[Peace-discuss] Fw: Fw: "Obama Care" - no health care at all?

Tue Apr 2 00:49:51 UTC 2013

----- Original Message ----- 
From: David Johnson 
To: Sonja Engelhardt 
Sent: Monday, April 01, 2013 5:56 PM
Subject: Fw: Fw: "Obama Care" - no health care at all?

Sonja,

I posted your e-mail to the Illinois Single Payer ( Medicare for All ) coalition list-serve this afternoon and I already got a response from Dr. Anne Scheetz.
She would like to use your story ( without your name if you wish ) as a testimonial on her website.
See below.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: Anne Scheetz 
To: David Johnson 
Cc: Sonja single Payer Rotenberg ; Hale IBEW Landes ; David Johnson ; Bill single payer Bianchi ; Jim Single Payer Rhodes ; Johanna single payer Ryan ; pamella single payer gronemeyer 
Sent: Monday, April 01, 2013 4:12 PM
Subject: Re: Fw: "Obama Care" - no health care at all?

David, if you would be so kind as to forward this email to your friend, I would appreciate it. Thanks! Anne

Sonja, 

Many thanks for putting your frustration with your job into words, and doing it so eloquently.

I would like very much to publish on the Illinois Single-Payer Coalition website an excerpt about your experience with Medicaid, because you explain so clearly what is happening in your office; and this is something most people don't know anything about. Those who do know don't speak out.

We do not have to use your name. I can start the article with an editor's note that says it's taken from an email from someone who works in a dental office in CA--I don't think anyone would be able to identify you. I would send the final version to you for approval before posting it.

If you would like to have your name on the article, that would be fine also.

If you are willing to consider this under any circumstances, please send me an email.

People all over the country, in dentists' offices and many other kinds of health care facilities, are having the same problems you are having. No doubt some have dealt with their circumstances by ceasing to care; but I know that many still care a lot.

Thanks!

Anne Scheetz

On Mon, Apr 1, 2013 at 3:51 PM, David Johnson <davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net> wrote:

  From a friend of ours who is originally from Germany and has lived in the U.S. for about ten years. She currently works in a dental office in Oakland California
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: David Johnson 
  To: David Johnson 
  Sent: Friday, March 29, 2013 8:52 PM
  Subject: "Obama Care" - no health care at all?

  From: Sonja Engelhardt 
  Sent: Friday, March 29, 2013 5:56 PM
  Subject:  "Obama Care" - no health care at all?

   I got so frustrated at work today I had to get this off my chest...

  There is only one correct letter in the so-called "Obama Care" - which was supposed to bring great improvements to the horrible (and almost completely) privatized US health care system which leaves 45 million uninsured and lets the rest of the population go bankrupt in case they get sick - because the private insurance companies are never going to pay for your (entire) health care costs anyway.

  So the only one correct letter in "Obama Care" is the letter "o" - like in "no"... because there is no health care system in the US and there will never be any in the US as long as it is organized for profit only.

  The "great new health care reform" under Obama, (and he is even proud of the name they gave to it, "Obama Care",) is a total disaster at this point. 

  And that has nothing to do with the Republicans fighting it in the senate against the Democrats, it is just a disaster because of exactly what Obama did.
  The health care reform, Obama proposed and which will take effect on Jan. 1 2014, will allow more people to get on Medicaid (the health care system for the poor in the US). It also "allows" (well, it actually "forces") more people to get private insurance - by telling the insurance companies and the employers that health care needs to be provided to everybody, and pre-existing conditions should be disregarded. That might sound good at first, but it is not, really.

  (In the past health care companies could deny coverage if a patient had a pre-existing condition - which means, if you really need health insurance you wouldn't get it, which makes sense if you look at it from the point of view of making money as a health insurance company - you want to collect money but you don't want to spend it, right?) 
  The health care system in the US is still based on profit, nothing changed about this. So, to what could these great improvements lead to. 
  Well, let's see...

  For some people it seemed as if "ObamaCare" was an improvement.
  There are several big problems involved: 

  1) Medicaid patients are already unable to find a doctor right now, most of the times, (because the state pays such a low fee for services provided, and payments get denied a lot of times and it is sometimes impossible to get treatment pre-authorized - and most treatments need to be pre-authorized). medicaid fees have never increased since ca. 10 years, but were even reduced a couple of years ago, because of a lack of funds - since all the tax money in the US goes into the military, not into schools or health care... 

  But, as everybody knows, all other costs go up (rents for medical offices, supplies, maybe even wages etc.) So any Doctor, who has some kind of business sense, is not going to take any Medicaid patients. That's why "Obama Care" doesn't matter. 

  You can put all the people you want on a non-existing system. That doesn't mean anybody is getting any services ("Obama Care" alllows more patients to be seen and paid for, supposingly, by the state- but if you can't find a doctor, you can't find a doctor...And if your services are denied they are denied.). So you might as well call it: "Obama Care, No Health Care Anywhere".

  2) Then other (private) health insurance companies are forced to take any patients. That might sound nice, but, the companies will take their extra costs out on to their other customers. It was reported already in the US news that private insurance companies will increase the fees for another 30 percent. I just got an increase about 25 %. And I have like 10,000 or 20,000 Dollar deductible already (I try not to think about it too much because it totally stresses me out and I really can't afford a heart attack at this point.) I earn ca. 400.00 Dollars a week. I don't have a union or any benefits.

  3) In regards to Medicaid I also noticed, and it totally frustrated me today at work, that all services are denied right now. 

  I work for a dentist who mainly sees Medicaid patients. It is very hard and a lot of paper work to get treatment pre-authorized. It always was a problem, but recently it got much worse to get anything approved by Medicaid - the state program for the poor. 

  Medicaid cut services previously. There is basically no dental care there anymore for Medicaid patients who are not in a nursing home (But when you are in a nursing home, the state, Medicaid, has much more reasons to deny treatment - stating, for example, that "the health conditions of the patient precludes the requested services"). I talk about these problems with my co-workers a lot, and they all agree that actually the people who really need the services can't get it anymore and the ones who might still be able to get dental services (the nursing home patients - the only ones in the US who can still get dental services) will be the easiest one to have it denied.

  I have a Medicaid Provider Handbook. We have more than 600 denial codes.

  Medicaid also never upgrades requested services. They just deny services. Even if we provide x-rays and ask for a filling (for which Medicaid pays 38.00 Dollars) they denied it a lot of times and say that more surfaces needed a filling. Why can't they just upgrade? Then we have to re-submit a new treatment plan. It takes a while and we are not getting paid for that, (actually it costs money to do so!)

  The new health care overhaul in the US, the "Obama Care" is not going to help. It is going to make things worse. I can feel it, I experience it at my job already right now. The whole system and the whole "Obama Care" is a fake and a lie. 

  We never got so many denials before (when we ask the state to pre-authorize treatment) at the dental office I work in. Social workers from nursing home facilities are calling me and asking for help, but I don't know what to tell them...

  I am very sure that the extreme increase in denials has to do with "Obama Care" - more people might be getting on Medicaid, eventually, in the future, but the state is not going to have more money... So services are just going to be cut further... And it is already as bad as it could be right now. The fees Medicaid pays are ridiculous already. That's why nobody takes Medicaid patients.

  We had a patient calling our office. She asked if my boss could recommend another dentist who takes Medicaid. He said, no, he doesn't know anybody. They would have to go to the town's public hospital (Highland Hospital). But there, they have to see every patient anyway. They always had to. Even before "Obama Care". It doesn't matter if patients are on Medicaid or not. They have to see you even if you don't have any health insurance at all (that's the law). So nothing changed, and nothing is going to change. It is only getting worse.

  They just made a very good documentary, (called "Emergency Room") about just this hospital (Highland Hospital in Oakland, California, nearby where I live), and I haven't seen it because I think it will be too depressing for me right now, but my co-worker told me that they have the scene in there of this women who comes in really sick and they just let her sit there. And then she just dies. In the hospital. She was looking for help and they were letting her die. (I am not blaming the workers, I feel bad about my own job every day!)

  Profit and health care just don't match. That's why the so called "Obama Care" is never going to work. It'll make things even worse.

  Obama is a big disappointment for me (and I never even had illusions in the first place!)

  Sonja Engelhardt
  Oakland California
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-- 
Anne Scheetz, MD, FACP
Chicago IL
773-486-6276
annescheetz at gmail.com
Organizer, Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), Illinois Chapter  www.pnhp.org
Organizer, Illinois Single-Payer Coalition (ISPC)  ilsinglepayer.org
Secretary, ISPC People with Disabilities Committee
Corresponding Secretary, ISPC Chicago
Hope is the belief in the plausibility of the possible, as opposed to the necessity of the probable.--Maimonides
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