National Nurses United

Registered Nurse January-February 2008

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Patients:5 2/8/08 2:43 PM Page 10 Got Insurance? SoWhat? There's been a lot of talk lately about forcing uninsured people to buy health insurance, as if not having an insurance card or a policy on a sheet of paper was the only problem. As the following patients show, depending on private insurance companies can still make you sicker, bankrupt your finances, and make you terrified for your family's safety, security, and happiness. Most of the current healthcare proposals floated by the various presidential candidates and states fail to solve the fundamental problem of continuing to rely on insurance corporations to administrate healthcare. If you thought our current healthcare system was about taking care of people, think again. It's an industry, and run as a business to make money. The bottom line is that insurance companies make that money by denying people visits to the doctor, medicines, and treatments. The less they spend on us, the more of our premiums, copays, and deductibles they get to keep. Even registered nurses, who have intimate knowledge of the healthcare system, are not immune. The nurses on these pages have both suffered horribly, with either themselves or their loved ones not receiving the medical care they needed or at a cost they could afford. Could this happen to you, a relative, or a friend one day? These patients know so; it's only a matter of time. That's why they're sharing their stories with the hope of educating the public about how having health insurance is not the same thing as having healthcare, and why the United States needs to establish a national, single-payer system, pronto. 10 REGISTERED NURSE Having insurance hasn't spared these patients from paying the hard way, with their health and livelihoods. Janet Stephens, RNu Anaheim, California it all started out manageable enough. In 1992, Janet Stephens, a registered nurse in Southern California, enrolled in a Blue Cross policy for which she paid monthly premiums of $282, and had a $500 annual deductible and a $250 prescription drug deductible. Then in 1995, Stephens was diagnosed with an W W W. C A L N U R S E S . O R G JANUARY | FEBRUARY 2008

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