Op-Ed: How many US employers pay for health insurance that never delivers?

Trum’s executive order directing the United States to withdraw from the World Health Organization is the second time he has tried to sever ties with the international group – Copyright AFP/File Fabrice COFFRINI

In keeping with that famous old medieval tradition of never getting what you pay for, seems US employers are paying top dollar for something called health insurance. Some would say that if you don’t get paid cover, you’re paying for nothing. That’s about 86% of private sector employers. Health cover is a major deal in US employment and its huge money upfront.

The stats on health insurance denial rates aren’t exactly encouraging, more like obscene.

My viewpoint may be a bit folksy but if you pay for something you don’t get, you’re effectively uninsured. You could be in a truly lousy legal position. On a rough average based on available figures, the average denial rate is about 20% plus or a bit more.

The state of US healthcare is all too well-known Something like 131 million Americans are on medication. You could take a wild guess that overall health isn’t good. That’s more than 30% of the population. Even allowing for prescription fraud, it’s a lot of people.

This appalling situation is in at least its second generation, and it’s only got worse. Exactly why the workforce isn’t allowed to be healthy on principle isn’t too clear, either. Maybe employers need to feel good about throwing money out the window while they pay chronically unhealthy massively overstressed people to work to the best of their ability.

You could also coyly assume that a health system falling to bits for decades might be limited in its ability to deliver health care. Bringing tents to the ER isn’t yet compulsory, but it’s not great.

I did some work writing for a nursing sector site for a year or so. The people in the blender doing the work aren’t too effervescent about the state of things.

This is the question:

If people are paying top dollar for insurance and 1 in 5 of them definitely won’t get it, do you in fact have something you can pretend to be a healthcare system?

Or just an overpriced morgue?  

On the sunny side of the street, you and your employer can go singing down the drain while going serenely broke in a vista of total dysfunction.

Bear in mind that a few carefree trillion dollars scamper through the US healthcare system every year. Those thoughtful saints at Goldman Sachs and Big Pharma guide these happy dollars into pockets. The system works perfectly.

If 44,000 to 98,000 preventable deaths per year occur, what’s the problem? Surely, it’s not so bad that anyone expects people to do their jobs? That’s leaving out all the other frivolous people who linger on for years adding a weight to general healthcare.

That’s what you’re paying for. The next two generations will be paying more for much less.

Happy?

If so, how?

Maybe they’re trying to put all the other mass murderers out of work?