Health-care tales of woe

When I asked you in the September issue to tell us your experiences with health care, I was pretty sure I'd get some tales of bad medical decisions and denied treatment, and I did. But there was also a compelling theme running through most of your stories: Almost every aspect of health care is expensive.

Our investigative report, "Treatment traps to avoid," notes that for the insured, too much treatment, too many drugs, and not enough attention to preventive care have led to skyrocketing costs. The stories you've sent me highlight three insurance issues:

It's expensive not to have health insurance. "Our story isn't related to health insurance, but rather the lack of health insurance," a reader wrote. His partner's appendectomy ran up a bill of $34,000, including sending the appendix to the lab. "Do we even have the option to say no?" he asked. "For a 'routine' surgery, this is just insane."

A reader with excellent insurance asked the hospital what would happen if he weren't insured. His insurance company had negotiated a rate of $6,600 for his three-day hospitalization. Without insurance, he would have had to pay $22,000. "That is grossly unfair to people who are uninsured," he wrote.

It's expensive to have health insurance. "Retiree medical benefits for my wife and me went from $110 per month the first year to $220 per month the second year to $440 per month the third year to $501 per month now," wrote a 30-year veteran of a utility company. "We are stuck with medical insurance premiums that may possibly become more than the modest pension the company is giving me."

Federal law protects people from losing coverage for pre-existing conditions when they switch jobs, with certain provisions. A reader noted that he and his wife had to change insurers when they moved out of state. The cost more than doubled, to $10,176 a year. Three years later, premiums had climbed to $22,800 a year. The law may guarantee access to insurance, he wrote, "but it provides no protection from being priced out of the insurance market."

It's expensive to use health insurance. A woman was billed for her son's brief stay in the intensive-care unit right after birth. The hospital was in her insurer's network, but she later learned that the neonatal specialist was not. The total bill came to $1,145, but the insurance company considered just $618 to be "reasonable and customary," and would pay only its percentage of that smaller amount. "This was an emergency situation in an in-network hospital," she wrote. "I don't think any reasonable person would stop and ask if the doctor was in their insurance network at such a time."

Whether you have insurance or not, you could find yourself struggling to keep your family healthy. To make quality health care affordable, we need to eliminate the waste that drives up costs. Consumers Union is working toward that goal. My thanks to all of you who've already sent your stories. If you haven't, I'd very much like to hear from you about your health-care concerns.