There is rumor that the public option may not be as straightforward as one might think. It may only trigger into effect for those of which private health insurance fails. This has numerous implications.

1. The cost of such a plan is cheaper than insuring millions of Americans, it goes to those who need it the most, but then who decides what is need? How do you prevent abuse from both client and private health insurance agency? No one wants to pay so wouldn’t people try to take advantage of a fail safe, trying to make the government pay for it as the first option?

2. What about those without health insurance now? Will they need to buy a “minimal” plan in order to qualify for the fail safe? Again, what makes anyone purchase more options and spend more if they are going to get something for near free if their insurance “fails”?

3, Businesses will sprout using agovernment fail-safe in order to turn profits. Agencies will try to create health insurance plans of their own, charging a small fee to claim the person has health coverage with no substantial benefits. Then when the medical care is needed, relying on the government.

This just goes to show how complex Healthcare Reform is. Any change is going to be so substantial that it will create opportunity for abuse. Topics need to be thoroughly discussed, but not to the point of boredom and entropy.

Internet media is abuzz with an article claiming that the Health Insurance Industry doesnt make nearly as much money as say, chocolate companies, etc. Although this is not really a fair comparison as we are not measuring “apples to apples” it is still an interesting point. Health insurance business models are different than consumable goods as they are a risk based industry that provides and pays for peoples consumable services, with the possibility of people going years without using it. Everyone needs to eat, so to compare it to say, a food manufacturer is unfair because there is a daily neccessity for food.

Next point, people profit off of food, so why not insurance? People profit off of everything, it is how our economy works. Yes, greed can corrupt and cause problems, but tell a farmer he is not going to be paid for his crop and see how much food he produces. Similarly tell a health insurance expert he gets nothing for finding people quality affordable health insurance plans, and see how hard it will be to shop for insurance without an agent in sight. Then go to the hospitals and tell doctors that their patients all cannot afford even the most basic of prosecudres and examinations and see how well the hospitals, doctors and busnesses all modeled around health and healthcare do!

We need to look beyond profits and look toward a solution to the real problem: affordability. We should be asking: how can we make health insurance more affordable to the average American? How can we still profit from this industry while taking care of people and giving them the healthcare that they need?

We have all heard of Balloon boy by now. Claiming your child is stuck on a Balloon is no laughing matter, but it sure does draw media attention. Not only does it draw media attention, but when you are caught, you still get media attention about how much of a scumbag you are.

A similar story to the Fox News story  “17-Pound, 4-Month-Old Baby Denied Health Insurance for Being Too Fat” is reported by Care2, this time as “Toddler Too Small for Health Insurance“. The odd similarities don’t stop there, it again points to Colorodo insurance companies, this time a United Healthcare subsidiary. It makes me wonder however, coming back to the balloon boy example…could this just be a publicity stunt?

Although mostly negative, imagine all the interest the media puts into its stories. Imagine the syndication of the articles, the rising organic rankings of a company, especially of a lesser known company such as Rocky Mountain Health Plans, due to media interest. The media is a huge advertising agent when a company is mentioned as a story, good or bad.

Is advertising taking a turn for the worse? Are individuals and companies now expected to do ridiculous things to get media coverage and reap the benefits in the background? Anyone who knows a little bit about Search Engine Optimization knows that content is king, and rankings come from content. When you have an entire media, no, an entire nation talking about your company, creating fresh new content without you even asking and pointing links back to your site, there is no way you can be unsuccessful as a company when you are pushing such a huge amount of traffic to your website.

VitalOne Health is proud to announce a guest blogger on Health Insurance and Healthcare related topics, Yamileth Medina.  She has been keeping up with Health Insurance, Health Insurance Reform and Healthcare related topics. She is an up and coming expert on the Health Insurance debate with a strong understanding of the political and social implications of the public option.

Health Insurance reform is a difficult subject but Yamileth takes care to address issues and news with as little bias as possible. With the political situation the way that it is it is hard to find a single source to talk about Health Insurance without a political agenda. Looking at the situation from a holistic point of view, Yamileth brings her insight and attention to detail in a time where vague comments seem to be the standard.

Follow Yamileth on Twitter @YamilethMedina to keep in the know about Health Insurance news in real time and to be notified if any of her new blog posts. She also has been invited as a guest administrator of the VitalOne Facebook fan page and would be happy to participate in any discussion.

Even though news has broken that a Public Option bill has passed, it is really still stalled. It only passed out of the Senate Finance Committee but has yet to pass any other sectors of congress. It can still be shot down or filibustered. The problem is no one wants to vote on this issue. They want it to stay the same. The effects of this bill are vast and sweeping. They effect both the economy and workplace as well as every American.

A public option, however, doesn’t meant free universal healthcare. It could mean tax credits for those making under a certain amount. It could mean annual credits for checkups at any doctor or it could mean simply another plan to choose from to compete with current plans, driving down prices. In fact, it could even increase the value of private healthcare because if government run healthcare works anything like the VA or medicare, then people are going to want an alternative even if it is a bit more costly.

How many doctors are going to want to deal with government health insurance? What will the limits be? will they be just as ruthless on cost of operations, will they deny you what you need because it is too expensive to the US government?

There are still so many questions and without a clear bill to really look at (since its always changing) things are still up in the air and people are still stalling.

Don’t go without health insurance too long hoping for the public option, Obama may be out of office by the time it passes and gets established as a viable option.

A soldier bravely serving his country overseas in Iraq begins to notice he has a hard time breathing.  He takes a trip to the medic where they tell him he has an incurable lung condition that will leave him unable to breathe.  Pretty grim outlook until they say he will be fast tracked on a lung transplant waiting list and once he is paired with a  donor he will be able to receive a transplant.  He patiently waits the 2 years it takes for a pair of lungs to be matched and he is finally able to receive the transplant.  All goes well with the procedure and as he sees it he is granted a new lease on life, after all the doctors told him he most probably should have died by then and now here he was with a new set of lungs able to breathe clearly again.  Fast forward one year and this same Iraqi War Vet aforementioned is now dead.  From Lung Cancer.

As it turns out the lungs he received in the transplant we’re donated from a chain smoker.  In Fact, they we’re donated from a smoker who smoked up to 50 cigarettes a day according to tests performed on the lungs during the autopsy.

A tumor had soon developed in the lungs soon after the transplant and the tumor was accelerated due to the immuno-suppresive drugs he was taking to prevent his body from rejecting the new lungs.

Papworth Hospital, where the transplant was performed, issued a statement in regards to the soldiers death stating that “using donor lungs from smokers is not at all unusual,” in fact its quite common.  They say they really have no other option but to use smokers lungs if not far more people would die while waiting on the wait list for lungs.

While clearly this is an extremely rare case, it does shed light on a very interesting topic of debate.  Should donors be fully informed of the organs they are to receive and be granted access to the donors prior medical history, and how rigorously are donors organs screened?

The Official cause of death listed on the Autopsy reads:  “Complications from Lung Transplant Surgery and Immuno-Suppresive drug treatment.”

R.I.P.  Corporal Matthew Millington

There are many services that already incorporate online records for your medical history, prescriptions, etc. For instance, CVS, Blue Cross of MA, Quest Diagnostics and many clinics store up to 2  years of your medical history. It is easy to get on Google Health and authorize those sites to import data into your Google Health profile. This way your treatments at the clinic and prescriptions at the drug store all stay in one handy place.

The advantage to using Google Health is having access to all of your own personal files in one location. You can set sharing permissions, and import whatever data from whatever doctor you need. You can even manually import data if you have paper copies of your records. The point is that the more data you have the better diagnosis and treatment you will get. This is especially helpful for those who are acting as guardian of the elderly. Often they end up on so many different medications it is hard to keep track of them. Instead of logging everything in a journal take advantage of Google Health and help your parents, children, and loved ones stay healthy for years to come.

One of the most difficult things about switching healthcare providers, visiting specialists, and being prescribed medication is that often your doctor doesn’t know what your previous doctor has prescribed or done; This includes lab work. millions are spent every year on duplicate lab tests. Imagine how much you will save, and your insurance companies will save when people start synchronizing information and start keeping their own records so that the story doesn’t change every time there’s a new form to fill out.

Keeping your doctors consistently informed is vital, the more they know the easier it is to help you. Often doctors can cause harm because of misinformation, chopping off the wrong limb during a surgery. Don’t risk it! Start creating a data mine of your own, on yourself. Share it with family and doctors to keep you as healthy as possible. There are so many pharmaceuticals nowadays its almost impossible ot keep track of them all and which ones conflict.

As a side note: wouldn’t it be interesting if Google Health had a Datastore of all pharmaceuticals and their side effects, so that if you are taking two that can cause you harm it would put up a red flag? Perhaps I will suggest this myself.

Google has a service that they are working on perfecting, it’s known as Google Health. It is a place where you can either automatically or manually import your medical history, lab results, etc. in order to share it with your doctor. It even allows you to print out small sized forms to give to yoru doctor when he asks for any medical information.

Imagine that! A free service that allows you to store your medical history and control it yourself! Imagine being able to see a history and record of all the medicines you have and are taking, and then being able to give it to your doctor so he doesn’t prescribe a conflicting medication! This is a blessing that is very little known. For more information check out http://www.google.com/intl/en-US/health/about/.

It makes me wonder whats going on with Health Insurance. The news is starting to be littered with stories about it, mostly bad stories to support the public option. However, aren’t there any stories that say anything about how Health Insurance has actually helped? Is our system really that broken ?

Even I am afraid to use my Health Insurance at times, that’s because i keep looking at it like car insurance, don’t want to get into an accident, and if so, definitely not report it! However this view of mine is not right. You can actually benefit form using your health insurance if you use it for regular check ups. Without a medical history it could actually make things worse for you if you happened to go without health insurance and wanted to reestablish it! Make sure you get health insurance and use it while you have it ! your paying for it!