Tag: insurance

Listen: Why I Left the U.S. for My Surgical Procedure

No Easy Answers in Bioethics logoNo Easy Answers in Bioethics Episode 21

What would you do if you needed surgery, but seeking care would mean $25,000 or more in medical debt? Would you consider traveling to another country to receive the same surgery at a fraction of that cost? Would you put off seeking care entirely, until it became an emergency situation?

These questions related to access to care, health insurance, and medical tourism are explored in this episode, which features Center for Ethics and Humanities in the Life Sciences faculty members Len Fleck and Larissa Fluegel. Dr. Fluegel, a clinician born and raised in the Dominican Republic, shares her personal experience of needing gallbladder surgery, and the reasons why she traveled from Michigan to the Dominican Republic to receive that surgery. It may not be surprising that the main reason was cost. Discussing the healthcare systems in both countries, Drs. Fleck and Fluegel explore the challenges that under- and uninsured individuals in the U.S. face when seeking care.

Ways to Listen

This episode was produced and edited by Liz McDaniel in the Center for Ethics. Music: “While We Walk (2004)” by Antony Raijekov via Free Music Archive, licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License. Full episode transcript available.

About: No Easy Answers in Bioethics is a podcast series from the Center for Ethics and Humanities in the Life Sciences in the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine. Each month Center for Ethics faculty and their collaborators discuss their ongoing work and research across many areas of bioethics. Episodes are hosted by H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences Online.

Michigan’s New Abortion Insurance Rider Law: Challenges, Spin, and Justice

Bioethics-in-the-News-logoThis post is a part of our Bioethics in the News series. For more information, click here.

By Deborah Fisch, JD

In December 2013 the Michigan legislature passed the Abortion Insurance Opt-Out Act. Because of the Act’s origin as a petition to initiate legislation, the governor possessed no power to veto it. Thus, effective March 14, no health insurance plan offered for sale in Michigan may include coverage for “elective abortion.” Instead, consumers desiring such coverage must purchase an additional rider – before becoming pregnant. No insurance carrier is obligated to sell such a rider, nor is any employer-based insurance plan required to offer employees an opportunity to purchase one.

The outcry against the law has condemned the allegedly undemocratic process of its enactment, the predicted effect on access to abortion for Michigan women, and possible further restrictions on abortion rights. Less attention has been paid to potential challenges to the law, the use of extreme spin on both sides, and the role of abortion restrictions in the larger context of Reproductive Justice.

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Should Women Pay More for Health Insurance?

Bioethics-in-the-News-logoThis post is a part of our Bioethics in the News series. For more information, click here.

By Leonard M. Fleck, Ph.D.

In a recent commentary in Time (Aug. 23, 2013), Hadley Heath argued that women ought to pay more for their health insurance than men. Fairness, she contended, required this. She was criticizing the requirement of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act [PPACA] that prohibited unequal insurance premiums for men and women. There seemed to be two primary reasons for her view: (1) Women live longer than men; (2) Women consume more health care than men. I will start by accepting both these statements as factually true. But I find deeply problematic the normative claim that women are not paying their fair share of health care costs.

Behind Ms. Heath’s normative conclusion is a premise for which she offers no argument. If I buy a more luxurious car, a larger home, or finer wines, then I ought to pay more for these goods than individuals who are content with a used Chevy, a 1000 square foot ranch home and Boone’s Farm. If I consume more health care because I have colorectal cancer and late-stage heart failure, then I ought to pay more for my health care than someone with a broken arm from falling off their polo horse. That is, needed health care should be thought of as just another consumer good, not as anything morally special. If someone wishes to use more health care, then they ought to pay more for that health care.

The wording in that last sentence ought to get our attention. Who is it who “wishes” to use more health care for their cancer and heart disease? Do I wish to use more health care in the way that I wish to have a second piece of turtle cheesecake? The very asking of the question makes manifest its absurdity. I need health care for my cancer or heart disease unless I am willing to accept a premature and painful death. This is what motivates us to think of needed and effective health care as being morally special instead of as just another consumer good to be distributed in accord with desire and ability to pay.

There is another unstated principle in Ms. Heath’s essay that is even more morally troubling than my first point. It is that those who use more health care, or are likely to use more health care, ought to pay more for that health care (or be denied it.) At any point in time the vast majority of women in our society are in excellent health, so it seems there is something silly about this whole debate. However, a large fraction of the uninsured and uninsurable in our society have that status because they have (or are likely to have) very costly health problems which insurers will not cover or for which insurers will charge unaffordable premiums. This is not a silly or trivial problem. At the moral core of the PPACA is the rejection of the idea that individuals with greater health needs must pay for their health care in proportion to need. That is the principal Ms. Heath is really attacking. Women are being used by her as a Trojan horse for attacking the moral fortress of the PPACA.

Finally there is the issue that women live longer than men on average. Again, the principle seems to be that if one lives longer, then it is assumed (maybe falsely) that one will use more health care during those extra elderly years. If that is the principle, however, then there is no good reason why women alone should bear those extra insurance costs. Rather, all persons who can be reliably predicted to achieve greater than average life expectancies ought to be saddled with extra insurance costs. This is hardly the sort of message we would want to give to citizens whom we are encouraging to make healthy lifetime choices for a longer life. The predictable outcome of such a message would be that economical men would rationally choose to spend yet more time watching sports on TV and guzzling beer while gulping down burgers and brats. Does that yield the logical conclusion that women should be charged more for health insurance?

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Leonard FleckLeonard M. Fleck, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Center for Ethics and Humanities in the Life Sciences at Michigan State University and the author of Just Caring: Health Care Rationing and Democratic Deliberation.

Join the discussion! Your comments and responses to this commentary are welcomed. The author will respond to all comments made by Friday, October 11, 2013. With your participation, we hope to create discussions rich with insights from diverse perspectives. You must provide your name and email address to leave a comment. Your email address will not be made public.