Obama's Uphill Battle to Reform Healthcare

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Hi
I want to ask if my ideas work for the insurance reform and will I get some things from it if it work?. Eg, some money for my ideas I put fordward.For things like that that all we have to give to live on is our ideas, and thaught.My name is Albright Flower, and I am so hopeful to hear if my ideas is turning over in your department so that I can give more in the feture.

Albright Newton Flower of CA 5:52PM June 03, 2009

Compromize is the ancer.The problem with health care is cost.PeriodWe have a good government heathcare system allready.
Military,There are hospitals all over this countryon closed millitary bases.It would be cheaper for thegovernment to build hospitals.And train doctors in military scooles.And charge a resonable charge nation wide.Like a tax on income.For coverage for people that didnt have insurence.Clinics ect.And focus on prevention.And regular checkups to catch illness early.And include dentel and priscriptions vision ect.look my mother died of emphosemia,And my father died of cancer.Probably smoking was the couse inboth instances.Cemo therapy was extreamly expensive.I mean a fue months and welost our homehad tosell it topayforit.Thatsrediculass.Just plane greed.Catchyouovera berral and put it to you.Get a couple asperin in a hospital and pay 10 bucks.Meals hay its time for change

Billy Joe Jackson of AR 9:47PM June 01, 2009

Think of this system.
All insurance companies to offer 10 to 15 different plans, much like the medicare supplements contracts, which would be standar
The premiums may vary with gender and age of the insured.
If an insurance company rejects an applicant because of pre-existing conditions, a government computer will allocate at random one of the insurance companies to accept it. It should be programmed to spread the risks proportionaly according to the companies relative strength and size.
If a person does not have coverage through employment, must be obliged to purchase it and show proof with the income tax return. If no proof is filed the IRS should buy for him/her the minimumm plan and add the cost to the person's tax obligation.
This basic thinking should be forced to people who are not on medicare or medicaid.
Low income people could be helped to buy insurance with savings that will occur in the emergency room subsidies that will not be required. All patients will be insured and of course paying.

Morris Levis of FL 3:44PM May 31, 2009

Sorry, but all doctors are not created or Trained equally. There is something called accreditation, which means that those medical schools both meet and exceed the standard of great medicine. If you wish to go to a graduate from a foreign school, where the admission and graduation criteria are far below the standard, then be my guest. Consider that if you pay someone $2000 to remove 2 spots,you demand quality work and results. Should I get my taxes done by H & R block or a graduate of alcatraz school of accounting because it's less. HELLO Mr. Audit! Well it's basically the same thing friend. It will cost $600 because items are reused and the education is quite different. Don't gamble on your family's health. It will start off as $600 and then the infection, and maybe even a loss of 1 limb. Personally, I am willing to pay for good quality health care, it also allows me to complain. Should we allow any mechanic to service your mercedes because they will do it for a cheaper price. You will probably be driving your wife's car more than your own because it's in the shop and has become an even bigger puzzle to fix. The fact of the matter is that many, not all, graduates from these foreign schools move around a great deal. It's easier to matriculate into those programs and they tend to be shorter in terms of the length of study. If this suits your fancy, then by all means, the best of luck!!! This will by enlarge INCREASE health care because the good doctors will be burdoned with fixing avoidable complications, which they don't have to endorse, which means people die horrible, miserable deaths because some substandard doctors rewired their anatomy so that when they cough, urine drips from their ears!

jasson of AL 10:06AM May 31, 2009

I always encourage patients to consider the business model for a government sponsored health plan to provide care for all Americans. Instead of healthcare, let's use cars for an example.
Imagine that the government's new mantra is new cars for all. Now as Americans, we don't deserve just any healthcare, but instead we deserve the best healthcare, so in the model let's offer everyone in America a government sponsored Mercedes (not because it's the best care, just reasonably high quality).
Now recognize that in our healthcare situation, patients are not required to take care of their health. They can smoke, drink, do drugs, have multiple sexual partners without appropriate protection, eat horribly and fail to exercise, dramatically increasing our disease rates. In our model, we'll allow people to not change the oil, not maintain their cars, etc. If something goes wrong with their car, we'll fix it. Or we can opt to cover oil changes, gas, maintenance and tires with the government plan, but you can only go to certain overworked programs to get that done, so there might be some waiting times. Imagine a car service center that runs like our DMV or our court systems. Worse, imagine a health care system that runs like those programs.
With all of this will come immense costs supplying every American with a car. Ultimately, the government will come to Mercedes and tell them that they can no longer sell their cars for $70,000, but instead they need to sell them for $10,000 in order for it to be affordable to the government. Mercedes will then decide to either get out of the business, or they will go to Scion or some other low cost car company, take their plans and build a cheap car. Everyone will get the new $10,000 Mercedes.
This is the future of healthcare: older physicians are retiring early. There will be a drop in medical school recruitment and there are already decreases in primary care recruitment from medical schools. Younger physicians like myself will leave and go back to school to enter into another job that will pay for my level of skill and work. Physicians that remain will have 2-3 physician extenders (nurse practitioners or physician assistants) that do most of the care, while the physician oversees them. Medication choices will be limited, tests will be limited, and access will be limited. Everyone will get the same cheap care...or the same cheap car if you are still using the model. But don't believe that the new affordable version will be nearly what you would have liked to have.

Dallas Internist of TX 8:50AM May 31, 2009

The "solution" is easy, once you understand the problem. The problem is that government has forced policies which decrease competition, drive up the cost and reduce the supply of health care. Prior to WWII we had a system in which the individual was responsible for their own health care. If they wanted to see a doctor, they paid for it, either directly, or with insurance. If they couldn't afford it, they asked for charitable help. This was the BEST system ever devised for health care. There have been many TECHNICAL improvements in health care since then. But the MARKET for health care has been badly damaged by government interference and excessive litigation. 200 years ago, economists like Adam Smith and Frederic Bastiat knew more about how to deliver goods and services at relatively low cost and high quality. Today's politician and most American, are ignorant of those lessons.

Scott of IN 8:24AM May 31, 2009

After returning to the U.S. from living overseas for over 10 years, I was shocked to find how difficult it was to get an appointment with a doctor or dentist. Some were simply not accepting new patients while others said they could get me an appointment in not less than two or three months. While living in Bulgaria, I could ususally get in to see a doctor by visiting one of many private health clinics with no more than a 45 - 60 minute wait. Also, the costs were very reasonable.
In 2005, I discovered three spots which were tested and found to be basel cell carcinoma and needed to be removed. The Bulgarian surgeon removed all three spots in approx. 30 minutes and charged approx. the equivalent of $200 or $400 per hour. I'm now in the U.S. and have two more spots on my back which recently appeared and want to have them removed. However, here the doctor wants over $2,000 to removed these two spots which should take no more than 20 minutes. This equates to approx. $6,000 per hour.
Having a background in finance and economics, my simple observation is that we have an extreme shortage of doctors and dentists, otherwise, why would it be so difficult to just get an appointement. My wife recently was referred to a new doctor in March and was told they couldn't get her and appointment until late August.
My question is who is controlling the number of doctors and dentists graduating from medical school and what role does the AMA and ADA play in artifically limiting the competition in the medical field. Since many people are now electing to have major medical procedures performed overseas at a fraction of the cost we pay here in the U.S., why not simply open up immigration to foreign doctors/dentists who would be very happy making $600 per hour instead of the ridiculous $6,000 per hour U.S. doctors can demand now. A little competition would go a long way in reducting the cost of medical care in the U.S.

Fred of SC 8:20AM May 31, 2009

What is happening is a balance between supply and demand. It's working.
The problem is that the supply isn't medical care and the demand isn't people who need it. In our healthcare system, the patient is not the client. The client is the employer and human resources department of the patient. The client purchases the service of the a healthcare plan. The Plan then subcontracts the actual healthcare.
Oh, and Pam of TX,
that $300 to make a video is how much I paid the pediartician to have a nurse tell my son to stand on a piece of tape, hold a paper cup over one eye and read an eye chart. My insurance didn't cover it because the pediatrician is not an opthamologist. The pediatrician had a contract with the insurance company that prohibited her from providing any uncovered services. My eye care insurance, however, is with a different company so the contract with my health care insurance didn't apply. The pediatrican was not contracted with my eye care insurance company and so it could not pay. If the eye test HAD been covered, my insurance would have paid about $30. She should have made a decent video with the extra $270 she got from me if she hadn't needed it as payroll in her insurance billing department.

cara of CA 12:02PM May 30, 2009

A Medicaid system for all is essentially no care for many. Read the words of Bernadine Healy regarding Howard Dean's wife, Dr. Judith Steinberg, who dropped out of the Medicaid system, leaving no primary care doctor in her Vermont town:
http://health.usnews.com/blogs/heart-to-heart/2009/05/26/health-reform-we-need-details-president-obama.html
Ask Canadians who cross the border to have heart surgery why they do so.

a physician, soon to be retired, if a single payer system passes of DC 7:22AM May 30, 2009

I have gotten care at a government run hospital - in Iraq. It's excellent, and as far as I know there isn't much competition here (although KBR runs the food and some support services, so perhaps a kernal of thought for consideration there?). The government run hospitals in the US are different in two ways: poor accountability (neither fish nor fowl as civilian/military or public/private institutions, they often end up outside of well-established lines of accountability), and 2) they host the victims of the private system, those left out of every other institution because they are not covered. As a civilian in a war area, I am face-to-face with the reality that I have to scramble to find coverage when I step off the plane back in the US. I would absolutely LOVE to have the guarantee of access to the VA system for me and my family. Soon-to-be-retired doctor: I understand your concern, but 15% of the population is voting for something rather than nothing. It's unfair to compare that something against what the top 15% of the population (the rich, the elected, and the military elite (yes, they have their own health care systems for the top brass just like Congress does)) has. Get me and my family coverage first, and then help us make it better. Or retire. But don't block my coverage...one day you'll retire anyways. My day of having coverage is not nearly as certain.

StateContractor of IL 1:43AM May 30, 2009