Healthcare remedies

Everytime I get hot about Health Care reform I make an online donation to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Why? The healthcare lobby owns them just as much as they do everyone.

[yawn] No need to hyperventilate. The public-airwave stuff was predictable in its positive description of other systems and in its tiresome whining that the USA is not like those nations, US-bash, US-bash, US-bash. The Taiwan example I had heard on NPR (part of the entire presentation) was more than enough to hear.

the emerging support of the Business Roundtable that finally realizes the global competitive disadvantage of our system.

Amen!

I noticed that the profits of the trial lawyers is not mentioned. The U.S. cannot be like other countries without severe tort reform, something that the U.S. is not going to do.

The U.S. will probably end up adopting the bad portions of other countries and ending up with something that looks like public education.

I was working and missed both broadcasts of the program last night, my hope is that the topic was handled with a minimum of "gotcha" and more a focus on how these other countries managed their care.

The great lie about US healthcare is that "it doesn't affect me because I have health insurance". The way costs are rising soon only the most affluent will be able to afford the standard of care that we have come to expect. Costs are rising out of control, with mixed ratios of greed and waste impacting care. Its not just medicare and public medical assistance programs that are strained (and also the easiest to fix) but all healthcare, even your private or employer supported plan. Although its treated more and more like a commodity, the truth is that people don't often have a choice if they get sick or not. Insurance companies make their money from denying care to people who are sick. Drug companies market lame re-formulations of drugs to maintain their patents and charge US healthcare payers billions when less expensive alternatives are just as effective. And the industry spends millions to convince the public that all alternatives are impossible or that you are going to have to stand in a line (god forbid).

So what are you going to do, hole up in your house and hope to not become ill, to not age? Wait until your premiums are half of your outgoing finances?

Stop believing them. Find out about real healthcare reform. Look up the St. Luke's Health Initiative to see how they are systematically educating the public and our lawmakers about how to change the system for the better.

To promote health care reform I give to the Democrats because I believe that they are incrementally more likely to move the issue forward than the GOP in spite of the influence of special interests.

Yes, Malpractice insurance is one of the changes that needs to be addressed as it has in the other countries with more advanced health care.

DLS is the usual rah-rah Republican who believes there is nothing wrong with our current system. Anyone who says there is anything wrong and that just maybe all the answers aren't found in the United States is bashing the U.S. No, they're "bashing" the mindset that says that the free market is an almighty benevolent force for good in our society and there's nothing better than 1200 publicly held companies creating a mass of red tape virtually unmatched in any other bureaucracy, primarily in order to not pay out the benefits they've agreed to.

The PBS program brought home to me what a big difference a culture makes.
To the Japanese, for example, it is a given that every citizen should have access to health care; It's not a question; it's a given.
How we in America manage to stress religion and patriotism so much without having that same sense of commitment to 'all of us', is incomprehensible to me.
I don't think wearing lapel pins makes up for that.

I only got to see a part of this program on Tuesday night, but I thought that it was extremely interesting. No system is perfect, of course. But there was a lot of food for thought in the show.

Mark Daniels

Insurance companies make their money from denying care to people who are sick

They make their money collecting premiums from people who won't be getting sick. It is the job of insurance companies to manage risk. By filing a claim, you've proven a bad risk. Their interest isn't in treating your illness, but denying your claim. Maybe you don't have any choice but to sue. Maybe you can sue the insurance company--but maybe you sue the hospital or health care provider instead. That way, some other insurance company picks up the tab.

"the profits of the trial lawyers is not mentioned"

It's obviously addressed in the Conyers-Kucinich bill and any other effort made as a rule to extend Medicare or other coverage -- by deliberate omission (not stating that providers would become government employees), and at other times, by commission -- any time any bill or any proponent of a bill seeking such coverage states the providers will remain private. The scheme is to have the federal or state governments pay for things and be the sole or "single" payer and control what is provided thereby -- but to leave the providers nominally and also legally private. That way, if they aren't government employees (but legitimately it can be argued legally that they are, if that's the intent as well as the obvious effect of any "single-payer" [sic] plan), they have no sovereign immunity and remain subject to junk-lawsuit abuse by the LegaLottO.


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"DLS is the usual rah-rah Republican who believes there is nothing wrong with our current system. [additional illogical nonsense deleted]"

You said this; I never did. As is typical, the substance of what you post is logic- and fact-deficient. You substitute emotion for reason and what you want to believe for reality. Stick with your style, but you need to learn logic and to control your imagination for a change (and perhaps acquire some maturity while doing so -- there's no need for excessive emotion).

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"No system is perfect, of course."

More valuable and noteworthy than the whiny, childish US-bashing was when people describing other systems admit they are not perfect and that these other systems have problems. As I've said numerous times, if we go to Medicare for everyone or something like it, we'll be exchanging one set of problems for another. Only fools believe Medicare for everyone or something like it is some magic solution. Only fools, or those who already view government as their fairy godmother as well as their surrogate parent.

DLS-

You spend so much time on vituperation, it's hard to discern your line of reasoning. You did use the 'no system is perfect' phrase as justification to bash every idea but your own.

The smart thing to do is, like Taiwan, to look at all the other systems and find what would work best in the US.
Perhaps examining your suggestion should be part of the process. You reduce the chances of others falling in line with you, when all your ideas come wrapped in irants and insults.