The Utah Healthcare Initiative: 14 year old boy about to max out ...

by Dr. Joe Jarvis

Fourteen-year-old Brendan Staub of St. Louis County, Mo., may max out his insurance policy before doctors even figure out what's wrong with him. For the past six years, Staub has had frequent seizures because of a strange neurological disorder that doctors cannot diagnose. He receives regular treatment at the Mayo Clinic -- which comes with a $15,000 price tag every three weeks. If that keeps up, he will reach the $1.5 million limit on his health insurance policy within two years, reports the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's Christine Byers. He has already used about $1.1 million. Lifetime maximum benefit is a business construct in health insurance designed to protect the business interests of the insurer. Insurers are non-essential to health system function. We do need hospitals and doctors, however, in order to have a health system. What happens to health care institutions when health insurers invoke their selfish business interests and stop paying for needed treatment? Why do we continue to put up with non-essential business interests that place our essential health care providers at financial risk? And why is Congress insisting that all Americans buy health insurance, a wasteful, useless product?

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