On Sunday night, after more than a year of debate, the U.S. House of Representatives passed Health Care Reform legislation. No, the bill was not the one that most human rights advocates wanted to see. And yes, there will be plenty of work to do to ensure that the right to health care is fully met in the United States. But the fact that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care act will soon become the law of the land marks a recognition of how poor our current “profits-before-patients” health care system really is.
Human rights advocates now have their work cut out for them at the federal and state levels to make sure that 2010 marks the beginning of a way out – towards a system where no one is denied care based on an inability to pay and where the government is held accountable for making sure that the system works.
Earlier this month, Amnesty International published Deadly Delivery: The Maternal Health Care Crisis in the USA, which finds that despite spending more per person than any other country on health care, the U.S. ranks behind 40 other countries when it comes to women dying in pregnancy or child birth. The report documents barriers to access in the provision of maternal health care around the country.
Among the horror stories in that report is the case of Starla Darling, a 27-year-old who was close to her due date when she learned that the Ohio cookie plant where she had worked for eight years was going to be closed down and that her health insurance would expire just three days later. Faced with the prospect of paying thousands of dollars in medical bills, Starla asked her caregiver to induce labor two days before her insurance was set to expire. Ultimately, Starla had to have a C-section. To add insult to injury, the insurance company denied her claim as it was so close to the end of her employer-provided insurance coverage, and left her with nearly $18,000 in medical bills. (Robert Pear reported Starla’s story for The New York Times.)
Starla’s story – and those of hundreds like her – are indicative of a larger problem. Private insurance companies use a business model that relies on not providing care. Those who need to access health care are a cost to insurance companies, and like any business, they work to minimize their costs and maximize their profits.