The massive increase in job losses caused by the worsening economy plays a major role in health care in America. PBS Frontline, “Sick Around America” video provides an examination of how Americans across the United States struggle with healthcare accessibility due to lack of health insurance. The film explores the American broken health care by highlighting major challenges facing Americans in terms of healthcare provision. The main focus of the film is on insurance companies, which have failed to cover 46 million Americans and also left millions of them under-insured and at risk of bankruptcy due to the insurance system policies.
The first challenge in the healthcare insurance system in America is that insurance companies opt to operate with the mindset of making profits. The profit-based operation means that the insurance companies do not prioritize health care providers as they are supposed to. To maximize on making profits, the insurance companies tend to practice medical underwriting regularly. Medical underwriting is the systematic rejection of clients with preexisting conditions. Applying medical underwriting by insurance organizations means they make profits as they decrease the risk of payments since most of their clients will be of good health conditions (PBS Frontline, 2009). Practicing medical underwriting by insurance companies makes life difficult for individuals with any sort of illness to obtain insurance coverage. Those that manage to acquire the coverage are subjected to high premiums.
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To explain the medical underwriting in the American insurance system, the film provides the story of Paul Stevens. Stevens was downsized in 2005, but he was unable to secure insurance covered since he had a history of diabetes. Before he was laid off, Stevens as comfortably living in his house and was insured through his job. With the turn of events, Stevens has no other option as he is too rich to be covered by Medicaid and still too young to covered by Medicare. Following a heart attack, he sold his house and properties to cover the huge medical bill forcing him to move to his mother’s house and working odd jobs that do not offer insurance plans. Karen Pollitz of Georgetown University's Health Policy Institute considers the American healthcare insurance system dysfunctional (PBS Frontline, 2009). The insurers increase individuals’ problems besides illness. Applicants are being denied coverage by use of all manner of reasons, including hay fever, acne, bedwetting, or being 20 pounds overweight leaving patients with mounting medical bills when they need medication.
Unemployed and self-employed individuals face a hard time acquiring insurance coverage, as most insurers tend to practice rescission. Although companies have to protect themselves from fraud, the policies they put in place to restrict individuals from coming in and out of the system when in need of coverage are too far to comprehend. The policy, which comprises high premiums restrain other genuine individuals who are not employed and seek insurance coverage (PBS Frontline, 2009). In the film, Lisa Girion of the Los Angeles Times explains how insurers use rescission to make profits. She explains that insurance companies design application questions in a manner that the client would be able to fill an incorrect claim, such as the state of mental illness. The insurers use the applications to avoid paying for the clients' medical bills, which is a profit for the insurers.
According to what was uncovered by Girion, some insurance companies encourage their employees to create policies that can find as much cancelation of coverage as possible by offering them bonuses based on the number of rescissions an employee made in a year (PBS Frontline, 2009). Another problem that individuals face when in the insurance system is that they receive a lot of pushback when making claims. The main purpose of individuals acquiring health insurance coverage is that in case they get sick they can receive medical financial support (PBS Frontline, 2009). However, health insurance companies tend to make it difficult when people make claims for coverage as they see it as making losses. Therefore, insurers go the extra mile to avoid covering individuals, including the use of rescissions.
Microsoft is one of the companies with good plans, but the increasing medical cost in America has seen companies such as Microsoft decreasing in number. The health care system in America does not provide the environment to cover every individual due to complicated systems in place, including public programs such as Medicaid and Medicare that have their policy. The private health insurance sectors, which share the vast majority of health insurance system does not provide standard premiums as others are too expensive to afford. The film posits the case of Nikki White, who was diagnosed with lupus while in college. As a student, White was covered by her parents' insurance, but after graduation, she had to find a job that would provide insurance (PBS Frontline, 2009). She did not manage to keep her job due to the illness and had to seek out private coverage. The insurer after some time stopped offering White coverage as they considered that she could no longer control symptoms. The death of white according to Amylyn Crawford was secondarily caused by a pure health care system that denied her insurance.
Sick Around America outlines the American health care insurance system and its contradiction. Many developed countries provide universal health care, unlike in the United States, where there is an illogical and costly health care system. Therefore, to improve the health care system in America, mechanisms should be put in place that makes judgments about medical technologies and policies that bring profits for people.
References
PBS Frontline. (2009). Sick Around America . Retrieved from https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/sickaroundamerica/
