Check out the PBS Frontline special, “Sick Around America.” It airs Tuesday, March 31 at 9 PM and will follow individuals & families across the US as they recount their successes and failures with our health care system.
A few people have nothing but positive experiences, such as Mark and Melinda Murray, who happily found that 100% of costs related to a prolonged and complicated pregnancy was covered under Mark’s employee health plan at Microsoft. Others, like Jennifer Thompson of California were dumped by their insurer just when the insurance was needed the most. Georgetown University Professor Karen Pollitz explains that for many people, the current system is “like having an airbag in your car that’s made out of tissue paper: I’m so glad that it’s there, but if I ever get in a crash, it’s not going to protect me.”
Side effects of Massachusetts’ pioneering health reform will also be featured. The program will document the Abramses, a Massachusetts family struggling, to comply with the state’s mandatory health insurance policy since they can’t afford $12,000 a year to purchase private insurance, but make too much to qualify for Commonwealth Care.
The program will also investigate options for national reform and what assumptions and practices must change before any substantial systemic reform. In states unlike Massachusetts, which bans medical underwriting, keeping one’s insurance means staying healthy. For those Americans who find health coverage in the private market, there’s no guarantee it will protect them. In 2007, Palm Desert, Calif., realtor Jennifer Thompson received a letter from Blue Cross accepting her for coverage that read: “Congratulations! You have been approved for coverage with Blue Cross of California. … The immediate value of your coverage is peace of mind.” But then Thompson discovered she had a cancer that required surgery, and three days after leaving the hospital, she received a letter from Blue Cross saying that her insurance was “rescinded,” leaving her uninsured and owing more than $160,000 in medical bills. Blue Cross cited Thompson’s previous history of cancer and results from a recent doctor’s visit as the reasons for the rescission.
Caitlin Outterson
DenverKirk and others-
Sad but true, PBS/Frontline whitewashed “Sick Around the America” that aired 3-31-09. Read more about it below and let Frontline Producers–and WGBH and their “Executive Council” (that includes Reps from MA Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Mass. Medical Society, and the Weber Shandwick Advertising Firm that’s making a bundle off the MA Mandated Insurance Law)–know how angry you are!!
“Something is Rotten at PBS”
CounterPunch, April 2, 2009, by RUSSELL MOKHIBER
http://www.counterpunch.com/mokhiber04022009.html
And this
“What exactly was Frontline trying to say?”
CJR Campaign Desk, 4-1-09 By Trudy Lieberman
http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/sick_around_america.php
“It is not clear what message Frontline wanted to deliver in last night’s Sick Around America documentary. The show, conceived as a sequel to its acclaimed Sick Around the World special, was a limp, flat journalistic effort that did nothing to help the public understand the current politics of health reform. It both demagogued the insurance industry and then sent valentines their way,…”
I am so angry at that show! WE DON’T NEED “INSURANCE”–WE NEED HEALTH CARE! INSURANCE NEVER HEALED ANYONE.
The only reason the insurance industry suddenly wants in on health “reform” is the prospect of forcing everyone to buy their useless product– getting government to subsidize an already fabulously wealthy racket.
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