You should watch this episode of Frontline – Health Insurance

Ever since I went to Hopkins, I’ve had an interest in issues surrounding healthcare policies. Although I never took any courses in those topics, I became familiar through coverage in local publications. Lately, the topic of healthcare has become even more important, more personal to me.

This is not an April Fool’s Day joke, though the healthcare systems, policies, and frameworks in our nation might be considered to be one. Every election cycle, I hear a lot of silly “silver bullets” – For example: “If only we got rid of trial lawyers! Healthcare would be cheap and affordable!” (not really) or “Let’s copy France!” (wouldn’t work for us)

I’ll probably blog about this a bit more in the next few months, but I’d like to start by recommending this episode of Frontline. Personally I think it’s best viewed online.

Sick Around America
As the worsening economy leads to massive job losses—potentially forcing millions more Americans to go without health insurance—FRONTLINE travels the country examining the nation’s broken health care system and explores the need for a fundamental overhaul. Veteran FRONTLINE producer Jon Palfreman dissects the private insurance system, a system that not only fails to cover 46 million Americans but also leaves millions more underinsured and at risk of bankruptcy.

The first act (out of 5) features something I can relate to:

At its best, American health care can be very good. For Microsoft employee Mark Murray and his wife, Melinda, their employee health plan paid for eight years of fertility treatments and covered all the costs of a very complicated pregnancy. "If it wasn’t for our health insurance," Murray says, "we wouldn’t have a baby boy right now." The Murrays’ medical bills totaled between $500,000 and $1 million, and their plan covered every penny.

But beyond large, high-wage employers like Microsoft, FRONTLINE learns that available, affordable, adequate insurance is becoming hard to find. Small businesses face a very bleak outlook for finding and keeping coverage. Coverage is becoming more expensive and less comprehensive, with high deductibles, co-pays and coverage limits. Georgetown University Research 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."

The first act covers the best possible scenario – working for Microsoft. Where there are practically never any co-pays. (Pharmacies tend to do a double-take.) I call the Microsoft health Insurance plan, the “gold plated, c-level exec plan”. I feel very fortunate that my family receives coverage through this plan.

From there, the episode goes downhill. Fast.

Let’s be clear – there are no easy or cheap answers to solving our nation’s healthcare woes. There’s no silver bullet. And I hope we as a nation have the will and resolve to make improvements. But there’s not a lot of hope:

But consultant Laszewski wonders if Americans have the will to make it happen. "Every doctor I meet says he’s underpaid. I’ve yet to meet a hospital executive who thinks he or she can operate on less. I have yet to meet a patient who is willing to sacrifice care. So we have this $2.2 trillion system, and I haven’t met anybody in any of the stakeholders that’s willing to take less. And until we’re willing to have that conversation, we’re just sort of nibbling around the edges."