Our medical Bill of Rights

When it comes to Obamacare, what matters most is what we, as individual patients and consumers do next and not what the U.S. Supreme Court just did.
The political debates over this set of massive federal medical and healthcare reforms will continue, but the framework to expand healthcare services to all Americans, regardless of age, income or past illnesses has been guaranteed. We are on our way to a universal healthcare system, just like the tax-based system we use for “free” public education, “entitled” Medicare for seniors and our “toll free” federal interstate highways. How logical is that?
How fast we get there is up to us. If we want runaway drug and hospital costs to come to an end, we must demand it. If we don’t like private insurance companies dictating higher and higher premiums and copays, or charging us $2,000 and $5,000 deductibles, we have to become smarter shoppers. We can win because the laws are now (finally) on our side.
But don’t think this battle for affordable and more accessible healthcare is over, or winding down. The big for-profit insurance companies and drug manufacturers will not give up their billions in profits anytime soon.
Our local doctors, clinics, caregivers, hospitals and pharmacies remain locked in a “fee-for-service,” disease-based business model. Today (and yesterday) we only pay when we get sick. The more we get sick, the more profits there are for the healthcare industry.
The affirmation of Obamacare’s core set of reforms by the U.S. Supreme Court in its King vs. Burwell decision on June 25 also was a vote for “value” healthcare over “volume” healthcare. Deep inside of Obamacare (officially called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) is a Patient’s Bill of Rights and a new healthcare business model based on prevention and wellness. It will offer profits for quality healthcare outcomes, healthy lifestyle habits, chronic disease avoidance, fewer hospital stays and elimination of unnecessary tests, prescriptions and hidden fees.
We are getting close to being halfway there. The Affordable Care Act bill of rights includes: ensuring coverage for people with pre-existing conditions; ensuring the right to choose a doctor; ensuring fair treatment of emergency care; making sure policies can’t be canceled unfairly; ending annual and lifetime limits; enhancing access to preventive services; ensuring the right to appeal health plan decisions; ensuring health coverage for young adults; and protections under “grandfathered plans.”
These are promises that the private for-profit insurance companies never wanted us to have — and are still fighting.
It is up to individual consumers to protect these healthcare rights.
Take these actions:
Don’t pay your bill. Many wellness, prevention and screening procedures are now free under Obamacare. Insist on a detailed list of all charges and refuse to pay for unnecessary or unapproved costs. Hospitals must stop charging highly inflated prices for a bandage, aspirin or redundant tests. Make sure your insurance company pays first. Then pay your fair share.
Talk to your employer. The classic model of employer-provided group healthcare insurance is being blown up. The advent of subsidized insurance in new marketplaces like Covered California is offering new competitive rates. It’s complicated. Employees and employers should educate one another.
Support community-based programs. Ultimately, when we have real universal healthcare, we still want our local doctors, clinics and hometown acute care hospitals to be here to call our “medical home.” These providers already earn more than half their income from Medicare and Medicaid programs. That is the same kind of affordable, quality care we all want, no matter what we end up calling it.
But, before we can name it, we have to own it.
— Rollie Atkinson