Stan, Clarence, Barry, and the Health Chatter team chat about Health Insurance.Listen along as the team attempts to make sense of a variety of health insurance complexities. This episode is merely an introduction with more detailed episodes to come.Join the conversation at healthchatterpodcast.comBrought to you in support of Hue-MAN, who is Creating Healthy Communities through Innovative Partnerships.More about their work can be found at huemanpartnership.org.
Hello, everybody. Welcome to Health Chatter. Today's show is going to be, if you can imagine, health insurance. And Barry and Clarence and I and Matthew are all kind of laughing because it's really a complicated subject. But we're going to try to dig into it a little bit and hopefully provide some clarity for everyone. we're pretty sure that, uh, we won't be able to do it all in one show.
So stay tuned. Um, we have a great, great crew. And, uh, I, I keep saying this, you know, for each one of our shows that we do, uh, we have a great research gang, Maddie Levine, Wolf, Aaron Collins, Deandra Howard, Sheridan Nygaard. And, um,
All I can say is that the research that they do for us, even though we're kind of semi-knowledgeable about most of these topics, but they really do put together some great stuff. Matthew Campbell's our production master. He's also recording our show today and he gets out the shows to you, the listening audience. Then, of course, there's
Barry Baines is our medical advisor, and he's on this show today. It should be interesting to get his perspective on health insurance. And then, of course, Clarence Jones, my great colleague and co-host for Health Chatter. Thanks to everybody. It's truly a wonderful crew. Human Partnership is our sponsor and have been since our very, very first show.
You can check them out at humanpartnership.org. Great community health organization. Highly recommend you check them out. They do really, really good, good work out in the community. And you can check us out at healthchatterpodcast.com where you can see all of our shows. You can see transcripts of our shows if you'd rather read them instead of listening to them.
And also we include all the background research that we use for our shows so that you can take a look at them as well. So check us out, healthchatterpodcast.com. So with that, Today we have an illustrious gang of Barry and Clarence. Clarence and I, we're going to talk about health insurance. And I'll tell you, you know, just to start us all out, it's confusing.
And I can only imagine, you know, here we are, we've been involved in health for a long, long time. And, you know, I could say that we're at least semi-knowledgeable about health insurance. But Overall, it's a really, really confusing mess. So, all right, Clarence, let's start with you first because, I mean, you know, you always come at this from a community perspective.
And how is it that we can truly communicate in, you know, in normal language so that people can really take advantage of information? So what do you think about health insurance overall? Where are we standing with this?
I think that we wanted to first establish the fact that it is confusing, you know, and I was looking at the research that Maddie had produced for us and she had things like HMO, EPO, POS, PPO, and all these other kinds of things, you know, HSA. I mean, all these kinds of things. And, and as a, as a, a regular person, if there is such a thing, it gets to be very confusing.
I mean, for the longest time, I had a hard time understanding the difference between Medicare and Medicaid. You know what I mean? It's just, I mean, you know, you got all these things floating around, you know, and as you talked about a little bit earlier, there are, it's very conflicting and confusing. And I'm really glad that we're able to talk about this from a, from this perspective.
where we can talk about it because I think a lot of people don't have that opportunity like we're taking at this point. So that's where I'm at. That's how I'm going to enter this conversation is that it's very, very confusing.
Barry, what's your initial thought on health insurance?
Yeah, I want to echo what Clarence said. It's very confusing because there's so much information and there's so many choices. And oftentimes when you have lots and lots of choices, uh, it becomes paralyzing for people. You don't, you know, it's like too many decisions that you have to make.
So what I, what I was trying to make sense of this is at two levels, one of them, um, you know, just to point out the one thing of, of the list with, you know, EPOs and HMOs and POS and PPOs and all of that stuff.
I think one thing is we need to at least develop a working understanding, a knowledge of what these things mean, just in general, because if you don't know what you don't know, you don't know what questions to ask. So I think there is an educational component as I was going through this and relating it to putting on my health chatter hat on the team here.
And I know before we, you know, Matthew hit the record button, we were talking that, yeah, we really need to, you know, to do this. So there's an educational component. But then the other part for me, and I just took the time to just jot down a few things that are major decision points for how you even get into this all. And so what I'm hoping is that our conversation, our health chattering,
you know, that we're going to do is just highlight some of these things. And then, you know, Stan, as you said, we're probably heading down the path of needing to do a few more shows on this to really help simplify this for our listening audience and actually for ourselves. I mean, the three of us, we're talking about how confusing it is for us.
And we're sort of related in some way to the healthcare system. So I was just, top of my head, things I was thinking of, decision points are how old you are, whether you're employed or not, how much income you make, and also what your overall health status is based on health resources that you use, because depending which
you know, where you are with all this other stuff, it can have, you know, an impact on your well-being, both for accessing, you know, healthcare resources and, you know, healthcare costs money. And so you want to be a good steward of your own resources and not get in a plan where, you know, you wind up worsening your own financial condition.
And those are, like I say, just things that pop, you know, off of my head. And And I just, my hope for our conversation is that we can really, you know, bring some increased knowledge to our audience and us, and really to help simplify this so that it's not as confusing and terrifying as it is.
As a doctor, you know, when I was in practice, you know, sometimes it made a difference what you could do depending on the insurance. And as a practicing physician, there's no way you... you know all the ins and outs of everybody's health insurance. You just wanna see your patient, learn about how you can help them, and then do the best you can.
And then all of a sudden, the health insurance they have doesn't, you know, agree with this or that. And that's another hole. Yeah.
So let me ask this question. You know, it's like, you know, when you really think about health insurance, I remember, you know, when the alphabet soup really started, it was Health Maintenance Organization, HMO. And There might have been something previous to that, but certainly that was one of them.
One of the first HMOs in the country was right here in Minnesota, and it was Group Health, which has since morphed into Health Partners. But the idea behind it was that, okay, it's one thing to treat you for a medical condition, but how is it that we can help to maintain your health and provide some prevention as well? That was kind of the idea behind it back then.
To a certain extent, many of the health plans have health maintenance aspects to them, all right? Which I think is an important component of any type of health insurance. It's one thing getting treated, it's another thing how they're helping you to maintain your health. So that might be one aspect that people should look at when they consider health coverage.
All right, so then here's the other thing. And Clance and Barry chime in on this one. It's like, for me, I'm choosing a Medicare Advantage plan. In other words, a supplement to Medicare that I have. Now, I had to go through a whole... choice process here. And because there are a lot of options that you look at, there are different providers that you can choose from.
So for me, and this is what I really want you to comment on, for me, and this is what I've been telling people as well, before you start anything, as far as what you should be choosing and paying for, etc., Number one is, how is it that, in my estimation, how is it that you can maintain a trusted relationship with your existing physicians, your health team? That's number one.
Number two, so in other words, some plans might not carry your particular physicians or your patients. Healthcare providers. Number one, how is it that you maintain trust in your care going forward? Number two is medications. So as people age, they land up taking more medications.
And that's another major variable as far as cost to make sure that your particular health plan that you choose at least can cover your medications. Fortunately, for our listening audience, many of the medications out there have generic alternatives for them. And so that makes it cheaper. Next, so this is the third then, and I want you guys to comment on it.
Are the clinics and the hospitals that you prefer to have access to All right, where do you want to go for your care? So those three things, trust with your providers, medications, and clinics and hospitals. For me, that's the basis of choice, how it is that we proceed. Go ahead, Clarence.
Yeah, so I hope I'm using the right term. So when I started to look at that, when I got into medicine, I always struggle with that. I used a broker to help me, somebody that knew the plans and she came together and she helped to share with me what could be of advantage, what's not of advantage. And so that was how I got through it until I could learn more about it, about the medical plans.
I do want to share that. I think the points that you asked that you brought up about medical plans are important. Number one is to choose the right plan. But in some plans, you have to use specific stores. like a CVS, or they have a plan with Walgreens.
And so if your plan does not have that, or you live in a place where there's a pharmaceutical desert, it creates some additional stressors for you, whether you have generics or not. And so I think that part of why it's important to have this kind of conversation is that these are some of the things that are not discussed. These are some of the unwritten things that are not there.
I mean, they're written, but they're not necessarily talked about. Or when you get these plans and you just, well, I'm gonna get this plan because it's the cheapest plan. You gotta be careful about that. And I like what Barry said about being a good steward of your money. If you don't pick the right plan, you won't be a good steward. Because they don't get your money.
So anyway, those are the kind of things for me that just really rise up to the top is that, yeah, you know, I don't know about this stuff. So let me find somebody that knows about it, that I can trust them and their opinion. And the second thing is that I have to make sure that the plan that I choose, I'm in a place where I can actually get the services that I need.
Correct.
Okay. So that's my, those are my initial.
So, so you, you, the point, an important point is a broker. In other words, you know, it's really, really hard to navigate all this stuff. It's really, really hard to compare and contrast one plan to the next. And also, you know, all the different variables. So you're recommending having or getting a broker, right?
For me, that worked. I'm just saying.
For me, too. For me, too.
All right, okay. Barry's raising his hand.
Barry's raising his hand. Go ahead. Go ahead. Just a point of clarification, okay? Yeah, yeah. When you use the term broker, I think you need to clarify that we're talking about an insurance or a health insurance broker. Okay, right. Okay? Because when some people hear the term broker... they may think of something like a stockbroker.
Oh, okay. Yeah, well, that's a good point.
So I just wanted to make sure that everybody understands what we're talking about. A health plan clarifier. A lot of people don't have access to or talk to them. So it was just a clarification.
Well, a stockbroker might be willing to help you too, Barry. I'm just saying. I'm only joking.
I'm only joking.
Okay, go ahead.
All right, so let's talk a little bit about this alphabet soup for everybody. All right, so I mentioned at the beginning here, health maintenance organizations. There's point of service, there's preferred provider organizations, as well as things that we kind of know about, Medicare, Medicaid,
And then there's also, add to that, supplemental insurance that you can get for particular plans like Medicare and Medicaid. So let's, you know, I'll tell you what, let me read some of this as far as, you know, at least definitions for our listening audience, which might be at least useful so we have a common denominator of language here at least. So,
Exclusive provider organization, EPO, is a managed care plan where services are covered only if you use physicians, specialists, or hospitals in that particular plan's network. Okay? Next, health maintenance organizations. H-M-O. Now, Barry, I don't know if that terminology is used very much anymore. Do you hear HMO very much anymore? You do. Okay. All right. Okay.
It's a type of health insurance plan that usually limits coverage to care from doctors who work for or contract with them. It generally won't cover out-of-network care except in an emergency. Okay. An HMO may require you to live or work in a service area to be eligible for the coverage.
And the HMOs often provide integrative care and focus on prevention and wellness, which is a point I brought up earlier. Point of service. It's a type of plan where you pay less if you use doctors, hospitals, and healthcare providers that belong in the plan's network. Point-of-service plans require you to get a referral from your primary care doctor in order to see a particular specialist.
This lends itself to having a good, trusted relationship with your own doc because that'll really help if you need to see a specialist in that case. Now, one other thing that we haven't touched on yet, but let's... let's at least put it out there is single payer. All right. So by having a single payer, would we cut through all of this and hopefully get rid of the confusion?
What's your initial sense of that Clarence? Do you think that confusion would be a lot, would be decreased? if we went to single payer, just to start the conversation?
You know, we've had this conversation for the longest time, you know, in terms of, when I say we, I mean, I'm speaking about myself in terms of, you know, talking about insurance. I think, yes. For me, I just believe that a single payer would be easier. I don't know how willing organizations are to do that. You know what I mean? Does that mean, you know, it's very, I don't know.
Yeah, the answer, okay, let me be real quick. The answer is yes. Okay. I like the single players.
Okay. Barry, what do you think?
Yeah, well, you know, I'm going to talk about this, that there are advantages and disadvantages to the kind of systems you have. When we, if you think of Medicare... in this country, that is a single payer system, okay?
It's a model where the government provides health insurance for every person who's 65 or, I mean, there's, but in general, for everyone, once you hit 65, and it consists of both hospital coverage and outpatient coverage, okay?
and everyone who's 65 or older gets that okay automatically um but that still covers a limited number of benefits now the good thing is that any doctor who's uh you know in the network of accepting medicare patients you can go wherever you want with your straight medicare Okay. So the big advantage is that everybody is covered. Okay. For, you know, certainly something.
So that's good with single payer. When you look at other countries and most of the, you know, more advanced countries all have at least a single payer in the sense that everybody, everyone who lives in that country has health insurance. We don't have that in this country. Okay. And that's, you know, this is a personal thing. I don't like that, that everyone doesn't have it.
But the flip side is with single payer coverage, that's just for the insurance part. And then you also have you know, issues of access. And with single payer, oftentimes, as in just one example, if you lived in Canada and their national health insurance coverage that they, that they have, everybody is covered, but for elective surgeries. So for example, um, let's say a knee replacement. Okay.
Or a hip replacement. Those typically are not emergency surgeries. Okay. Even though if you're the person whose hip is really hurting you or your knee is hurting you and they say, yeah, you need a knee replacement. waiting times oftentimes are very long.
So whereas here in the United States, if you need knee replacement, usually, you know, that could be scheduled and, you know, within a matter of weeks to maybe a month or so. If you're in other single payer systems in other countries, typically, you may have to wait months and months and months.
Yeah.
So there's a trade-off with that of having insurance and then what some of the downsides of that tend to be long waiting times for things.
So does the data really... justify that? In other words, when you say long waiting times, is there data that basically says that that's actually the case in all these countries that have single payer?
Yeah. Now, what they've done, though, again, even in single payer systems, they sort of have a little backdoor um, that if you have financial resources, they, they sort of allow you to get, you know, you're all in the national, you know, the single payer system, but if you want to pay more money, okay, you can do that.
And there are, you know, private doc, you know, doctors who are also in the national, their national health system or single payer system. And, uh, you know, uh, Stan, if you have the dollars and you don't want to wait six months to have a knee replacement, guess what? You can pay for going outside the single payer system and have your knee replaced in one month.
What's sort of interesting, again, it's at an individual level and at a population level. And I think over, we clearly try and look at the public health perspective and a broader view. And just about every developed country has better health outcomes than we do in the United States.
And they all pretty much have single payer, you know, essentially have single payer systems, which again, means that everybody who lives there can get health care. And that's not the case in the United States or or the care that that people can get. If you show up in an emergency room, you'll get care.
But but that's what you know, that's why our health care system tends to be so expensive because we don't have that good primary care system or what we were talking about before. You have an MD that you trust, that you have a relationship with. And for a lot of people,
Their doctor is the emergency room or the urgent care clinic, which generally tends to be more expensive than if you have an appointment with your doctor.
So let me ask you this. You know, I'll give you, I'll use myself as an illustration. I needed to set up an appointment to see my doc for just a physical. Okay. I called to get an appointment. And the soonest that they could get me in was, are you ready? October of this year. All right. October. October. October. Okay.
So now. I know.
Yeah. And I'm not going to last October. I'm going to. This is for a yearly physical. It would be this October of 2025. Now, I'm going to circle back to you, Barry. Excuse me, is that not a waiting time? And that's just for a simple question. And that's in a system that we presently have. It's not single payer. This is what we're dealing with in the United States.
So getting appointments, and I'm just talking appointments. I'm not necessarily talking about hospitalizations for procedures, et cetera. We're still dealing with that.
Yeah, those are clearly, there are a lot of access things, but again, that's a whole different issue. That has to be with,
where we're at with with shortages in our health care system from a provider perspective there's a real shortage of primary care providers in terms of internists family physicians um pediatricians just in in general and again i don't i don't want to be going down the rabbit hole for why that is uh but we have um a lot of doctors are You know, doctors and nurses.
I mean, it's, you know, it's right.
Right. So that's that's part of the problem.
Then we had COVID, which just totally like screwed everything up for just about just about everybody. And so all those kind of things, again, there there are issues that they relate to insurance. OK, but that's not a health and that's not the health insurance complication we have.
Once you get insurance, then you have this other bag, you know, can of worms, you know, like, you know, like you, you know, talked about where, well, you want to get in for, you know, for your annual exam and you have to wait, you know, months and months and months and months, you know. although I know, and I, I've encountered the same thing.
And, uh, then they also say, but if you'd like to be on a waiting list, cause people cancel and you have flexibility, uh, you know, you can get in a lot, a lot, a lot sooner. So, right.
So, I mean, so, you know, this whole idea of, of, you know, um, you know, in Canada, you have to wait for, you know, whatever, or in countries, um, You know, I think I mentioned on a previous show when I was in England doing some work over there and I got sick. I landed up, you know, I go into the National Health Service there. You know, I walked in, I basically said, hey, I need some. And done.
I mean, they took care of me. I didn't have to pay a nickel, even though I was from out of the country. So, I mean, I think to a certain extent, and maybe I'm,
jumping to a conclusion here, but I think to a certain extent, we are so embedded in the system that we have, the health insurance system that we have in the United States, that we're putting blinders on, looking at viable alternatives that would make it a lot easier to understand, a lot cheaper, and on the other hand, everybody would have it. Anyway, Clarence, go ahead.
Yeah. You know, you know, I, I, I almost said, I almost talked about money in my previous conversation. I mean, you know, you, you know, you asked about the single payer there, there, there still is a, for some people, there is a monetary, um, benefit to keeping things the way that they are. And I think that, you know, we have to, uh, We just have to recognize that as part of the system.
What's best for people does not all the time mean that everybody's going to get a lot of the money. And so I'm at that point, again, when we start talking about these issues, I'm at that point of just trying to get in where I can fit in, trying to figure out what works best for me. How do I share information? And hopefully that it will provide some benefits to everyone so it's a win-win.
So I know that sounds kind of like in a circle, but sometimes dealing with insurance, it's like it's a circle. I mean, like I'm going, I'm spinning around.
So Barry, maybe you can help me with this one. All right, so... And I just don't know the answer to this one. When did Medicare start? Does anybody have a handle on that? When did it first start?
Yeah, that was the hallmark of the Johnson administration. Johnson administration. It was like in the 60s. In the 1960s. Yeah. There had been, you know, historically multiple attempts to get Medicare. you know, Medicare, a Medicare type program. And I think even with, with FDR, you know, trying to, trying to do that. So that's where, but that was the hallmark of, you know, of where Medicare.
All right.
So many people in the United States get their health insurance through their employer. If you do not have an employer, obviously a group of people, typically age 65 and older, right, who are retired, don't have an employer anymore. They're retired. All right. So certainly in that case, Medicare kicks in. All right. Medicaid we'll get to a little bit in a moment.
So it became kind of a safety valve. For those that were older, it's like, okay, what the hell do we do now? I don't have employer coverage, but at least now I have this. So is it even reasonable? Is it even reasonable that employers should have to worry about this health coverage as a benefit for their employees? Why is it linked to employment?
Actually, I know a little bit about that. And what it relates to was some tax treatment. And this was tax laws that allowed companies to offer health insurance benefits to their employees and it wouldn't be counted like as income.
I don't know, again, I'm not a tax lawyer, but the whole thing that spawned employer health insurance was how the money was treated as a benefit so that when I was employed, I wasn't the beneficiary. Health benefits I was getting were not treated as taxable income and the company could deduct it all from their books. Right. And so it was a whole tax thing.
It wasn't designed because, oh, this is a better way to get money. health care coverage for people in the United States. If, you know, again, I may sound a little cynical here with this, but if anybody thinks it's different than it was, you know, a lot of tax lobbies and things like that is very, very complicated. And once that became embedded in the system,
uh good luck trying to you know to go in in a different in a different direction but but i didn't want to say one thing that again relates to something that that clarence said and i'm going to quote uh teddy roosevelt i believe is the person who said this he said you do what you can where you are with what you have Okay. And this, you know, this is the system that we have now.
So within that system, I would, you know, the question I would pose to us and to our listening audience is given this is what we have right now. how do we navigate this to make this at least work for us now? While, you know, what do they say? Think globally and act locally, you know? Yeah. Right. We're not going to be able to solve the, you know, the bigger issue.
This has been bandied about for, you know, years, actually since the turn of the, of the 20th century. Yeah. Um, way back, you know, way back when, when actually I believe, uh, There was a movement to have national health insurance like in the late 1890s or 1900s or something like that. But I'll be probably proven wrong on my dates and stuff with that. And then it just got... uh, quashed.
Um, and so, you know, there's just so many, this gets so embroiled in, in politics and legislation and laws and stuff like that, that I, you know, I certainly don't feel that, you know, I have much to offer on that piece, but, but with what we have is a very complicated system. Um, that doesn't mean that it can't be
understood in a way that help that people can get the most out of what we have while we continue to work for making it more equitable. They're just, you know, as we know from other shows we've had, there's so many disparities in health care.
But let's, you know, instead of railing against it all for something that we might not be able to accomplish in the short term, how, you know, how can we do the best we can with what we have now? Yeah, I agree.
I agree. Yet, on the flip of that is the frustration on how it is that we could make it simpler, but that's beside the point. So one thing that I'm sure a lot of us are involved with is this whole idea of open enrollment.
All right, so there's a period of time every year, it usually starts in October of every year, and it runs through, what is it, December, I think, where certainly, and frankly, this is true for some employers too, where you can choose your health plan and also you can change, all right? And Open enrollment is yes for Medicare, but also there's a period of time for employers as well.
Because I remember at the health department, we could choose between two or three different
health health plans and there was a period of time where you had to make that that choice regardless so one of the things and you know listening audience needs to understand this is how much risk you are willing to embrace okay in other words if you're if if you're really really healthy then you might take a plan you know and i'm talking let's talk about medicare now for supplement
to Medicare, you might land up signing up for a plan where your deductible is a lot lower, okay? Where you're willing to assume risk. But as you get older or you get more health related issues, then those costs go up. So the point I'm making is every year, as part of this confusion, you need to do a personal risk assessment.
And I agree with that. And I think that part, part of, you know, part of, I mean, even for me this year, my, my wife was, she was on me, like get that plan checked out, go talk to this lady that, you know what I mean? Because you're getting older and those kinds of things. She didn't have to remind me, but she did. Yeah. Uh, but you're right. I do.
I do think that during this, this open enrollment period, we want to encourage our listeners to take advantage of that. I mean, to, to do something, to, to take a look at, you know, to take a real evaluation, uh, look at, at, at, at their current situation, because for me, you know, it required because of my advancing age.
And then, you know, like, yeah, we don't put all our business out here, but, uh, uh i had to make some changes yeah so but but but again you know i was encouraged uh to do that and uh but but it was it was the right thing to do and so i think that you know people need to understand the importance of really being honest about where they're at and uh uh
know make some make some really informed decisions yep yep so um you know matthew is on the show here so so matthew how you doing so um i i want to bring in a younger perspective just for a minute or two what is it you know all right so you're employed and you get health insurance i assume through your employer okay so
What's the health psyche that you embrace when you're dealing with health insurance or don't you care? It's just whatever they give me. Thank you very much.
Well, you know, that really can depend. So as we've kind of talked about, you know, I've kind of went through different employment scenarios over the last year. So my focus on health insurance has kind of changed. So when I, I'm I my new insurance just started in January and I got to pick my plan and all of those things. And when I was going through those options, I mean, I'm relatively young.
So I wanted to pick the cheapest option or one of the cheaper options for me. I didn't pick the cheapest, but, you know, I kind of did that risk assessment and kind of had, you know, like, what do I need? What do I don't need? But at the end of the day, you're kind of limited to, you know, these kind of three plans.
Fortunately, through my employer, those are all like within my budget and very reasonable. But back up a little bit. for the month of December and for kind of like thinking about November, I, when I wasn't in times of that, I wasn't employed or didn't have health insurance. I kind of had to make that risk assessment of, do I want to try to get private insurance? Do I want to use Cobra?
Do I want to do all these things? And then all of a sudden health insurance was not affordable. I mean, it, I mean, I was looking even through Minnesota, you know, the Minnesota marketplace, Minsure or whatever it was, it, I mean, $400 a month for a deductible that was $6,000. Right. And that was just... Insane. Insane. I mean, just what's the point of even having insurance at that point?
And then, I mean, the argument could be made, like, if I was, you know, to have some crisis come up, it would at least cover something. But you had to kind of weigh that cost and risk. And so... I would say it's that constant balance of what's attainable, what am I eligible for, what is affordable, and kind of balancing all that out.
And it is really hard and complex because you can't predict the future. So it's definitely shifted based on what the options are. And of course, coming from a public health background, I'm a little biased in that I want, you know, I want great health insurance and I want to be able to go to the doctor as much as possible.
And I want to, and my utilization rate is probably going to be a little bit higher than someone who maybe is not in public health or doesn't care about it as much, but I can definitely see that it shifted. And I'm definitely seeing the cracks in employer sponsored health insurance because it really makes it challenging and difficult to kind of especially earlier in a career.
And for people, for younger people like me, it seems, we're moving companies a lot more now. And we're, and like, there's a lot more individual contributors or you're not like technically fully employed or you're a 10, nine, whatever it's called when you're, you know, you're consultant or whatever the case may be. What options then do you have? And
That's made it really challenging, I think, over the last year for me.
So let me ask you something, Matthew. Back in November, when you were looking and you didn't have health insurance, in the back of your head, if God forbid something was really happening to you, what were you going to do?
Well, so that was the case, wasn't it? I didn't know what I was going to do, but I knew that I couldn't afford the insurance rate and I couldn't afford insurance. So, I mean, this sounds terrible, but there was this running joke that I had that it's like when it was icy out and there's some steps that I have. And I would always say, I can't fall down the steps today. Yeah.
Because I knew if I fell down those steps, I could have a financial, I could be financially ruined for, I mean, years. Yeah.
And what about the idea of just like many people do, frankly, they just show up in the emergency room.
Well, that was another joke I had. I was like, if I go to the emergency room, my name is John Doe. I do not have a name. I don't exist. Right. You don't have a card. I don't have a card. I don't have an ID. I have nothing on me. Treat my broken leg and.
Thank you very much. Thank you very much.
Get me out the door. And, but again, I think that's kind of where like the public health side of me kicked in. It's like, I understood that like that could potentially ruin me financially for a very long time. And so, you know, I get it.
So Barry, all right. So, you know, so here's, here's Matthew, you know, that's why I brought him in this equation here, Matthew, you know, And then what happened? You show up in the emergency room, you don't have a card, and guess what? Then somehow or other, it's absorbed. The costs are absorbed.
Right. Well, ultimately, it gets passed on to all of us in that sense. However, I think that I can't underscore even more the conundrum, the you know, the fear, like I say, of going down, don't fall down the steps, you know, today. You know, Matthew, you or some of the research staff can check on this. So, you know, trust but verify.
I believe that the number one cause of bankruptcy, personal bankruptcy in the United States is from medical, you know, medical debt. Yeah, yeah. I think that's correct. And so, you know, Matthew, you just highlighted, again, the concern and fear of things that could happen to really, you know, when you say it could ruin you, you know.
Yeah, and then, you know, if you have this horrendous medical debt because you never, you know, you didn't have health insurance to take care of things. I mean, it just... you know, snowballs. And then if you have death, then when you start to get, you know, wind up, you know, getting your feet on the ground and in a good way.
You know, doing that, then it hounds you if, let's say, you want to buy a house or you need credit for, you know, for getting a car. I mean, it just has all these ramifications that it's hard to connect all the dots. But it really, that medical catastrophe that could happen is one that could hound people for years and years and years. And again, that's why...
I'm a proponent that we should have at least a system where everybody can be covered to prevent that kind of thing. That's what I have to say about it. My heart goes out to you, Matthew, understanding of some of those really hard decisions. And it's not just for Matthew. There's lots and lots of people that have that. The other point is that in today's
employment environment, people change jobs a lot. A lot. A lot. Like every, they say every year or two on average now, I think something like that. That's just a made up number. I don't know.
So Matthew, you have another comment here.
Yeah. I was just going to say that, like, I want to provide a little bit of context. I kind of, when I made that decision, I knew that I would have health insurance again in a month. So it's like there was only a small window, but for so many people, that's not the case. And it's like, you have to think about that.
Like I knew that I could potentially be strapped with a lot of medical debt if I need it. I mean, if something was to happen, but also for that month, you know, how am I going to afford my bills? How am I going to afford my car payment? How am I going to afford my groceries? How am I going to afford all of the other essentials that are just as important? And you kind of have to balance that.
So I mean, I'm a, a big proponent of some sort of non-employer sponsored health insurance system that allows us to move. And I think, especially nowadays, the job environment is so different that the benefits, and even if you do get a new job, you know, there's often a waiting period of at least a month before anything kicks in.
So if you are moving jobs every other, you know, every year, every other year, the benefits you had last year are no longer good this year are no longer good in six months. I mean, it's,
And it also brings to bear, too, this whole concept of consistency of care.
Right. The doctor I had last month is now recovered.
Yeah, right. Right, right. All right. So this is show number one on the health insurance spectrum here. We're anticipating that we'll probably have two more. We'll keep you, the listening audience, in the queue on this. But this gives you kind of the gestalt of it right now. It's kind of the angst
underline all the different types of health insurance that we all, good, bad, or indifferent, have to navigate. So stay tuned on. All right, Clarence, last thoughts on show number one on health insurance.
I'm going to ask our listening audience, whoever is listening to this program, to send us in their comments.
Absolutely.
As we talk about our next level of conversation. Because I think that there are a lot of people that will be listening to this that will have some very, very valid statements, comments to make. And we want to make sure that we at least consider them as we move ahead. Because as we have already said, this is a very, very complex topic.
yeah no that's a great great comment um if you have questions get them to us and that'll help us to kind of navigate how we proceed with our next shows for sure on this topic all right barry what do you think um i you know i think we uh we scratched the surface a little bit and and i think um
I think we were able to display the level of confusion that this creates for our communities. And I'd also getting some feedback from listening audience and questions that they have to help shape the next couple of shows that we have on this, because I think this is an important topic. And if we at Health Chatter can help to
clarify and simplify things so that people understand their options better, I think then that we'd be doing a good thing. And I like to do good things for our community if I can. Amen.
So, you know, it's one thing confusion, which I think there's a lot of it as it relates to this topic. But the confusion, I think, is lending itself to frustration as well. and angst and causing people to worry. And I don't think that that's helping as well.
So hopefully going forward with our shows, we'll be able to reduce some of that angst and that worrisome aspects, at least to the point where we provide some useful information for you, the listening audience. So stay tuned. We're going to have more shows on that and we'll keep you up to speed on when they'll be coming out.
Our next show that we're going to be putting out is on naturopathic medicine, which is kind of an alternative form of medicine. Should be an interesting show. So for the health insurance part one, thanks for listening in and everybody keep health chatting away.