Impeding changes to our Health Care system

[DanaC]

In terms of widening affordable access to healthcare, or in terms of tackling the problems of the ininsured/under insured?

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by DanaC

In terms of widening affordable access to healthcare, or in terms of tackling the problems of the ininsured/under insured?

I completely support widening affordable access to healthcare and figuring out a way to support the under or uninsured. The problem I have with the approach is the way they plan to pay for it. If the majority of the population wants it, everyone needs to pay into it. Either through some sort of flat percent of every income, regardless of income, or through user taxes in sales tax or something similar to a VAT. The approach they are Rahming through Congress is fraught with missteps and pitfalls, combined with back door deals with the industry. If you go back years, I have always said we have a health insurance crisis. The current plan in Congress may eventually bankrupt this country and place the burden of paying for it on a minority of taxpayers.

[TheMercenary]

Wow..

The news from Barbara Wagner's doctor was bad, but the rejection letter from her insurance company was crushing.

Barbara Wagner
(Paul Carter/Register-Guard)The 64-year-old Oregon woman, whose lung cancer had been in remission, learned the disease had returned and would likely kill her. Her last hope was a $4,000-a-month drug that her doctor prescribed for her, but the insurance company refused to pay.

What the Oregon Health Plan did agree to cover, however, were drugs for a physician-assisted death. Those drugs would cost about $50.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=5517492&page=1

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by DanaC

In terms of widening affordable access to healthcare, or in terms of tackling the problems of the ininsured/under insured?

Keeping my previous response in context, and my 30 plus years in the business of healthcare, I am not at all confident that the government can successfully implement a program of government sponsored insurance or a single payer plan (I fully understand that this is currently not on the table but there is no doubt that this is where Obama and many other liberal democrats want to go in time). Nor any plan which encourages the mass migration of those with private insurance, or employers who provide insurance to employees to a government run plan.

People cannot draw parallels between countries the size of Sweden, France, the UK, or other small economies and populations and extrapolate those plans to a country the size of the US with ease. The US is much more complex in its relationships with business and insurance as we now know it. But given what we have seen about the potential back door deals the Obama administration is making with various special interest groups, I am futher discouraged that implementation of a national coordinated effort to provide insurance to some 30 million people can actually work. I believe that care will continue to be rationed but to a greater degree than it is now with a greater emphasis on cost containment spread over a greater number of people. This form of rationing is slowly creeping into the care of Medicare, Medicaid, and other government programed patients. Various more expensive techniques and procedures are not offered to these patients because the insurance will not pay. A procedure that can cost 1/10th the cost in a free-standing surgical center is passed over for a much more expensive procedure which the insurance company will pay for in a hospital. That is detrimental to the system as a whole increasing costs for the patients and other insured people, not to mention the public whom ultimately is paying for it all. The current government run program is broken and fiscally inefficient. What makes anyone think they can expand it by 1000 fold and do a better job?


The issue of illegal aliens must be addressed to eliminate a weakness and further drain on any national program for the uninsured.

The issues of reimbursement fro providers must be addressed, and they are not.

The issues of payment for catastrophic care must be addressed and they are not.

The issues of chronic expensive care and treatment of rare and complex disease needs to be addressed.

The issue of how all this is going to be paid and by whom has not been exposed to the fullest in any plan and those issues must be on the table with adequate time for debate. I do not believe, as history has shown us in this Congress, that this will happen.

What ever plan is developed, Congress should pledge to enter the same plan as the "government option", including Ted Kennedy, and the same level of care should be given to them as should be given to the homeless person on the street.

[Undertoad]

What ever plan is developed, Congress should pledge to enter the same plan as the "government option", including Ted Kennedy, and the same level of care should be given to them as should be given to the homeless person on the street.

Yessir, that's the acid test: if they have developed a public insurance plan that cuts costs AND works well, they can demonstrate faith to the public by signing up for it.

[Undertoad]

What ever plan is developed, Congress should pledge to enter the same plan as the "government option", including Ted Kennedy, and the same level of care should be given to them as should be given to the homeless person on the street.

Yessir, that's the acid test: if they have developed a public insurance plan that cuts costs AND works well, they can demonstrate faith to the public by signing up for it.

[TheMercenary]

What we have here is an Administration and Congress that is pushing an ideology, ideas, and a play to solidify political power cloaked in supposed good intentions at the expense of the science, facts, and fiscal responsibility.

[classicman]

It's Bush's fault - The R's did nothing when they had control and people are pissed. They want it and now the D's have to figure out how to give it to them.
Whether it costs a shitload or not is a whole nother story.
BTW - How many illegals will be covered under whatever new plan is developed and at what cost? I've heard partisan crap on it, but don't want to go that route. Still I'm curious.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by classicman

BTW - How many illegals will be covered under whatever new plan is developed and at what cost? I've heard partisan crap on it, but don't want to go that route. Still I'm curious.

My guess: however many can get and keep fake social security numbers.

[Happy Monkey]

An amusing argument from someone scared of rationing:

People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.

Hopefully, Hawking will never move to the U.K. - they'd kill him!

[classicman]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

My guess: however many can get and keep fake social security numbers.

Would they have to? I have no idea how all that works. I'm a natural born citizen and have no experience in the illegality of who what & how all that happens.

[jinx]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

Hopefully, Hawking will never move to the U.K. - they'd kill him!

Not on purpose... but accidents do happen. 1, 2, 3, 4

[TheMercenary]

Now where have I heard this before.... hmmmmmmm....

In a Tight Spot, Pelosi Calls Health Care Critics 'Un-American'

Pushing her agenda and attempting to demonize the oppostion. A play right out of the Republickin's book. Say hello to the Nazi Pelosi...

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Wow..
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=5517492&page=1

But under the insurance plan, she can the only receive "palliative" or comfort care, because the drug does not meet the "five-year, 5 percent rule" -- that is, a 5 percent survival rate after five years.
A 2005 New England Journal of Medicine study found the drug erlotinib, marketed as Tarceva, does marginally improve survival for patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer who had completed standard chemotherapy.
The median survival among patients who took erlotinib was 6.7 months compared to 4.7 months for those on placebo. At one year, 31 percent of the patients taking erlotinib were still alive compared to 22 percent of those taking the placebo.

So, going by averages, if you take the drug for 6 months until you die, you have gained 2 months at a cost of $24,000.

Including the death option in the same letter as the denial was insensitive, but I can see where someone would want the information. I heard John Wayne tried to commit suicide during his final months.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Pushing her agenda and attempting to demonize the oppostion. A play right out of the Republickin's book. Say hello to the Nazi Pelosi...

She may have a less cynical view of America. I'd like to agree with her that shouting out a town hall meeting to make sure nobody gets heard is unamerican, or that pretending that living wills are death panels is uinamerican, but I'm not sure I can.