Why the U.S. needs a National Health Program

As for shopping from state to state, all that I understand will happen is these insurance companies will setup in a state where there aren’t anything for rules and will get away with denying care and selling a lot of cheap policies that won’t pay for much of anything.

I keep hearing about “choice”, but where is choice when it is needed - when you are sick and find out your policy is a piece of hooey. What other insurance company in it’s right mind is going to want you for a client? They just love giving away money don’t they.

Choice is much better than being told what to do by an establishment who cant run what they have their hands in now.

It is the persons responsibility to look into and research according to their needs what they are buying into before they buy it. If you are just buing insurance from anyone and then see it wont cover something, its nobodys fault but their own.

Shopping state to state will bring costs down. They will compete for your business.The fraud rate will decrease. If there is universal, you have no choice, you do what you are told by the government.

Should we have to prioritize when it comes to chronic illness. Thats like saying one person is better than another so we will treat person A and let them live, but person B has to wait 6 more months until they become more critical, then we may treat them.

the government cant run itself, its not going to run healthcare. The State governments have already ruined Medicate by inflating prices and overcharging in order to get more federal funding. What is wrong with that picture…Your own government is frauding the Healthcare system now, you dont think they will when they are making the rules for everyone!!

I would simply point out the various underlying assumptions of the arguments over single-payer (note: I’ve switched nomenclature)

  1. The government can be more efficient than a free (but regulated) market

  2. The government can offer many solutions to medical problems to meet a person’s need rather than 1 size fits all

  3. It is right to force people to give up some of their medical care (in terms of wait-times or rationing) and give it to others

  4. The government can control wages/prices/profits without any unintended consequences (for example rationing and innovation)

  5. A comparative effectiveness approach will be the correct solution for all patients.

I changed this to single-payer because

  1. progressives have advocated that approach for at least 70 years, so this is not new, and
  2. the inclusion of a “public option” will like lead over time to largely single payer.

In the early days of Oil, one of the large oil companies (AMOCO?) would go into local markets, price their competitors out of business, then have a monopoly position. I suspect that’s what’s on progressives mind as we speak…squeeze the private sector out, then impose rationed care for older people.

There is a dire need in the minds of most to get Medicare under control. I suspect that Obama’s cutting 200M dollar from Medicare is just the first step. The next is to means-test it. THe final is to combine it will a single payer.

Old sick people will then be competing with young sick people for funding. And, after all, aren’t the young the future??? and the old going to die soon anyway???

It is only a matter of time if this stuff gets passed

[QUOTE=plugger_;18052]I’ve learned the to trust the government more with infrastructure: roads, fire protection, police, military, public utilities, and yes many times health care. Sometimes it makes more sense just to throw the money in a pot and take what is needed from there.

I would also add to that list drug research. It is expensive to do basic research and these drug companies won’t tell you how they let the government pull the heavy load when it comes to research and that 15 of 21 blockbuster drugs from '65 to '92 came from government research:
http://www.newamerica.net/publications/articles/2004/plunder_drugs

But getting back to waiting times, if we went to a national health program there might be some waiting while the medical system catches up with all the uninsured, might have to prioritize according to need rather than insurance and money - wouldn’t that be a pity.

Anyway, I understand Taiwan with it’s system similar to Canada’s is claiming NO waiting times. And this study by the Commonwealth Fund is showing Germany, not the US, with the shortest waiting times:

(click on smaller middle image beneath the main image)
http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Content/Performance-Snapshots/International-Comparisons/International-Comparison--Access---Timeliness.aspx[/QUOTE]

Taiwan is a very small country compared to Canada and especially to the United States. Nations with socialized medicine do not make decisions based on need. If they did, so many individuals would not be waiting month after month, after month for a needed surgery or testing. In the United States, do you believe that medical system is going to take care of individual with a heart attack or a fever? My mom was a Registered Nurse, my sister was a head charge nurse in one of the major hospitals in this metro area, and my aunt is in senior nursing management. If you told them that the hospitals do not take care of you based on need, they would think you were crazy. As stated by my sister, when the nurse comes into your room, they have no idea or clue, if you have insurance or you do not, NONE.

I assumed that you choose home dialysis? I am sure one of the reasons you choose home dialysis is because you wanted control over your treatments. Now, imagine losing control of your home dialysis treatments to government rules and regulations. In addition, imagine the government telling you that your life is not of value because you are of a certain age or you are unable to work and because of that, you are a burden.

You would do well to speak to some of the people I worked with at the retirement community, they are from Africa. As they told me, if you need dialysis in Africa and you do not have the money to pay for it, it is called, “Sorry, about your luck, Chuck.” You are going to die, because the nations of Africa do not have the money to take care of you. Capitalism is what is saving your neck and our necks from dying. The United States is wealthy enough to take of individuals who need dialysis. Guess what? I know some of you have bashed private insurance and one of the hard facts of life is that those individuals who have private insurance are paying the bills to keep the clinics open. Medicare does NOT pay enough to cover the bills of the clinics, machines, wages, etc.

Do you want a government medical board to make your decisions for you? Do you want to have control over your treatments and your medical care. I think you have already told us your answer, you want control over your treatments and medical care, actions speak louder than words.

Mark

It is expensive to do drug research because of the excessive level of mandates and regulations by the U.S. Government. In the old days, it took four and half years to get a drug to market, now, it takes fourteen years. Drug companies are shy about investing in new drugs because of the excessive regulations and billions lost if the drug is not approved. Again, hurting customers is very bad for business. If you kill a customer, guess what, that is the loss of a human being and a loss of revenue. If the drug industry screws up, they pay in horrible publicity and lost sales, along with lawsuits.

If the F.D.A. screws up, what is the cost to them, when do they pay the price for their failures? The government is not on the side of the angels, extreme mismanagement and incompetence, when do they pay a price? I hate to tell you, people in the government do not care about being in a lawsuit. This is because the taxpayer pays the bill, not the government employee. By the way, if the government fouls up in National Health Care and injure patients, will they be liable? Again, I hate to inform you that in a number of government services, the government is immune from lawsuits, do the research.

[QUOTE=plugger_;18053]As for shopping from state to state, all that I understand will happen is these insurance companies will setup in a state where there aren’t anything for rules and will get away with denying care and selling a lot of cheap policies that won’t pay for much of anything.

I keep hearing about “choice”, but where is choice when it is needed - when you are sick and find out your policy is a piece of hooey. What other insurance company in it’s right mind is going to want you for a client? They just love giving away money don’t they.[/QUOTE]

You think the Government is not giving away money that they do not have? The taxpayer is paying the bill for this excessive program, estimated to cost $1.6 trillion by the Congressional Budget Office(CBO) over ten years. At some point, the government is going to have to stop oozing red ink, just like a corporation, Economics 101.

I have never had my insurance company deny coverage for anything, ever. When you are taking about rules, you are talking about imposed mandates, thousands. This is why individuals and families cannot afford insurance policies. Politicans are buying votes with these mandates. Your group seems to love “Choice.” Yet, when it comes to people making decisions about their own medical care, your crowd wants control of everything.

All we have heard for decades, a decision is between a woman and her physician, over and over again, time and time again. I fail to understand why that one medical decision is between a woman and her physician. Yet, this crowd believes that every other medical decision should be decided by the government??? Does this make any sense?

Where do you see in the Constitution that the government is to be responsible for the payment and making medical decisions for the average Joe? Do not even think about the general welfare cause, read the Federalist papers. Our Founding Fathers were absolutely opposed to this type of spending. The Founding Fathers did not believe in “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” This nation was not founded or run on the Karl Marx Manifesto.

Our nation has become great based on Liberty, Freedom, Rule of Law, Property Rights, and the freedom for individuals to pursue excellence. Would you like your physician to be just average or excellent?

Mark

By the way, tell me what have been the results of the Great Society, with the $10-$11 trillion dollar wealth transfer to the poor? Has the issue of poverty been solved with this program? Do not look at intentions, look at results. Please tell me the qualifications that Obama has to run the health care industry, any health care experience?

“[The President] is the dignified, but accountable magistrate of a free and great people. The tenure of his office, it is true, is not hereditary; nor is it for life: but still it is a tenure of the noblest kind: by being the man of the people, he is invested; by continuing to be the man of the people, his investiture will be voluntarily, and cheerfully, and honourably renewed.”

–James Wilson, Lectures on Law, 1791

[QUOTE=Unregistered;18059]I would simply point out the various underlying assumptions of the arguments over single-payer (note: I’ve switched nomenclature)

  1. The government can be more efficient than a free (but regulated) market

  2. The government can offer many solutions to medical problems to meet a person’s need rather than 1 size fits all

  3. It is right to force people to give up some of their medical care (in terms of wait-times or rationing) and give it to others

  4. The government can control wages/prices/profits without any unintended consequences (for example rationing and innovation)

  5. A comparative effectiveness approach will be the correct solution for all patients.

I changed this to single-payer because

  1. progressives have advocated that approach for at least 70 years, so this is not new, and
  2. the inclusion of a “public option” will like lead over time to largely single payer.

In the early days of Oil, one of the large oil companies (AMOCO?) would go into local markets, price their competitors out of business, then have a monopoly position. I suspect that’s what’s on progressives mind as we speak…squeeze the private sector out, then impose rationed care for older people.

There is a dire need in the minds of most to get Medicare under control. I suspect that Obama’s cutting 200M dollar from Medicare is just the first step. The next is to means-test it. THe final is to combine it will a single payer.

Old sick people will then be competing with young sick people for funding. And, after all, aren’t the young the future??? and the old going to die soon anyway???

It is only a matter of time if this stuff gets passed[/QUOTE]

The government will have a monopoly in health care. Then what? The government has powers of a monopoly, a private company could only dream of having over people. As stated by Former Colorado Democratic Governor Richard Lamm, “Old people have a duty to die.” Well, Governor, do people on dialysis have a duty to die? Many people on this board fail to realize that when you hear about effective health care, Obama is talking about providing health care for the healthy majority, not the elderly and the sick, as it is provided in Canada. There is more than enough money to take care of everyone. If anyone tells you another story, it is complete and utter garbage. Individuals like Obama and his crowd at the University believe that the elderly and sick have a duty to die. Disbelieve me? I will quote them in their own words.

“This is epitomized by the advocacy of Peter Singer. Alas, being a realist, I have to admit that Singer’s anti-human values are triumphing and becoming increasingly mainstream among society’s movers and shakers. Witness the appalling success of the Great Ape Project, about to become a legal reality in Spain only 15 years after it was launched. Witness the increasing respectability of infanticide, with the notion of killing babies for eugenic purposes not only occurring regularly in the Netherlands, but touted as a matter of respectable consideration in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Hastings Center Report, and the New York Times, among other places.”

By Wesley Smith
Daily Telegraph - Feb 21, 2009

Imagine that you have lung cancer. It has been in remission, but tests show the cancer has returned and is likely to be terminal. Still, there is some hope. Chemotherapy could extend your life, if not save it. You ask to begin treatment. But you soon receive more devastating news. A letter from the government informs you that the cost of chemotherapy is deemed an unjustified expense for the limited extra time it would provide. However, the government is not without compassion. You are informed that whenever you are ready, it will gladly pay for your assisted suicide.

Think that’s an alarmist scenario to scare you away from supporting “death with dignity”? Wrong. That is exactly what happened last year to two cancer patients in Oregon, where assisted suicide is legal.

Barbara Wagner had recurrent lung cancer and Randy Stroup had prostate cancer. Both were on Medicaid, the state’s health insurance plan for the poor that, like some NHS services, is rationed. The state denied both treatment, but told them it would pay for their assisted suicide. “It dropped my chin to the floor,” Stroup told the media. “[How could they] not pay for medication that would help my life, and yet offer to pay to end my life?” (Wagner eventually received free medication from the drug manufacturer. She has since died. The denial of chemotherapy to Stroup was reversed on appeal after his story hit the media.)

Despite Wagner and Stroup’s cases, advocates continue to insist that Oregon proves assisted suicide can be legalised with no abuses. But the more one learns about the actual experience, the shakier such assurances become.

At a meeting in the House of Commons on Monday night hosted by the anti-euthanasia charity Alert and Labour MP Brian Iddon, I hope to bring home to MPs and the British public just how dangerous it would be to legalise euthanasia. The Oregon experiment shows how easily the “right to die” can become a “duty to die” for vulnerable and depressed people fearful of becoming a burden on the state or their relatives. I know that a powerful and emotive campaign is being waged in the UK media – using heart-rending cases such as multiple sclerosis sufferer Debbie Purdy – to inveigle Parliament into changing the law.

Miss Purdy, who lost in the Appeal Court on Thursday, wants to secure a legal guarantee that her husband would not be prosecuted if he accompanied her to the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland – one of the few places where euthanasia is legal. Much as I sympathise with her plight, such a guarantee would lure us on to the slippery slope where the old and the sick come under pressure to end their lives.

A study published in the Journal of Internal Medicine last year, for example, found that doctors in Oregon write lethal prescriptions for patients who are not experiencing significant symptoms and that assisted suicide practice has had little do with any inability to alleviate pain – the fear of which is a chief selling point for legalisation.

The report said that family members described loved ones who pursue “physician-assisted death” as individuals for whom being in control is important, who anticipate the negative aspects of dying and who believe the impending loss of self and quality of life will be intolerable. They fear becoming a burden to others, yet want to die at home. Concerns about what may be experienced in the future were substantially more powerful reasons than what they experienced at that point in time.

When a scared and depressed patient asks for poison pills and their doctor’s response is to pull out the lethal prescription pad, it confirms the patient’s worst fears – that they are a burden, that they are less worth loving. Hospices are geared to address such concerns. But effective hospice care is undermined when a badly needed mental health intervention is easily avoided via a state-sanctioned, physician-prescribed overdose of lethal pills.

Do the guidelines protect depressed people in Oregon? Hardly. The law does not require treatment when depression is suspected, and very few terminal patients who ask for assisted suicide are referred for psychiatric consultations. In 2008 not one patient who received a lethal prescription was referred by the prescribing doctor for a mental health evaluation.

As palliative care physician Dr Kathleen Foley and psychiatrist Herbert Hendin, an expert on suicide prevention, wrote in a scathing exposé of Oregon assisted suicide, physicians are able to “assist in suicide without inquiring into the source of the medical, psychological, social and existential concerns that usually underlie requests … even though this type of inquiring produces the kind of discussion that often leads to relief for patients and makes assisted suicide seem unnecessary.”

Oregon has become the model for how assisted suicide is supposed to work. But for those who dig beneath the sloganeering and feel-good propaganda, it becomes clear that legalising assisted suicide leads to abandonment, bad medical practice and a disregard for the importance of patients’ lives.

Wesley Smith is a lawyer, associate director of the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide and senior fellow at the Discovery Institute

Link to the article:

All I saw about my question about choice in health insurance was a lot of advice about the buyer being beware. It still sounds like gambling to me - trying to predict how sick you might wind up. A younger person, feeling invincible, is naturally going to assume they aren’t going to need too much for health care and many will look more for price than coverage - if they buy anything at all. I guess it is just so sad and too bad if they lose their gamble. And if your income won’t allow a whiz-bang policy it is just your rough luck.

We try to treat health insurance like auto insurance, larger premiums for those who actually might use it - those older and with pre-existing conditions. If my premiums go up because I’m a bad driver, I might consider improving my driving - I don’t see anybody getting less sick because when their premiums and costs rise.

I will add the only competition going on with private insurance is cherry-picking for healthy people, these companies don’t really want to pay for health care. It is not the way they are setup to be.

And look what happens when somebody actually makes the mistake of having a sick kid:

“A computer network security expert who earns over $100,000, Wilkes works for a private firm outside of Denver which fits into the large-group insurance category and is allowed to shop around for different providers each year. But when his son Thomas, born with severe hemophilia, developed a resistance to treatment at age 1, Wilkes’s claims soared; his company’s insurance provider, Wilkes says, soon began hiking premiums 40 to 55 percent each year, and introduced a lifetime cap of $1 million for all employees and their families—including Thomas. Soon, Wilkes says, no other insurance companies would offer to cover the company. Worried he would no longer be able to provide coverage for his son, Wilkes turned to state and local groups for help. Physicians for a National Health Program took up his cause, and brought him to Washington, where he hoped to persuade Congress to reject the Bush plan in favor of universal health- care legislation.”
http://www.calnurse.org/media-center/in-the-news/2007/january/page.jsp?itemID=29367834

Yes, I will continue to trust government more for matters of infrastructure - and not middle men whose main goal is to keep those insurance premiums.

FAQs and articles:
http://www.pnhp.org/

Plugger, you’re a brave man to take on this debate. :wink:

Mark, I’m going to consider posting multiple replies to yourself (more than 1) to be SPAMMING. Please consider this a warning. You posted 6 times in a row to yourself. That is not okay here.

[QUOTE=Dori Schatell;18067]Plugger, you’re a brave man to take on this debate. :wink:

Mark, I’m going to consider posting multiple replies to yourself (more than 1) to be SPAMMING. Please consider this a warning. You posted 6 times in a row to yourself. That is not okay here.[/QUOTE]

Maybe you should try blogging Mark

[QUOTE=plugger_;18066]All I saw about my question about choice in health insurance was a lot of advice about the buyer being beware. It still sounds like gambling to me - trying to predict how sick you might wind up. A younger person, feeling invincible, is naturally going to assume they aren’t going to need too much for health care and many will look more for price than coverage - if they buy anything at all. I guess it is just so sad and too bad if they lose their gamble. And if your income won’t allow a whiz-bang policy it is just your rough luck.

We try to treat health insurance like auto insurance, larger premiums for those who actually might use it - those older and with pre-existing conditions. If my premiums go up because I’m a bad driver, I might consider improving my driving - I don’t see anybody getting less sick because when their premiums and costs rise.

I will add the only competition going on with private insurance is cherry-picking for healthy people, these companies don’t really want to pay for health care. It is not the way they are setup to be.

And look what happens when somebody actually makes the mistake of having a sick kid:

“A computer network security expert who earns over $100,000, Wilkes works for a private firm outside of Denver which fits into the large-group insurance category and is allowed to shop around for different providers each year. But when his son Thomas, born with severe hemophilia, developed a resistance to treatment at age 1, Wilkes’s claims soared; his company’s insurance provider, Wilkes says, soon began hiking premiums 40 to 55 percent each year, and introduced a lifetime cap of $1 million for all employees and their families—including Thomas. Soon, Wilkes says, no other insurance companies would offer to cover the company. Worried he would no longer be able to provide coverage for his son, Wilkes turned to state and local groups for help. Physicians for a National Health Program took up his cause, and brought him to Washington, where he hoped to persuade Congress to reject the Bush plan in favor of universal health- care legislation.”
http://www.calnurse.org/media-center/in-the-news/2007/january/page.jsp?itemID=29367834

Yes, I will continue to trust government more for matters of infrastructure - and not middle men whose main goal is to keep those insurance premiums.

FAQs and articles:
http://www.pnhp.org/[/QUOTE]

Plugger did you see (read) the Congressional testimony of Wendell Potter (PDF link), he worked in the health insurance industry for more than 20 years. He rose to be a senior executive at Cigna. I think you are exactly right to point out the scam private insurance is running.

Ezra Klien has a nice summary of Potter’s testimony. We need a robust public insurance option in this country; without a robust public policy health insurers will continue to run their insurance ponzi schemes.

[QUOTE=plugger_;18066]All I saw about my question about choice in health insurance was a lot of advice about the buyer being beware. It still sounds like gambling to me - trying to predict how sick you might wind up. A younger person, feeling invincible, is naturally going to assume they aren’t going to need too much for health care and many will look more for price than coverage - if they buy anything at all. I guess it is just so sad and too bad if they lose their gamble. And if your income won’t allow a whiz-bang policy it is just your rough luck.

We try to treat health insurance like auto insurance, larger premiums for those who actually might use it - those older and with pre-existing conditions. If my premiums go up because I’m a bad driver, I might consider improving my driving - I don’t see anybody getting less sick because when their premiums and costs rise.

I will add the only competition going on with private insurance is cherry-picking for healthy people, these companies don’t really want to pay for health care. It is not the way they are setup to be.

And look what happens when somebody actually makes the mistake of having a sick kid:

“A computer network security expert who earns over $100,000, Wilkes works for a private firm outside of Denver which fits into the large-group insurance category and is allowed to shop around for different providers each year. But when his son Thomas, born with severe hemophilia, developed a resistance to treatment at age 1, Wilkes’s claims soared; his company’s insurance provider, Wilkes says, soon began hiking premiums 40 to 55 percent each year, and introduced a lifetime cap of $1 million for all employees and their families—including Thomas. Soon, Wilkes says, no other insurance companies would offer to cover the company. Worried he would no longer be able to provide coverage for his son, Wilkes turned to state and local groups for help. Physicians for a National Health Program took up his cause, and brought him to Washington, where he hoped to persuade Congress to reject the Bush plan in favor of universal health- care legislation.”
http://www.calnurse.org/media-center/in-the-news/2007/january/page.jsp?itemID=29367834

Yes, I will continue to trust government more for matters of infrastructure - and not middle men whose main goal is to keep those insurance premiums.

FAQs and articles:
http://www.pnhp.org/[/QUOTE]

One of the issues is that no one knows who is really going to get sick in this life. For my first twenty-eight years on this earth, I was never in the hospital except when I was born. There are many diseases and conditions, including diabetes, that the medical establishment has no idea why some people have it and some individuals do not. The article is interesting, I have some comments. First, if this guy thinks he is waiting in the emergency room, now, wait until “Universal Health Care.” This is the problem with having no co-pays and unreasonable deductibles. I have noticed that many individuals think that emergency room care is “free.” So, these individuals run to the emergency room at the drop of a hat. Reasonable co-pays and deductibles act as a gatekeeper to protect this family and their son. The emergency room is meant for someone like this little boy and individuals who are truly in need of immediate medical care, not Jack Smith who has a everyday fever. It is clear to me that individuals in government are using this family to score political points and make political hay.

This is why I have said time and time again, if families, individuals, and companies were allowed to shop across state lines, and create a huge coverage pool, this would not be happening to the family in question. In addition, with this huge coverage pool, the elimination of excessive government mandates and regulations, would make it easy for the huge coverage pool to pay the medical bills for this family. Basically, politicians are buying votes at the expense of coverage for this little boy, pure and simple. In other words, they are buying votes from the healthy majority at the expense of this little boy. Sound familiar?

The job of a politician is to get re-elected, term after term, after term, it is not about the people. The politician uses his power to grant tax money to his contributing friends. In other words, the politician uses tax dollars to reward their contributors after they are elected. Then, when election time comes, the supporters send that money back to the politician to get re-elected. Do you really believe that the politician is going to help this little boy, several votes, when imposing mandates will receive thousands and thousands of votes? When the government takes your salary in taxes for welfare, public works, etc, they are acting as a middle man. In the case of the welfare department, $.72 out of every taxpayer dollar, is used to pay caseworker salary and benefits, it does NOT go to the people in need, I know, I worked in the welfare building. In the Metro welfare building I worked in, this group had $500,000 dollars in turnover costs in one year. In ten years, $5 million dollars in taxpayer money was wasted, in one large county, alone. Money belongs to the taxpayer, not the government. Did the government earn that money, I think not.

I believe with the right steps, we can provide outstanding health care at a reasonable cost. I think it would be a serious mistake to trust thousands of bureaucrats with millions of health care decisions, decisions that bureaucrats are not qualified to make at any level, you might want to ask people in the Former Soviet Union.

Mark

“People line up for care, some of them die. That’s what happens,” says Canadian doctor David Gratzer, author of “The Cure”. He liked Canada’s government health care until he started treating patients.

“The more time I spent in the Canadian system, the more I came across people waiting for radiation therapy, waiting for the knee replacement so they could finally walk up to the second floor of their house.” “You want to see your neurologist because of your stress headache? No problem! Just wait six months. You want an MRI? No problem! Free as the air! Just wait six months.”

Polls show most Canadians like their free health care, but most people aren’t sick when the poll-taker calls. Canadian doctors told us the system is cracking. One complained that he can’t get heart-attack victims into the ICU.

Canada and England don’t pay the price because they freeload off American innovation. If America adopted their systems, we could worry less about paying for health care, but we’d get 2009-level care – forever. Government monopolies don’t innovate. Profit seekers do.

We saw this in Canada, where we did find one area of medicine that offers easy access to cutting-edge technology – CT scan, endoscopy, thoracoscopy, laparoscopy, etc. It was open 24/7. Patients didn’t have to wait.

But you have to bark or meow to get that kind of treatment. Animal care is the one area of medicine that hasn’t been taken over by the government. Dogs can get a CT scan in one day. For people, the waiting list is a month.

Ex-executive accuses insurance giant of ‘purging’ customers

At the event, Potter took pictures of doctors offering free health care to the uninsured.

“The volunteer doctors were seeing patients in barns, people in animal stalls,” Potter said. “It changed it for me.”

He says he finally decided to quit in 2007 after Cigna’s controversial handling of an insurance claim made by the family of a California teenager, Nataline Sarkysian.

The Sarkysian family made repeated appeals at news conferences for Cigna to approve a liver transplant for the 17-year-old, who had leukemia. Cigna initially declined to cover the operation, then reversed its decision.

Sarkysian died hours after the company’s reversal. …


CLICK HERE TO READ FULL ARTICLE

P.S. The current state of the situation is a disaster, like what happened in Wall Street is having a chain reaction throughout the whole nation, the reform is much needed. If not done anything now we will reach the end of the road ahead.

Yes, I would agree, reform of the medical establishment is greatly needed, no question about it. Here is how I would go about reforming the system. I would give alot to the insurance companies, however, I would expect alot in return. First, I would eliminate regulations and mandates in the insurance industry, greatly reducing the cost of health care policies for individuals and families. Second, we would start selling health insurance policies across state lines, creating huge coverage pools, again, helping to greatly reduce costs, by including the health majority. Third, we would have reasonable deductibles to prevent overcrowding of the primary care physician’s office and the emergency room. Fourth, by reasonable, I would start deductibles at $1,000.00 per patient, $2,000 per family. Fifth, for low income individuals, who are suffering from a chronic illness, I would supply them with large tax deductions to assign to the physician or hospital that treats them, giving the medical establishment extreme incentives to treat the poor and the chronically ill individuals.

In return, I would tax individuals, families, business, corporations at a flat tax of 1% percent. I would also want guaranteed coverage for individuals with a chronic illness. I am giving the insurance companies a huge revenue base, no mandates or regulations, plus deductibles, so I do not want to hear any bellyaching about covering someone with dialysis or a serious illness.

With a flat tax of 1%, companies will flock to the United States, creating more jobs and more tax revenue to the government. Currently, I have read that our Gross Domestic Product is around $14 trillion per year, even with these excessive tax rates. Using my 1% flat tax, the stock market will take off, which will guarantee fat stock accounts for everyone, blue-collar, white collar, everyone. What would you rather have, $800 per month from the government or a $2,000,000.00 stock account???

With a low flat tax rate and no regulations or mandates on the insurance companies, insurance will be cheap for everyone, everyone will have it, diabetics, people on dialysis, etc. Prices might go to the point that people are able to pay for their health care, privately, assuring much more control for the patient over the medical industry, remember, he or she who pays calls the shots.

In addition, we would pursue tort reform. Texas has pursued tort reform and now, they have an oversupply of physicians. Yes, there are cases where a patient needs to be compensated for the stupidity of the physician. However, in awarding compensation, we would use specialists in the field in question. Many times, physicians are hired in court for thousands of dollars to give testimony in trials and they do not even work in that part of the medical field, this is abuse. Having worked in the legal field and my best childhood friend is a partner in a major law firm, if most of you only had an idea of how greedy and arrogant attorneys can be, you would be overwhelmed, trust me.

A physician can be greedy, however, that greed does not increase his or her income. The insurance executive can be very greedy, however, this fact of greed does not increase their income, one penny. As in any field of business, greed does not increase income. To increase income, the physician or insurance executive must have a product or service that the public wants to buy and wants to buy at a reasonable cost or price. Competition restricts and can eliminate price increases, in any industry, including medicine. The medical field is not exempt from the laws of economics. If a physician, hospital, or insurance company is high cost or charges unreasonable premiums in relation to the average market price, word gets out fast. Why in the world do you think Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club, Costco, Aldi(Even cheaper than Wal-Mart) have so many customers??? I know that some people laugh about Aldi’s, however, I hate to tell you I cannot tell the difference in their food compared to any other grocery store. If anything, the people who are laughing are getting ripped off.

If any of the previously mentioned groups overcharge patients, in my system, they will lose business. Led by profit motive, patients will have plenty of physicians, hospitals, and dialysis centers to choose, if those groups overcharge in my system, the patient will be enable to tell the physician, hospital, or dialysis center, “Bye, have a nice life.” In addition, led by the profit motive, dialysis centers will be living around the dialysis patient, not the other way around.

If each dialysis patient bought stock in Fresenius and DaVita, just one share each, along with their families, I guarantee that Fresenius and DaVita would be changing their ways. The way to have control over these people is stock and money. With my 1 percent flat tax, patients and their families, along with the profit incentive, would have plenty of money to be large shareholders in these companies. We would have control over our treatments and our lives. How would you like to have your dialysis treatment on your schedule? How would you like to have no waiting times? How would you like to do away with these idiotic and oppressive diet regimes? How would you like to do away with some of the Nazi type individuals who work in the dialysis clinics? My descent is German-American in the 3rd largest German descent population in the United States, so no whining about the Nazi comment. To prove it, Deustchland Uber Alles meaning “Germany Over All.” My family left Germany because of Der Fuherer and all government, all of the time control. My family knows something about government power, control, and dictators.

Honestly, I dislike the government and insurance companies. The more control you try to exert over me, the more I want you to get out of my face. However, I know what will work from an economic standpoint. I care about patients, the chronically ill, and that little boy. I also hate BIG PHARMA. However, I know and realize that if I eliminate the mandates and regulations, we will get them to take chances on medications that will help people with very serious and chronic issues, at much lower cost to the patient and the family. Basically, with my plan, I am using insurance companies and BIG PHARMA to serve chronically ill individuals and families. I truly believe in this statement, “As you have done to the least of my brothers, so you have done unto me.” I think that guy was fairly compassionate.

More than happy to read the articles, however, had a hard time getting the web sites to respond. I agree the current state of the health care industry is a disaster, most of it caused by excessive government mandates and regulations.

Shona, a Canadian citizen who had a brain tumor. Do you really want the clowns in the government to be in charge of health care?

http://patientsunitednow.com/?q=node/91

If the public option is to based on choice and competition, how will their be choice and competition if the private insurance industry is eliminated? What choice does the patient have if government health care is the only option? In their own words:

The Public Plan Deception:

http://patientsunitednow.com/?q=node/91

We support continuing to help the poor through the existing very large Medicaid program. We support any reforms that are centered on a patient’s right to privacy, quality and choice. We support reforms that assist those who cannot afford insurance because of pre-existing conditions. We support the Hippocratic Oath. We support reforms that make private insurance portable, deductible and flexible and less expensive. We oppose radical change like a government-run Canadian-style system. We oppose denying care for the elderly or sick.