Elizabeth Cohen of CNN reported on Monday morning on some hospitals are charging $53 for a pair of disposable gloves, $140 for a single Tylenol and a whopping $1,000 for a toothbrush -- yes, a simple, non-electronic toothbrush. It goes -- or should go -- without saying that these numbers are outrageous and should make any American extremely angry about the state of the American health care system. But are they?
It doesn't seem like they are; at least not sufficiently. How can we have a system that can turn a blind eye on for-profit hospitals charging patients who are desperate for care such obscene and almost surrealistic amounts that have nothing to do with free market, efficiency and unit costs? What else do we need to know to make our blood boil and march to Washington and not leave until Congress passes comprehensive health care reform?
When I moved to the United States from Iran at 17, I was told this is the "best country on earth." I love this country and the freedom and opportunities it has given me that I could have never imagined under the Iranian dictatorship. Nonetheless, unlike the American Constitution, the Iranian Constitution entitles all citizens to basic health care, and the government provides subsidies for drugs and vaccinations for most citizens. How can the American government do worse than the Iranian regime on health care?
The obvious problem has to do with Republicans. For some reason, no matter how many times the Republicans get it wrong, certain portions of the American public seem ready to give the conservatives more chances to implement the same ideas that didn't work before. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result. Do the members of the tea party pseudomovement have short-term memory loss, or is their anger due to something that has nothing to do with the contents of any Democratic bills, like President Obama's skin tone?
These questions are difficult to answer. But what we already do know is this: Democrats are in the large majority, and they have the obligation to do what they promised when people elected them. That includes reforming the American health care system once and for all. Here are some ideas to make the political environment more conducive for the implementation of such a change:
1. The Democrats need to build a resume. They have done a number of important things, including credit card reform and extension of unemployment benefits. But they haven't done anything of policy substance in a long time. People are still waiting for health care reform and financial reform. With mid-term elections coming up, they need to build their resume. Americans are frustrated not so much because of what Congress is doing, but because of what it's not doing. Our government just doesn't seem productive. While the Democrats need to do things right rather than right away, they do eventually actually need to make legislation happen and cannot let the perfect become the enemy of the good. When the Republicans begin their attacks on the Democrats in the run-up to the election, the Democrats need to be able to fend off those attacks with lists of things they will have done in a short two year period under a Democratic President.
In order to build that resume, they need to pass a health care bill in weeks, rather than months. Forget about starting over, and most certainly forget about bipartisanship. If the Democrats believe that their ideas are better than the Republicans -- as they do since there must be a reason why they've decided to run as Democrats and not Republicans -- why should they pretend that the best bill is one that combines ideas from both sides? If an idea is perfect, how would diluting it make it better? Would it have made sense for President Lincoln to leave the issue of slavery to the states for the sake of middle ground? The notion that we should strive for middle ground regardless of the absurdity of some of the positions one side is taking is frankly ridiculous. Unless we actually feel that way, let's stop pretending that the Republican ideas are as good as the Democrats', because they are not.
2. President Obama needs to hold a press conference for the specific purpose of criticizing Republicans, and he needs to make one idea the center piece of this event: Republicans who stood steadfast against last year's Stimulus Bill have gone back to their states and claimed credit for its passage. President Obama has made passing comments on this trend here and there, but that's not enough. He needs to hold a long and live press conference during prime time and force all three networks to cover it back to back and exclusively for days. The media can miss the emphasis if the press conference is to focus on any other issue.
3. When it comes to the health care bill, Congressional Democrats need to bring their final bill -- whatever it will look like -- to a normal vote, even if Republicans are threatening a filibuster. The Democrats must call the Republicans on their bluff. If Mr. Smith wants to hold up the bill day after day, let him do it and let the cameras role as he reads the dictionary to the rest of Congress. After a week of this charade and round-the-clock coverage of it in the media, suddenly the reconciliation process to pass health care with a simple majority won't look so bad to the public. Not to mention that the filibuster speeches will give the Democrats some good materials for their ads in the mid-term races.
What these ideas have in common is that they require a little bit of backbone. But unless the Democrats let Republicans get away with their action, there will be no healthcare reform.
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People know an option is a good thing but politicians refuse tyo hear our voices.
We do not want a health care reform so Obama shows it as a progress and achievement.
It is not an achievement without a public option it is a step backward.
Of course charges of "socialism" will occur, but so what, it will take us decades to dig out from under from where we are at our present rate anyway. If the US had access to hedge fund money for 5 years we'd be a long way toward solving most of our issues. We could go far toward creating a great country and world.
Yes there would be a fear of the 5 years leading to more time. Again, so what? We could wrap up military adventures throughout the world even as we reduce our military budget by 80%. We could maintain strong forces even as we reduced standing armies throughout the world.
As a war time president, I hope Obama takes several drastic measures to pull us out of our funk. We complain about "our children and our children's children" but if we make college education paid for for the next 75 years (a civilian GIBill), it would be a way to show that we value our populace.
Decent post. However, in the same way that shame (ex.,, forget pointing out hypocrisy as a major method of contesting Republican foibles) will never work to influence behavior, stop using the regurgitated definition of "insanity." So what if Republicans and their followers are insane, it won't influence politics. I'm sure billionaires don't mind being called "crazy" as long as they are rich and are the ones with the best healthcare.
Anecdotal misery is also passe: except for a short-term difference, behavioural changes don't occur. Consder that there was great outpouring of care and love to Haiti after the quake but that it is quickly becoming old news. Until there is a substantial change from existing relationships, there won't be real change.
If Obama nationalizes Wall St for 5 years, enacts a 90% tax on any profit over $1,000,000, forgives all mortgages in existence, makes healthcare companies illegal and foces 50 % of every state and federal dollar to go toward education, and places a number limit of vehicles on public highways, we'll continue to wallow in our misery. I've merely named ideas off the top of my head.
If Obama were to choose several people to run a committee with recommendations to get back to him within a strict time limit - say, 2 months - this would get done. If the 2 months pass without a report, Obama and Biden would decide changes.
1. The industry gets a lifeline from government in the form of guaranteed customers (mandates), an infusion of cash (subsidies), and government prohibition of many despised treatment denial practices, which of course will increase policy costs and profits, but those increases are safe for the industry given the first two interventions from governement.
2. Elimination of the need to compete with risk pool management by putting evey one in the pool, i.e., establishing government supplied single-payer insrance at either the federal or the state level.
Alternative 2 covers everyone and avoids a total waste of $4 trillion over 10 years, whereas 1. leaves tens of millions uncovered, does not end medical bankruptcy, and wastes $4 trillion over 10 years.
2. eliminates the insurance companies, 1. Keeps them in the act and protects their profits.
The electorate wants 2, but since the insurance companies own Washington on this question, we are about to get 1.
Democrats could join together, end up pushing through the Senate bill, scrub out the problems in the Senate bill, like the carveouts for Nebraska, Louisiana, Florida, and everyone else, raise the tax-free cap to $26,000 instead of $23,000, and get the final bill to the President's desk and be happy that they were able to get this done for the American people, and the clowns on the blogs would be incensed that the process didn't end up with the American healthcare system looking like the system in Western Europe.
And the clown on the blogs will not only be incensed that Democrats were able to do something tangible for the American people, they'd even go out of their way to flame every Democrat who supported that final bill, challenge every single one of them from the fringe of the party, without a care as to whether or not the candidate they are pushing would have a chance in the general election.
What's even sadder is that after running Democrats out of the majority, the same clown bloggers would then cry about having to watch Republicans wreck the country, even though the clowns, in effect, put Republicans in control. lol
Mr. Smith should call the Democrat’s bluff in turn and read von Mises, Hayek, Friedman, et. al. to his colleagues and America until all comprehend the concept of freedom and the ongoing social democratic assault upon it.
Single payer was OK with Hayek, and it's OK with me.
Such a statement does NOT, per se, provide support for the federal takeover of health care. Indeed, it may well argue against removing even the current level of government involvement.
What it does is demand explication of EXACTLY where every cent of each of these charges originates, beyond, of course, the few cents of direct cost in the quantities at which hospitals buy them, e.g. the biomedical company I work for buys disposable medical gloves for less than 4 cents each (and we buy the more expensive Nitrile version).
Until such a basic issue is fully accounted for, no conclusion can be drawn one way or another. Does $990 of the toothbrush’s cost go to offset Medicare and other government mandated shortfalls? If so, increasing government involvement would be an extremely questionable proposition. If not, our legislators should be investigating costs like this long before using the issue as a smokescreen for foisting an even larger social democratic state upon us.
For some reason, no matter how many times the Republicans get it wrong, certain portions of the American public seem ready to give the conservatives more chances to implement the same ideas that didn't work before. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result. Do the members of the tea party pseudomovement have short-term memory loss, or is their anger due to something that has nothing to do with the contents of any Democratic bills, like President Obama's skin tone?
Get over it! The system's broke! Embrace change.
Providers must be required by law to disclose their fees publicly instead of hiding behind secret agreements negotiated with insurers. We need portal healthcare websites, complete with Insurance Plans, Doctors, Hospitals, Medical Equipment, Testing Labs, professional and user reviews, etc. with all fees and costs transparently listed so consumers can make informed decisions.
The thing that is difficult about your first statement however, is that because contracts between doctors and insurance carriers or networks are proprietary, we cannot know what an insurance plan will pay from doctor to doctor for the same service. The same carrier may pay $80 to a doctor at one location and only $75 at another location for the same proceedure. There needs to be some common ground in provider contract negotiations before we can really have transparency work for us when talking about services in the health arena.