing universal health care for U.S. citizens. Listening to a recent NPR radio interview of a young woman who supports such an approach, I realized she thinks the program will provide all of her medical needs free of charge.
She mentioned paying a large medical premium each month for her employer-sponsored health insurance, which covers prescriptions but not dental or vision care. Plus she lamented she still has to use her own money for co-payments and out-of-pocket requirements.
Apparently, she doesn’t realize that even basic Medicare, parts A and B, requires the beneficiary to pay a monthly premium of more than $100 plus co-pays. Unless the recipient pays additional premiums for supplemental insurance, there is no coverage for prescriptions, glasses or contacts, dental care or long-term care.
I believe that everyone should have access to affordable health care. But taxpayers should also realize that good, reliable health care is neither free nor cheap. Someone must be willing to provide the money that builds the hospitals, hires the doctors and pays the nursing staff. My own family has learned that lesson many times over.
In 1908, my maternal grandfather’s oldest brother, Cecil, passed away from peritonitis caused by a burst appendix. When summoned, the local doctor traveled to my great-grandparents’ farm to treat my uncle for a severe stomachache. He quickly diagnosed an inflamed appendix, but he wouldn’t perform surgery unless he was paid in advance. By the time my great-grandfather could arrange to haul some livestock to town to sell, it was too late for the appendectomy that might have saved Cecil’s life.
A few years later, my grandmother’s youngest brother, Quinten, was also afflicted with an inflamed appendix. Calls to family members some distance away resulted in arrangements being made with a doctor who agreed to operate if the family could deliver Quinten to the city hospital. With the help of the family’s mare, Quinten and his father made their way over snow-covered country roads to Colusa, where they caught the local mail train. Eventually, they arrived in Burlington, Iowa, where Quinten would have the surgery he needed to save his life. Iowa family members made certain there was cash available to pay the bill.
Today, hospitals and doctors cannot turn patients away for lack of being able to pay their bills for emergency health care. But those emergency situations often result in large bills that keep patients from seeking future health care if they don’t have insurance to help pay the cost, especially younger patients who do not qualify for Medicare or Medicaid.
Medicare was signed into law in 1966 by Lyndon Johnson because many senior citizens could not afford private insurance, which penalized them for their age. My grandmother, who had no employer-sponsored insurance while working for minimum wage as a bank teller, was finally able to afford insurance when she retired in 1967. It was also easier for her to get medical care because roads had improved and there was a new hospital in the area. She was able to live independently in her own home until she passed away in her mid-80s.
My immediate family had no health insurance coverage until my father left farming to work for General Electric. From that point forward, my parents were covered by insurance as long as Dad was working. When he retired, my parents picked up Medicare but realized they would also need a supplemental policy to cover what basic Medicare wouldn’t provide. The cost of the supplemental was so high, they decided not to add optional coverage for prescriptions, dental or vision. They had no idea they would live long enough to need long-term care with illnesses requiring thousands of dollars worth of prescriptions.
The financial legacy they dreamed of leaving to their children was completely decimated by the time they passed away. Fortunately, the memories of helping them celebrate so many birthdays are far more important than the money I could have inherited.
My Uncle Quinten eventually married and had five children, who are cousins I hold dear. But I often wonder what might have happened had Cecil survived long enough to provide more cousins to share our family history.
Roxanne Frey is a University of Illinois retiree who occasionally publishes in local newspapers and magazines. She has experience working on the census and teaching genealogy classes. Currently, she researches and writes about her family history from her home in Oakland.
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An evolution of medical care | Opinion - Champaign/Urbana News-Gazette
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