TONY DOKOUPIL:
00:00:31
On any street on America-- I'm on a plan that I pay a lot of money for, and it covers very little.
TONY DOKOUPIL:
00:00:36
--even here on Pratt Street in insurance-loving Hartford-- I mean, I think it's kind of a scam.
TONY DOKOUPIL:
00:00:41
--it's easy to find complaints about health insurance-- I have a friend who's actually having procedure done today, and insurance denied her medication.
TONY DOKOUPIL:
00:00:51
--or lack thereof. You don't have health insurance. No. Tell me why. Because it's just medicine.
TONY DOKOUPIL:
00:00:56
Family plan premiums have jumped more than 50% over the past decade, faster than wages and inflation. How much of your job is hearing complaints about cost? Oh, everything.
TONY DOKOUPIL:
00:01:10
As Connecticut's health care advocate Kathy Holt says, almost every story she hears is a sad one. People call more and more frequently and say, I don't have any control over this. I might as well just die. Nobody is going to help me.
TONY DOKOUPIL:
00:01:24
Gallup this year found more than 60% of Americans worry a great deal about the availability and affordability of health care, topping all other domestic concerns, including the economy. Who's the reason that cost is so big? It's the providers. It's the insurance companies. There's a lot of profit-takers out of health care.
TONY DOKOUPIL:
00:01:45
But there's more, she says, that lawmakers can do right now to help. Legislators can help people to reduce medical debt. They can increase prevention of illnesses. And they can help more people get health insurance. A bigger overhaul of the system, of course, is part of a much bigger conversation, but Holt says there are positives here as well. Some of those higher costs really are tied to better care and longer, healthier lives, just not all of it.
