Doubled over in pain, you stagger into the emergency room and are diagnosed with acute appendicitis. A surgeon leans over your stretcher:
Surgeon: You need an appendectomy.
You: What are my options?
Surgeon: Either I take out your appendix or you die.
Now that's a conversation people can understand. But what if, instead of whisking you up to the operating room, the surgeon kept talking and invited a few other people into the discussion?
Surgeon: Do you think I should take it out by an open operation or laparoscopically?
You: Huh?
Laparoscopy equipment salesman: You know, cutting you open the old-fashioned way and leaving a big scar or having a tiny incision. Laparoscopy is much better than the open procedure.
Guy who sells scar-removal cream: Wait a minute. Better for who? Laparoscopy takes fourteen minutes longer.
Hospital administrator: But hospital stay is reduced by 0.7 days on average, patients have less pain, and you can return to work sooner.
Surgeon: Laparoscopy costs more than an open operation while you're hospitalized but less once you're home. What's your co-pay?
You: Doc, my belly's hurting a lot more now.
Guy who owns shares in a drug company: What if we just treat him with antibiotics?
Surgeon: Don't be silly. His appendix could burst.
Funeral director: What about doing nothing?
Very smart people are zoning out of the health care reform debate because they think it's just too complicated. The latest poll out today from the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health-care-policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente, says only 27 percent of the public has been following the health reform debate closely. Despite this, more than half (56 percent) of Americans think health reform is more important than ever.
Simply put, there are four main goals of the legislation:
Defining the goals is relatively easy to understand. Implementing them is tough and that's where people are made to feel stupid -- partly by special interest groups who intentionally or unintentionally confuse the debate. Drew Altman, Ph. D., the President and CEO of Kaiser
Family Foundation, told me there's "all kinds of spin, mis-statement of fact and plain old mis-truths being bandied about and the debate is getting nastier and nastier." He added that people are becoming confused and "it's beginning to make the public more anxious and
antsier."
Half-truths feed on fear. People are afraid of losing or compromising what coverage they already have. They're afraid of higher taxes and lower quality of care. Who has the time or patience to read the 1,000-page bill proposed by the House of Representatives? So we rely
on summaries and are susceptible to all sorts of misrepresentation. And nobody wants a plan with major faults rammed down their throat in the name of political expediency.
Today's Kaiser Family Foundation report suggests that the tactics of special interest groups are working. Sixty percent of adults surveyed support a public option. But "(w)hen those who initially support the public plan are told that this could give the government an unfair
advantage over private companies, overall support drops to 35 percent. Conversely, when opponents are told that public plans would give people more choice or help drive down costs through competition, overall support jumps to roughly seven in ten."
It's in the interest of those who oppose health care reform to make us feel that it's just too hard to understand. I have certainly felt that way at times over the past year. But the stakes are too high for Americans to bale out on the discussion. Our common sense and sense
of fair play are crucial to the national conversation. We should hear out the special interest groups; they often have legitimate concerns and thoughtful analysis. But we need to remember where they are coming from. And we must seek out information from sources that try to be nonpartisan, such as the
No, you're not stupid if you're confused about health care reform. But you may be psyched out. You probably know a lot more than you think -- but you may need to do some homework in order to participate in this extraordinarily important national debate. The national debate needs you.
For this week's CBS Doc Dot Com, I moderate a debate about the public option between Wendell Potter, former head of public relations for Cigna and Rob Schlossberg, Executive Sales Director for BenefitMall. Mr. Schlossberg opposes it and Mr. Potter favors it.
To view the debate on a public option, click here.
To view a brief discussion of for-profit vs. not-for-profit health insurance organizations, click here.
For Rob Schlossberg's blog on the public option, click here.
For Wendell Potter's blog on the public option, click here.
For Janet Adamy's excellent summary, "Ten Questions on the Health-Care Overhaul," in the July 21st issue of the The Wall Street Journal, click here.
Here's another. Why do you think the corporate healtchcare industry and drug companies are lining up to drink from the trough? Do you think it's because they're going to be forced to make less money? Or because they know they can game the system and make even more?
Think about it. Please. Or, better yet, go to your local community college and take some business and economics courses before supporting government idiocy. Obama is a lawyer. He clearly doesn't understand what he's doing nor the unintended, but obvious consequences.
Why is it that movies and drugs are less expensive in Mexico? A lot less. Because Mexicans don't have a lot of disposable income. So the companies, able to make a profit even at very low prices, simply charge less. A bean counter figures out the marginal rates of consumption and prices it accordingly to achieve the maximum possible profit from a poor country.
So, in the US, we shifted the capability to pay from the individual to rich insurance companies, and prices have skyrocketed, *even though* you'd think the insurance companies would want to drive down prices. No, they don't. They make a 'percentage', so the more expensive healthcare is, the more people 'need' their services and the more money they make on each transaction. Now we intend to shift it to someone with 'infinitely' deep pockets. And that simply gears up the industry to figure out how to make even more money from the one big rich customer, rather than trying to figure out how to provide affordable services to every day people.
In essence, single payer *eliminates* any motivating factor to make services more efficient, less expensive, better. Removes incentives for high tech equipment. The industry will figure out how to game the system in every way it can. Not doctors, but the people that employ them.
First, by far, the best single motivating force to provide better services at lower prices in all creation is competition. Communism and socialism shows that this is the case. Remember the Trabant? No, you probably don't. 1980s East German car, cost the equivalent of about $80K, but was 1950s technology. As compared to what West Germany was putting out.
Second, bureaucracy *always* adds cost because it adds more people to pay. Time, paperwork, *speed*.
Third, the natural ability of people to 'pad' the bill when the payer is far away and has unlimited money is extraordinary. I saw a dentist perform a tiny, unnecessary procedure (15 minutes total) for which he charged the insurance company $1000. He couldn't have charged *me* $1000. Don't think this won't happen because you think the government is 'smarter' than the insurance companies. It isn't. Ask yourself why virtually every defense product comes in 2-4 times overbudget and the government pays anyway.
Fourth, productivity is how you see further gains in performance/price. Accountants don't ad to productivity. Bureaucrats don't add to productivity. Lawyers don't add to productivity. Insurance agents don't hadd to productivity. Doctors and nurses add to productivity. The ideal solution has far more doctors/nurses and far FEWER accountants, bureaucrats, insurance agents, lawyers.
THIS is a good solution - http://64.203.97.61/SolutionsLab/Solution.aspx?Guid=2d50363e-00be-44e8-9251-9a6589ba820d
We should not let the interests of big business and for-profit industries dictate our quality of life, nor should we limit health care to only those who are employed and/or able to pay for it. Like education, roads, police protection and many other services paid out of our tax dollars, we should all fight to get over the mental hurdle, the unsubstantiated fears, and that oh-so-American sense of entitlement and move on.
The best ones are the ones where death is a side effect of treating dirty fingernails or the one where the side effect was uncontrolled bowel movements.
S I N G L E P A Y E R S Y S T E M !
Multi-payer system here - http://64.203.97.61/SolutionsLab/Solution.aspx?Guid=2d50363e-00be-44e8-9251-9a6589ba820d
Single payer is an insurance system where everyone is a member and they pay premiums to a single entity, the government, which covers everyone's health care bills. Not all procedures will be covered, for example, single payer will not pay for elective cosmetic surgery.
Article I Section 8 of the United States Constitution also states that the congress will regulate Commerce. The HealthCare system is part of United States commerce that Congress has a right to regulate, and is now going to regulate. It comprises the trading of something of economic value such as goods, services, information, or money between two or more entities. Commerce functions as the central mechanism which drives capitalism and certain other economic systems (but compare command economy, for example).
Deregulation of the HealthCare system occurred with the advent of the HMO. This deregulation of the HealthCare system led to the HealthCare Bubble of outrageous costs. This Bubble is about to burst unless we bring regulation into the HealthCare system and control the HMO system.
The HMO system is not built upon better HealthCare for individuals but upon corporate profit at the sacrifice of the individual. The once solid small business Doctor is now an employee of a vast corporate HealthCare system. This is wrong and We the People of the United States know the real truth.
Is this, in fact, a bubble? Will health care price itself so nobody can afford it. Only the healthy can be happy with the system or even consider a Health Savings Account (putting money aside for health care in a tax free account. Saving is good, but if you become ill, you still have to pay and the costs, though beginning to be covered are still more than anybody can afford.)
What will it look like when such a bubble bursts? Will doctors and hospitals have to hustle and drop their charges or will they simply start to go bankrupt and leave even the rich with fewer places to go?
Posted by another Huffington poster (Thinkagain2- I think)
Please read this article re: an insider's take on the insurance industry.
http://nweps.wordpress.com/category/healthcare/hc-from-the-center/
You should have know that something was not right when the Dominican Republic and Chile were ranked ahead the US.
Supposing our insurance policies cannot compete with a public option, why should we cling to the worse system? If "Socialism" is more user friendly, why reject it out of hand. Do we insist highways must be laid by highway industries for private profit?
[Highways are a good comparison. They are laid by highway industries, the contractors, and do augment private profits not only among truckers but for the customers of truckers and for suburban workers or suburban jobs. The government merely finances the highways. This is the equivalent of the single payer universal health care system. The highways are, however, "Socialism."]
So, for those who oppose the public plan -- or, for that matter, a single payer system -- if you're really looking to persuade me (rather than scare me), kindly go out and find a selection of Americans in France or England or Norway who just can't wait to get back to the American healthcare system. A *random* selection, that is.
So far, it looks to me like no one on that side of the debate has even tried to do that. And I suspect we all know why.
I just returned to Italy after one month in the States caring for my 93-year-old Mother! At doctor's offices they don't even say "Good morning" to you....they ask you instead "How are you gong to pay for this visit?!!!" I pity those Americans who don't have Medicare or some form of health insurance!!!
And America...get this straight....your healthcare ain't all that perfect if you can get it!!!!
You have been conned by insurance lobbyists, huge pharmaceutical corporate interests and the American Medical Association!!!!!
Fox News/Republican right/Democratic party elders all want the status quo to stay as it is.....why would they want "CHANGE" for the public good!!!!????
4 years ago I broke my leg in a park in downtown Rome! I didn't pay for the ambulance, didn't pay for the emergency room, didn't pay for a week in the hospital, didn't pay for the operation, and didn't pay for the medicines!!!
NOW THAT'S REASONABLE MEDICAL CARE!!!!!!!!!!!
And if Americans weren't spending TRILLIONS to bail out the Wall Street crooks, bankers and overpaid CEOs NOT TO MENTION THE TRILLIONS FOR YEARS WASTED IN THE USELESS WARS IN AFGHANISTAN AND IRAQ (which only enrich oil companies and the military industrial complex)..............JUST IMAGINE WHAT THE AMERICAN HEALTH CARE SCENE MIGHT LOOK LIKE!!!!!!!!!! You could actually take your sick wife, injured child or elderly mother to whichever hospital and not worry about being bankrupted by healthcare expenses!
Take the profit motive out of any market and get crap... that's just the way the world works...
I obviously don't know what you do for a living but, let's say that you now have to do it for not profit... how would your life (and working life) be different?
Wake-up...
Insurance companies work for profit. Their profits are greater when they take all the money that the market will bear while denying services so far as they can. As they perfect their methods of recession and claims of preexisting conditions, constantly creating new contracts so as to catch as many healthy people as possible while dumping those whose run by the odds might soon be making claims, a majority of personal bankruptcies are due to medical expenses among those who had insurance.
I don't know what you do for a living, but supposing you hated and despised your job would you bring your pride to it?
Oddly enough, people who can't afford necessary health care are stiffing their doctors, particularly new doctors attempting to establish a practice. Implementing the profit motif is not that straight forward, but the Obama principles, more than the care, are designed to assure earnings for services.
Posted by another Huffington poster- Thinkagain2( I think).
Or else, attend to the problem and let the criminal justice system attend to its responsibilities.
This is what is really standing in the way of healthcare reform.
Just, so, Americans do have their instinctive knowledge of their best interests, but, then, they make allowances for the specious arguments of people who despise them and attend their tea parties.