Health Insurance a legalized scam?

Following is an email I received from a person visiting Health Care NOW. I get many emails from Blog Readers but this one had to be shared. I think the following email represents the feelings of tens of millions of Americans. The person's name was omitted for privacy reasons.

Here are my observations,

When I was in New Zealand, I had my ACL broken in a baseball game. When I got back to the hotel, I noticed they had a hotel doctor. I called and requested his services. About 15 min. later the doctor arrived and evaluated my knee, told me what I was up against and offered suggestions on how to deal with it, including repairing it there in NZ. No charge and they have a national health care system.

While playing in Italy last year our catcher got hit in the ear from a bat swing. Someone drove him to the hospital where they immediately treated him, sewed him up with stitches, gave him drugs and a prescription. No charge and good immediate service.

A few days later our other catcher and 1st baseman collided foreheads at full speed chasing a pop up. Our catcher was minimally cut and the 1st baseman had his forehead cut open all the way from the left to right side of his forehead, very deep, past the flesh with lots of bleeding. We called and an ambulance came and picked them up and took them to a hospital. They spent two hours at the hospital. The catcher received 8 stitches above the eye and they stitched up the 1st baseman with many more stitches. They gave them both X-rays to make sure there was not other damage. They wrote up a report in english describing the entire procedure, what was done, suggested treatments and gave them copies of the X-rays. All this was so they could take it to their own doctors in the US. No charge and great immediate service as they have a natiional health care system.

When I needed to investigate my knee and head via an MRI last year, Blue Shield approved the one for the head but did not approve the one for the knee, despite multiple letters from my doctor. I had them both done anyway. Turns our there was nothing wrong with my head, fortunately, but there were lots of things wrong with my knee.

A while back my mother was very ill one morning. I called the Kaiser clinic who handles her medical care. They told me to call an ambulance and take her to a nearby hospital. The ambulance arrived and took her to the closest hospital, about 1/4 mile away. She stayed the night, had a couple of doctor visits, was attended to by the nurses and had some medications. Fortunately nothing was seriously wrong. Since she has Kaiser insurance and it was not a Kaiser hospital, it was several miles away, she later received a bill for $18,000. Does that seem excessive?

As an individual policy holder they keep raising my rates, this year they want to raise it to the tune of $700/mo. This seems outrageously high, especially if they are not going to cover various treatments and evaluations. I usually only have a couple of doctor visits a year, a blood test or two and various medications.

Deciding on whether to treat someone based on profit is not a good scenario. Fat cats in insurance companies and big pharma make way too much money and the administration costs are too high. Health quality in the US is about 30 on the list of civilized countries and we pay more for it than any other nation. Something is wrong with this system. Quality health care should be free and available to all US citizens. Scum bag insurance companies and big profits should be eliminated.

Insurance is a legalized scam. You just pay and pay and pay and most the time you get very little back. When you do need to make a claim they try and screw you out of what they promise. Insurance companies are the scum of the earth and I would be embarrassed to reach the Pearly Gates at the end of my life and have to admit that I spent my life taking money from people and giving them nothing in return but promises and lies. What a useless existence to society.

That's my Red Neck thoughts, feel free to pass it on,