Ted Kennedy: Cancer Showed Me Need For Health Care Reform

The Boston Globe:

Over the last year, I've seen our healthcare system up close. I've benefitted from the best of medicine, but I've also witnessed the frustration and outrage of patients and doctors alike as they face the challenges of a system that shortchanges millions of Americans.

We have the greatest doctors and medical innovations in the world, but more and more Americans are on the outside looking in to a world of progress and discovery that is denied to them because they cannot afford quality healthcare.

Read the whole story: The Boston Globe

Comments

[Pablo175]

Please retire.

[MacQ]

How pathetic. A politician first last and always.

[lissak]

I was just diagnosed with cancer. My first thought was "How much is this going to cost me?" And I have health insurance. This shouldn't even be a worry when you are facing a serious disease.

National healthcare NOW..

[NineLives]

Please don't forget to contact the National Cancer Institute at the National Institute of Health (NCI/NIH) for a research protocol for your specific disease.

It's your tax dollars at work and they're making some great breakthroughs.

[Porter90]

Please try Apricot seed. It's natural and you really have nothing to lose by eating a couple of seeds everyday. Before you undergo any form of Chemo, try other treatment regimens.

[MacQ]

Yeah, good idea. Eat fruit seeds til your tumor grows beyond the reach of chemo. Great idea.

[funkalicious]

why shouldnt you have to ask the question?
You want it to be me who is asking the question how much is your cancer costing me?
Already 50% of the population does not pay taxes and you want more?
How much and do I pay for every treatment to extend your life six months? Will you pay my way, will you pay for the child who drowns to have their stomach banded so they can live life as a vegetable and then pay for their care for the next twenty years? Will you pay for the advanced Alzheimer's patient to have a hip replacement?

Who will you pay for? What is the cost? What will you pay for?

We will face difficult choices with the majority of our health care dollar s now spent on Chronic diseases like diabetes and the biggest spent on old folks in their last two years of life.

How much do you wnat to pay and for what? Health care will never be free.
I am sorry you are sick. I hope you get better.

[dantanna]

so then members of congress have to get cancer to understand they have failed us in providing an excellent and affordable health system for all of us?

[jmpurser]

And this from the "liberal lion"! We need better politicians. Of course, in order to get them we're going to have to become better citizens...

[NineLives]

Can anyone name another industry that has sc***ed up more American's lives and cost more than the health care industry?

The automobile and oil industry doesn't even come close.

Then again, maybe tax-free religion would qualify, but it would be difficult to quantify.

[LHoney]

Financial industry??

[Pablo175]

Government?

[jmpurser]

Possibly televangelism but it would be a close call.

[freeme6]

Lets praise this clan dont forget how daddy made his money! do any of the P Hs know the answer, the prize is a cookie!

[TJCole]

If there's no public option even, then it is no reform at all but an insurance company scam the president is willingly in on..!

[jmpurser]

Agreed. Every "reform" we've had to date was just another government subsidy for the health insurance companies. This is one area where I always though President Obama was the weakest. I hope he doesn't life down to my fears.

[goodgirlroxie]

At the end of this op-ed, Ted writes: "Change is never easy, but the status quo is no longer acceptable to any except those who profit from the current broken healthcare system."

Yet the five major elements to reform our health-care system outlined in this op-ed are carefully worded to not leave any evidence that they have been constructed and embraced by "those who profit from the current broken healthcare system." Every one of these five elements will now be gamed by the medical industrial complex to maximize profits. It will take another decade for this truth to become evident, and when it does, as it most assuredly will, Obama will no longer be in office. But hey, that's exactly the 10-year plan crafted by the medical industrial complex to prevent the single-payer option from gaining any traction in the current reform debate.

All roads lead to single-payer. The private industry game now is to drag this journey out for as long as they can. These five major elements will become nothing less than one big, fat taxpayer giveaway to the medical industrial complex, disguised as health-care reform.

Yes we can do better than this.

[SammyD]

Yes, and from his personal experience, we now have passenger side airbags.

[hotwire]

When did Ted get out of Prison? What? You say he never did time?

[1dogs2]

We can only hope that Sen. Kennedy's description of the bill that will emerge is accurate. I fear that there will be no public option, without which it will be next to impossible to reduce the costs of universal health care. The last I heard was that if there is a public option, the program will be required to abide by the same rules as those that govern the health insurance industry's options -- the same ones that have led to the out-of-control cost of the present system.

[TXfemmom]

Were we to go to a single payer system we could cut out the 30% of premiums which go to administrative costs with the average health insurance companies. Medicare spends 3% to do the same thing. Twenty seven cents of every dollar could go a great way toward providing care.

The first things to do would be to put in a legal mandate which says the United States will not pay more than the average price of pharmaceuticals within Canda, the UK, Germany, the Scandinavian countries, France, Spain, Italy, and Japan. That would save us hundreds of billions of dollars. We wouldn't pay one and half times as much for oil as do those countries but we let the pharms do it to us.

Then, put in significant fraud indicators and stop it before the money goes out, pay the primary care, pediatricians, and basic care far more and the specialists far less. The husband of a friend of mine was recently charged $83,000 for a triple bypass, but the insurance negotiated it down to $74,000. I did Open Heart Anesthesia for six years and that is absolutely outrageous. A fair price would be $10,000. This has to stop.

[TJCole]

Exactly we can cut from 30-32% from the cost of profit taking by the insurance companies right off the bat...that's why they are willing to give up 1 1/2% per year of the cost escalation they still make a killing and Obama is buying into their plot, but they are already taking a lot of it back...

We need Single Payer and we need it now...!

[thenorthshore]

barry and the prince and princess of dc say we need reform

for them its: i only had TWO nurses at my bedside

barry:

tax net worth of people, rich and poor

take their money

then we can afford health care for ALL

[LooktotheLeft]

You haven't been given the hook yet? Go figure. Kudos for being an enduring tr0ll

[VPN]

Don't like the Obama program. win an election and change things, the American People RE-JEC- TED what has been passing for Government the last eight years, DEAL WITH IT!

[Jazzman323]

I am sure Ted Kennedy's care during his hospitalization for cancer is not even remotely like a regular citizen's. And I am sure if there was nationalized health care, Ted Kennedy would pay out of pocket to get the health care he would want.

[Liberal2]

So? Are you too brainless to recognize the difference between "an acceptable level" of medical care and none at all? What exactly is your problem?

[freeme6]

gov run healthcare could you imagine pelo si cant run congress re id who would surrender to anyone think about this california which is broke and the feds are heading in the same direction they spend more on prisoner health care than on the average citizen in that state. Our system may not be perfect but if we let the gov in on it we will be screwed!

[NineLives]

Another example of Republican thinking.

[freeme6]

you P Hs can never face the true facts no health care plan just lets spend lots of money if it doesn't work we will blame someone else and throw out some insults thats original!

[LooktotheLeft]

As much as I love you Sen. Ted, if you want to see the common man, I'm afraid you have to venture away from Hyannis Port, Martha's Vineyard, and Cape Cod from time to time.

[AwShucks]

Here's one Martha's Vineyard resident saying that it's about time for some real health care reform for everyone. Way to go Senator Kennedy . Especially the part about previously diagnoised conditions. I always thought that that part was utterly unfair.

[LooktotheLeft]

Sure, but Sen. Ted's comments suggest he did not become articulate to the dismal condition of heath care in the U.S. until he was "awakened" by his own plight...and we just know that's not necessarily true as Ted has always talked a good talk when it comes to his concern for health care. I mean, we've heard talk for years about how influential Ted Kennedy is in the Senate. This is not the first time when I've had to ask myself the unfortunate question, if he's so influential, why has it taken this long for this issue to gather some traction...and where was Ted in '93 when Hillary Clinton's plan was skewered by Repubs and Dems alike?