Break HW- family health coverage

The movie SICKO created by Micheal Moore is about American health insurance, and how it compares to health insurance in other places like Canada or France. This movie also talks about how the insurance companies try to get as much money out of the citizens as possible, but also deny coverage. In America doctors are paid more if they deny care because they are saving the insurance companies more money. However, in England doctors are paid more for the more patients they treat. If they can convince a patient to get treatment, or for example stop smoking, they make more money. Because of these differences in health care, people in England are expected to live longer and are healthier than American citizens. Statistics also show that the poorest person in England, may live longer than the richest person in America due to the differences in Health insurance.


My mom and I have health coverage with both the Empire Plan and GHI. Empire is used for our normal doctor visits and emergency room visits, while GHI is used when either of us is hospitalized. After talking with my mom about the different types of coverage, and which HMO covers what, I couldn't really find anything bad about our health care experience in general. This is mainly because we haven't had any major illness between the two of us. When my mom broke her ankle it was covered by her job, and when i broke my wrist the insurance covered everything. We have never been denied treatment, or stressed over how our medical bills would be paid. I also found out that my mom has separate coverage for major illnesses such as cancer. She has a family plan with AFLAC which covers any test or treatments that we would need if we had cancer. My mom being a correction officer (state employee) contributed to these good health experiences. State employee benefits are exceptionally better than some other employers.
She is fully covered for health, dental, vision, and workers compensation. Even though she has good experiences with health coverage, she isn't fully happy. Every pay period, $98.77 is taken out of her check for the Empire Family Plan. Since this is for a family plan, the amount taken out is a set amount for every family. Regardless if it's a family of 2 (like us), or a family of 15. I think that this is crazy and somewhat unfair. She also doesn't like the fact that every time we go make a doctors visit, there's a co-pay. If close to 100 dollars is coming out her check every pay period, why should she have to pay a co-pay as well.When she first started the job, only about 60 dollars was taken out, and the co-pay was around 8 dollars. Now 10 years later, it's close to 100 dollars with a 20 dollar co-pay.


Even though my family hasn't had any bad experiences with health care, the way health care is in other countries still surprises me. It's crazy that HMO's can put a price on someones health, or whether they live or die. I don't feel that that's right. If a person needs care, shouldn't they be able to get it??? The way people in other countries can basically get any treatment they want, and not have to pay drastic prices for it is still a surprise to me. It has me wondering why America can't have a system similar to those in other countries. If it's working so well in other countries, why can't it work in America?