Why Health Care Policy Matters

Many candidates on our side have plans for a national health care system. When they talk about them you hear about big picture stuff — how it will be paid for — as well as some microcosmic examples, like how this senior citizen or that working family can't pay even their routine medical bills, let alone pay for catastrophic care. From Lubbock this week comes a story of a scale in the middle: a contract between Blue Cross Blue Shield and regional health care providers expired, and now thousands of people will be forced to get their medical care out of the area or pay increased prices.

Consider that — you've lived an area for a long time and your family has the usual run of medical professionals they go to see, and that care is subsidized by your health insurance, probably provided by your employer. Literally, you wake up one morning and none of the doctors in a significant radius will take your insurance anymore. How disruptive is that in the day to day workings of a community?

The medical network and the insurance company are engaged in the usual legal battles over who should get what and how much. In the meantime, families now face increased difficulty due to circumstances entirely beyond their control. The system is such now that switching health insurance carries is an enormous liability, and carries the real possibility of excluding pre-existing conditions from care. What a mess.