HealthStrong is a true grass-roots effort by people just like you who care about health care reform in this country.

A recent report published by Reuters indicates that the line between the haves and the have-nots is expanding beyond just those that have health insurance. The article describes disparities in where doctors locate and illustrates the point with the scenario of White Plains, NY. This city has doctors a plenty lining up to provide care to a population of people with the highest national income (approximately $77,000 per year). This is not the case for economically struggling Bakersfield, CA. The article describes how diabetic patients have to take a 2-hour bus ride to Fresno to get the care they need.

[f]or the majority of Americans, the largest portion of their health expenses are covered by their employer. At last estimates approximately 58% of Americans get their health insurance through their employers. The average cost of premiums per individual was $3,515 in 2009 whereas for employers (particularly major employers such as GE or IBM) the cost for providing health insurance to employees was $9,860. Thus, the burden of directly paying for insurance for individuals primarily falls on the employer community. JXEKSW2QWPDF

Health care costs move from the individual, micro-level, all the way to the final purchaser (or reimburser) of health care the American government. Each time the expense is passed on to a new body in this perverse economic system, it grows more costly and/or inefficient.

Please consider this the second post dedicated to analyzing a specific health care myth in an ongoing series. The intent of this post is address the myth that we here in America should not look overseas to learn about meaningful and effective health reform. From accusing any foreign health system of being socialist or of rationing health care or even claiming that we have the best health care system in the world. The comparative focus of this post is on a single foreign system that generally fails to get significant attention – Japan. Now, by absolutely no means is the Japanese health system perfect, far from it. However, given the public bugaboo that is “socialized medicine” and the nature of our employer sponsored health care Japan presents an interesting study in how a private-employer based health care system can run efficiently and cut costs.

You might be surprised to learn that our health care system is rife with gender-oriented discriminatory practices such as, “gender rating, the exclusion of health care services that only women need, and pre-existing-condition denials.” This is according to Marcia Greenberger of the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) in her testimony before the Senate.

How exactly having such a high national uninsured rate impacts you – your family, your savings, your wallet. We all pay a “hidden health care tax” - a deceptive terminology because its not a tax, but rather the portion of your annual health insurance premiums used to cover uncompensated care rather than you, or your families, health.

Recently, there has been some controversy concerning the number of uninsured Americans. To be honest, there is some basis for this confusion, though some groups and individuals have blown it far out of proportion.