One good reason to favor single payer health insurance is the gross inefficiency of our current system.
The month before Dennis' contract at the university was to end, we both signed up for Medicare. With the end of his contract came the end of employer-subsidized Blue Cross health insurance. Our Blue Cross insurance shifted to the retirees' plan.* We were all set.
Then at the end of June, came a new, unexpected contract. All the insurance changes had to be undone and redone. Here's the amount of paper these changes generated at our house. The stack is 2 1/4 inches high. How many hours employees spent generating this flood is unknown.
As it happens, both the employee's and retiree's insurance is with the same company. If they were different companies the paper accumulation would have been even greater. But why within one company why must there be more than one plan? Why not just charge retirees more for the same plan they have been on? Well, because of Medicare. Medicare is primary and Blue Cross supplemental is just that.
Health care is such a mess in this country. I wish we could apply a little logic and simplify the system for everyone, insurance companies included.
*Under Medicare with supplemental insurance our monthly premiums would total more than $800. While Dennis was employed our health insurance cost was $127 each month.
The month before Dennis' contract at the university was to end, we both signed up for Medicare. With the end of his contract came the end of employer-subsidized Blue Cross health insurance. Our Blue Cross insurance shifted to the retirees' plan.* We were all set.
Then at the end of June, came a new, unexpected contract. All the insurance changes had to be undone and redone. Here's the amount of paper these changes generated at our house. The stack is 2 1/4 inches high. How many hours employees spent generating this flood is unknown.
As it happens, both the employee's and retiree's insurance is with the same company. If they were different companies the paper accumulation would have been even greater. But why within one company why must there be more than one plan? Why not just charge retirees more for the same plan they have been on? Well, because of Medicare. Medicare is primary and Blue Cross supplemental is just that.
Health care is such a mess in this country. I wish we could apply a little logic and simplify the system for everyone, insurance companies included.
*Under Medicare with supplemental insurance our monthly premiums would total more than $800. While Dennis was employed our health insurance cost was $127 each month.
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