Redwood City, Calif.
THIS isn?t the story of a poor family with a mother who has a dreadful disease that bankrupts them, or with a child who has to go without vital medicines. Unlike many others, my family can afford medical care, with or without insurance.
Instead, this is a story about how broken the market for health insurance is, even for those who are healthy and who are willing and able to pay for it.
Most employees assume that if they lose their job and the health coverage that comes along with it, they?ll be able to purchase insurance somewhere. The members of Congress who want to repeal the provision of last year?s health insurance law that makes it easier for individuals to buy coverage must assume that uninsured people do not want to buy it, or are just too cheap or too poor to do so.
The truth is that individual health insurance is not easy to get.
I found this out the hard way. Six years ago, my company was acquired. Since my husband had retired a few years earlier, we found ourselves without an employer and thus without health insurance.
My husband, teenage daughter and I were all active and healthy, and I na?vely thought getting health insurance would be simple.
Why did we even need insurance? First, we wanted to know that, if we had a medical catastrophe, we would not exhaust our savings. Second, uninsured patients are billed more than the rates that insurers negotiate with doctors and hospitals, and we wanted to pay those lower rates. The difference is significant: my recent M.R.I. cost $1,300 at the ?retail? rate, while the rate negotiated by the insurance company was $700.
An insurance broker helped me sort through the options. I settled on a high-deductible plan, and filled out the long application. I diligently listed the various minor complaints for which we had been seen over the years, knowing that these might turn up later and be a basis for revoking coverage if they were not disclosed.
Then the first letter arrived ? denied. It never occurred to me that we would be denied! Yes, we had listed a bunch of minor ailments, but nothing serious. No cancer, no chronic diseases like asthma or diabetes, no hospital stays.
Why were we denied? What were these pre-existing conditions that put us into high-risk categories? For me, it was a corn on my toe for which my podiatrist had recommended an in-office procedure. My daughter was denied because she takes regular medication for a common teenage issue. My husband was denied because his ophthalmologist had identified a slow-growing cataract. Basically, if there is any possible procedure in your future, insurers will deny you.
The broker then proposed that the three of us make individual applications. Perhaps one or two of us might be accepted, rather than the family as a group.
As I filled out more applications, I discovered a critical error in my strategy. The first question was ?Have you ever been denied health insurance?? Now my answer was yes, giving the new companies reason to be wary of my application. I learned too late that the best tactic is to apply simultaneously to as many companies as possible, so that you don?t have to admit to a denial.
I completed four applications for each of the three of us, using reams of paper. I learned to read the questions carefully. I mulled over the difference between a ?condition? and ?something for which you have sought treatment.? I was precise and succinct. I felt as if I was doing a deposition: Give the minimum true information, and not a word more. I was accepted by exactly one insurance company. So was my daughter, although at a 50 percent premium over the standard charge for a girl her age. My husband was also accepted by one insurer but was denied by the company that approved me.
Our premiums, which were reasonable at first, have increased substantially over the last six years; the average annual increase has been 20 percent. I now am paying premiums that are more than double what they were initially. And because these are high-deductible policies, we still are paying most of the medical bills ourselves.
The new health care reform legislation is not perfect. Nothing that complex could be. But I have no doubt that the system is broken and reform is absolutely essential. If we are not going to have universal coverage but are going to rely on employer plans, then we must offer individuals, self-employed people and small businesses a place to purchase insurance at a reasonable price.
If members of Congress feel so strongly about undoing this important legislation, perhaps we should stop providing them with health insurance. Let?s credit their pay for the amount that has been paid by the taxpayers, and let them try to buy health insurance in the individual market. My bet is that they all would be denied. Health insurance reform might suddenly not seem to them like such a bad idea.
Donna Dubinsky, a co-founder of Palm Computer and Handspring, is the chief executive of a computer software company.
