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  • Posted By: C. MacLean @ 09/30/2008 9:15:46 AM

    If the goal is to get more people insured, then the plans may work.
    But if the goal is to get more people healthy and keep them healthy, both plans are a dismal failure.

    It is not enough to look at how to fund health care - we need to be looking at WHAT, exactly, are we funding. Right now in this country we don't have health insurance, we have sick insurance - we only use it when we get sick. And as long as it is profit driven, things will continue to stay that way.

    Under the old fee for service system, we proved that doctors were lousy businessman.
    Under managed care we proved that businessmen are lousy doctors.

    Medicine and money do not mix. Until we are able to get the profit out of healthcare, we will not be healthier as a country, just poorer.

    Until we get the focus off the end result of disease and put it squarely on prevention of disease, we will stay sicker and poorer. As long as we are willing to fund diagnosis, surgical intervention, expensive medical devices and expensive pharmaceuticals at the expense of disease prevention and lifestyle intervention, will we be sicker and poorer.

    And as long as we continue the shot gun wedding of employment and sick insurance, we will stay sicker and poorer.

    We need non-profit universal health care, not for-profit exclusionary sick insurance.

    Neither Obama's plan or McCain's plan comes close.

  • Posted By: consernedcitizen @ 09/29/2008 7:25:32 PM

    Please don't get me wrong - physicians are not the root of all evil in our health care system. Physician salaries are part of the problem, but just one part of the problem. Technology, for instance, is a big part of the problem.

    We did not have CAT scans or MRIs 25 years ago so they were not part of our health care spending then. 10 years ago a CAT scan or MRI was reserved for after conservative treatment was tried and was unsuccessful. Now, CAT scans and MRIs are a first line diagnostic tool. If I have an injury, I don???t want to wait for 6 weeks of conservative treatment to fail before I am able to receive this diagnostic tool ??? I want it now. Just like most Americans. The result is that CAT scans and MRIs now rival blood work in terms of health care costs for diagnostic testing.

    The same goes for treating premature neonates. A baby born 10 weeks premature 25 years ago likely passed away very shortly after birth. Now we can save that baby - but at a 7 figure cost. Again, if it is my baby I am going to spend every possible dime and use every possibly service for the purpose of saving him or her.

    I am not passing judgment on whether this is right or wrong because I too am a health care consumer who doesn???t want to financial considerations to enter into the care I receive. But it needs to be part of the discussion. The discussion cannot be exclusively about insurers charging too much in premiums. I must be about ALL of the factors that go into the cost of health care coverage. It is simply the disingenuous AMA ads that are plastered on my screen that have me annoyed because they, on behalf of their members, disavow any responsibility for those costs and try to shift all the blame to those evil insurers.

  • Posted By: Ethos2001 @ 09/29/2008 2:47:36 PM

    By no means am I defending Insurance companies or the current system. I feel something certainly needs to be done. However, there are many justifications to some of the numbers that are being thrown in these posts.

    First of all, complaining about how much a physician makes is one of the largest complaints I hear. Coming from a "medical family" you have to understand some of the costs associated with the position. In malpractice insurance ALONE the average physician is paying upwards of $25,000 a year and sometimes more depending on the state. Obviously those rates go up if they get involved in any kind of suit, which in this country the chances of that happening are probably 10:1 for a doctor.

    Secondly, the average tuition costs for a medical degree are upwards of $30,000 a year. That's an 8 year degree so you are looking at $240,000 in debt right out of school which does not include the interest.

    Third, the last place we should be looking to save money in our insurance are physician salaries. A good physician deserves a larger salary thats the point of the private health care system. It's not different then any other job. Are you saying that engineers should also have a cap on their salaries so it costs less to build a bridge? The focus should be in liability (the single largest cost to the medical field by far), medical equipment costs, and insurance company charges.

    Lastly, to defend why "other countries" have broad ranging health care plans that cover all of their citizens, is because most of those countries are the size of a single state with the population of one of our largest cities. Not to mention many of those countries tax systems are at such high rates that the average American would throw a dirty fit if they were asked to vote on such a system. Not to mention, many of those countries have very strict rules with liability and other expenses that this country needs to fix first before even thinking about paying for a broad health care system.

    Just my $.02

    • Posted By: drwhite48 @ 09/29/2008 5:11:07 PM

      Yes, physicians incur all those costs. But it is what the average citizen witnesses that cause the recoil against high physician incomes. Things like $2.6 million dollar homes in a small college town. No vehicle less than a Lexus. And all the trappings associated with higher incomes. Most folks are concerned about all the GPs that just pass out pills (after the drug salesman just dropped by) and offer no real relief for their conditions. Oh, they put in a stitch or two some days, but you can now wash the cut and apply a drop of super glue yourself nowadays. I think specialists deserve more. The truly gifted surgeon should make a very good living. It's just that there is no apparent qualifying agent that tells you if a doctor is really good at his job. We need something like they have in restaurants. It should be posted in the waiting room. A sheet with a score, like 92 or 96. It should come from the state board of review that monitors the doctors success rate and his skills. I've been to my fair share of quacks in the last 60 years.

  • Posted By: drwhite48 @ 09/29/2008 4:57:10 PM

    I feel like there is more to this than meets the eye (or ear). I think the whole of Congress wants to solve all of its social programs solvency problems in a very underhanded way. By carefully eliminating insurance availability and coverage through either plan they succeed in killing off the babyboomers earlier than predicted thus saving trillions of dollars. They will incite companies that are self insured to drop coverage and tell employees to purchase their own coverage with the $5000 credit (which you won't get until you make the purchase and have proof of it). Never mind the coverage will cost more than twice that for the same coverage most companies offer. Unable to afford decent coverage, most will lose any insurance coverage they have and then just simply die. Oh well, too bad.

  • Posted By: doctoraaron @ 09/29/2008 3:13:06 PM

    The dirty secret is that neither plan will work because each allows the private health care bureaucracy to survive.

    Private health insurers waste 25-35% of the insurance premium on their profits, marketing, underwriting expenses, and other bureaucracy. Some say, when all costs which this system imposes on others is accounted for that the waste is 50%!!

    Only single payer health care financing reform, establishing a single low overhead (Medicare's is 3%) payer with buying power, a Medicare For All, can ensure health coverage for all at a reasonable cost.

  • Posted By: jefflz @ 09/29/2008 12:22:18 PM

    Tax credits for insurance is not the answer to those who can't afford it in any case. Moreover, McCain will do nothing for those with pre-existing conditions. His old idea of creating a high risk pool is already a demonstrated failure. He also wants to tax healthcare benefits from employers indirectly canceling the tax credit. We are the only developed country that does not have healthcare available to all of its citizens without question. We have 47 million people in this country without any healthcare coverage whatsoever. We already have a working model for broad healthcare, it is called Medicare and it does work. We need to expand it to cover everyone. No citizen should ever be denied medical care they need whether or not they unemployed, whether or not they can afford health insurance, whether or not they have cancer or heart disease or asthma or any pre-existing condition! It is a fundamental human right. With no new ideas McCain has his head stuck in the past still spouting free-market slogans (like Wall St.) and protecting the insurers, not the patients.

  • Posted By: MikeS11 @ 09/29/2008 3:39:14 AM

    The real reasons:

    http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread391697/pg1

  • Posted By: MikeS11 @ 09/29/2008 3:38:48 AM

    nice try, republican lies abound:

    http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread391697/pg1

  • Posted By: Fred R @ 09/27/2008 10:13:17 PM

    Do you realize that the exact reason we do not have a national plan or universal to access to a universal plan is the employer based system which
    1- is discriminatory ( try getting a group plan for small biz with some chronically ill employees)
    2 segments the market for the benefit of , well, guess who, the insurance companies
    3- reduces wages paid to employees ( everyone knows wages have not risen under bush but did you know that employer costs ( employee comepensation which counts heath insurance) has? This could have been wage increases.
    4- keeps out small business and the self employed- work for the man ??? or else!
    5- promotes wage slavery those who work in undesirable positions merely to obtain insurance.
    6- Watch how fast a national plan or universal access would emerge if the work force was not indentured servants ( see health insurance hostages) .
    The current system must be destroyed so a new one can emerge.


    • Posted By: pentexan1 @ 09/28/2008 9:41:45 PM

      Many thanks to both C. MacLean and Fred R. This is the first time I've actually read words on the 'net or off it from people who actually "get it" concerning health care today. I'm one who works for wages from an employer who can't/doesn't offer me group insurance and can't afford private health care. I make too much to be on medicaid, but not enough to afford my own insurance. I literally fall through the cracks.

      Having worked in hospital business offices, I saw every day the "creative bookkeeping" that goes on there. Our so-called health-care system is broken; I"m beginning to think only a revolution will demolish the remains enough to overhaul it to something workable. Not-for-profit care is the only viable solution, in my opinion.

  • Posted By: Karenn1 @ 09/28/2008 10:36:40 AM

    Remember you get one fifth of a write off. 2500=250.Let the health coverage run like Medicare. Federal law will get you for fraud.Business just steal and give back part of loot as a fine.Keep business out of health like HMO a dissater for patients.

  • Posted By: C. MacLean @ 09/28/2008 7:19:33 AM

    If the goal is to get more people insured, then the plans may work.
    But if the goal is to get more people healthy and keep them healthy, both plans are a dismal failure.

    It is not enough to look at how to fund health care - we need to be looking at WHAT, exactly, are we funding. Right now in this country we don't have health insurance, we have sick insurance - we only use it when we get sick. And as long as it is profit driven, things will continue to stay that way.

    Under the old fee for service system, we proved that doctors were lousy businessman.
    Under managed care we proved that businessmen are lousy doctors.

    Medicine and money do not mix. Until we are able to get the profit out of healthcare, we will not be healthier as a country, just poorer.

    Until we get the focus off the end result of disease and put it squarely on prevention of disease, we will stay sicker and poorer. As long as we are willing to fund diagnosis, surgical intervention, expensive medical devices and expensive pharmaceuticals at the expense of disease prevention and lifestyle intervention, will we be sicker and poorer.

    And as long as we continue the shot gun wedding of employment and sick insurance, we will stay sicker and poorer.

    We need non-profit universal health care, not for-profit exclusionary sick insurance.

    Neither Obama's plan or McCain's plan comes close.

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