Healthcare Notes
Published February 2002
by Bill McCoy
During the last meeting of the Interfaith health care coalition, a report by a guest speaker referred to some startling information gleaned from various sources. In New York State, approximately 2% of children and 9% of adults are not covered by a health care plan. This is above the national average but well below the 33% in Texas, where the current pResident practised his infamous conservative compassion, to wit: don't spend money to keep people healthy but feel sorry for the sick.
In Vancouver, Canada, the head of a hospital that serves part of northern Washington State, with 50% U.S. patients, reported that his billing office has two billing clerks for the Canadian patients but requires 18 billing clerks for the complex, non-standard, U.S. health insurance paperwork. In other words, insurance companies disguise their costly, inefficient, private, for-profit operations by passing mountains of paperwork to the health care institutions