My philosophy has always been "If it ain't broke, Don't fix it". The article said that there are roughly 46 million people in the US that are uninsured and hey that certainly is a large number. It would make you think that we need to jump on this but when compared to the total number of people in the US (~300 million ...wikipedia) thats less than 1/6th of the total population. To undertake a total rehaul for just 1/6th of the total populace is a bit of a stretch.
We may not have the best health care system but it is the best there is world wide. This would explain why other socialized health care system patients flock to our country to have procedures done when they are fed up with the wiating that their free health care provides (see Canadian/European Health Care System).
What needs to be done is find a way to cut the rising cost of health care such as tort reform and a "loser pay's" legal system where ii would greaatly detur those expessive frivalous lawsuites. The government needs to take a hint, and listen to the American people and butt out of the system in general. If they cannot run the bankrupt Medicare system or even the "Cash for Clunker's" fiasco (which ran out of money not even four days into the program before Congress gave them $200 billion more to cover it) or even the USPS which is closing several of it offices b/c their basically broke. The Government should just plain get out of this whole idea all together. "If it ain't broke, Don't fix it"
"The President is trying to fix a system that everyone agrees is broken. Health care reform is essential to the long-term security and stability of all of our citizens. Without sensible reform, costs will continue to skyrocket. With wrong versions of reform, health care will diminish in quality and individual autonomy over health care will suffer."
Everyone does not agree that the system is broken.
"studies show that most Americans are overwhelmingly happy with their own health care -- but they are dissatisfied with the country's overall system, because most Americans who have insurance believe that those who don't have it are not receiving care.
The President/Congress is attacking the problem the wrong way. The current system is has its flaws and what they need to do is find a cost cutting solutions with the current system. We don't need a complete overhaul of the entire system. How come tort reform is not on the table or a "loser pay's" system to end frivalous lawsuits which would lower the doctors own insurance thus cutting cost of health care in general.
"But while insured Americans say overwhelmingly that they are satisfied, more than half of them -- 52 percent -- believe that becoming uninsured poses a "critical problem," 36 percent view the threat as "serious but not critical," and another 7 percent see it as a "problem, but not serious." Only 4 percent view it as "not much of a problem."
And this is from a reputable media source: US News and World Report:
"Although the United States spends more than twice as much on health care as other western countries, many Americans say they are forced to forgo care because of costs, experience more medical errors, and say the health-care system needs to be overhauled, a new survey finds.
U.S. patients also have the highest out-of-pocket costs and the most difficulty paying medical bills, according to the survey of seven countries conducted by The Commonwealth Fund.
And U.S. and Canadians are least likely to be able to get a same-day appointment with their doctors and are more likely to go to emergency rooms for immediate care, the survey found.
"It's easy to say that we have the best health system in the world, but it's really important to look at the evidence to see what the data show," Karen Davis, Commonwealth Fund president, said during a teleconference Wednesday.
"We are certainly the most expensive health-care system," Davis said. "What these surveys have shown year after year is that patients in the U.S. experience more problems with access to care because of costs," she said.
The report, Toward Higher Performance Health Systems: Adults' Views and Experiences With Primary Care, Care Coordination and Safety in Seven Countries, 2007, is published in the Nov. 1 online issue of Health Affairs.
For the survey, Commonwealth Fund researchers were led by Cathy Schoen, fund vice president and research director of its Commission on a High Performance Health System. They surveyed 12,000 adults in Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States about their health-care systems.
"Despite spending that leads the world, U.S. adults, for the most part, are likely to go without needed care because of costs, to report medical errors when sick, and to encounter high out-of-pocket costs and struggle to pay their medical bills," Schoen said during the teleconference.
Schoen's team found that one third of U.S. adults said the health-care system needed rebuilding, which was the highest rate in any country. In addition to costs, U.S. patients said they received more fragmented and inefficient care, including medical record and test delays, and more time wasted on paperwork, compared with patients in other countries. "Both low- and high-income patients expressed these views," Schoen said.
U.S. patients also said they had the highest rates of lab test errors and some of the highest rates of medical or medication errors. These errors were highest among patients seeing multiple doctors or with multiple chronic illnesses, Schoen said. In the United States, one-third of patients who had chronic conditions reported a medical, medication, or test error in the last two years.
Many U.S. adults also said they were likely to go without care because of costs. Thirty-seven percent of all U.S. adults and 42 percent of those with chronic conditions said cost had kept them from taking prescribed medications, seeing a doctor when sick, or receiving recommended care last year. These rates were far higher than all other countries, Schoen noted.
Patients in Canada, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom rarely reported not getting needed medical care because of costs, the survey found.
"The Netherlands stands out for strong positive endorsement of their health-care system -- confidence in care, quality and safety, and access to the latest technology," Schoen said. "The Netherlands also stands out with low concern with access due to cost, as do Canada and the U.K.," she added.
Moreover, one-fifth of patients in the United States said they had serious problems paying medical bills. That was more than double the rate in the next highest country. In addition, 30 percent of American patients spent more than $1,000 in the last year on out-of-pocket medical expenses.
The survey also found that patients gave the highest grades to health-care systems in which people had one doctor in charge of their medical care. But, across all the countries surveyed, only 45 percent to 61 percent of adults said they had a primary source of care, sometimes called a "medical home." In the United States, only 26 percent of uninsured patients had a medical home, compared with 53 percent of insured adults under 65, the researchers found.
One expert said the survey revealed -- once again -- the shortcomings of the U.S. health-care system.
"Comparing the U.S. health-care system to other industrialized countries is not for the faint of heart. The deficiencies in the U.S. system are painfully evident in every such study, and this one is no exception," said Dr. David Katz, director of Yale University School of Medicine's Prevention Research Center. "We manage to spend more on less efficient health care than any country in the world."
The real message from this survey is not about countries or health-care systems, but people, Katz said.
"What seems to predict better care, better outcomes, and more patient satisfaction is the most fundamental aspect of care there is -- a caring relationship. Patients with a health-care provider they know and trust and can rely on and call their own have a better health-care experience," he said.
One of the major goals of health care reform is to cover the vast numbers of uninsured. But how vast, really, is that pool of people? Who are they? And how important is it to cover all or most of them?
Critics play down the seriousness of the problem by pointing out that the ranks of the uninsured include many people who have chosen to forgo coverage or are only temporarily uninsured: workers who could afford to pay but decline their employers’ coverage; the self-employed who choose not to pay for more expensive individual coverage; healthy young people who prefer not to buy insurance they may never need; people who are changing jobs; poor people who are eligible for Medicaid but have failed to enroll. And then there are the illegal immigrants, a favorite target of critics.
All that is true, to some degree. But the implication — that lack of insurance is no big deal and surely not worth spending a trillion dollars to fix — is not.
No matter how you slice the numbers, there are tens of millions of people without insurance, often for extended periods, and there is good evidence that lack of insurance is harmful to their health.
Scores of well-designed studies have shown that uninsured people are more likely than insured people to die prematurely, to have their cancers diagnosed too late, or to die from heart failure, a heart attack, a stroke or a severe injury. The Institute of Medicine estimated in 2004 that perhaps 18,000 deaths a year among adults could be attributed to lack of insurance.
The oft-voiced suggestion that the uninsured can always go to an emergency room also badly misunderstands what is happening. By the time they do go, many of these people are much sicker than they would have been had insurance given them access to routine and preventive care. Emergency rooms are costly, and if uninsured patients cannot pay for their care, the hospital or the government ends up footing the bill.
•
So how many uninsured people are out there, facing those risks? The most frequently cited estimate, 45.7 million in 2007, comes from an annual census survey. That number was down slightly from the year before, but given the financial crisis, it is almost certainly rising again.
Some or even many of those people may have only temporarily lost or given up coverage, but even that exposes them to medical and financial risk. And many millions go without insurance for extended periods.
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality in the Department of Health and Human Services estimates that 28 million people were uninsured for all of 2005 and 2006 and that 18.5 million of them were uninsured for at least four straight years. That does not sound like a “temporary” problem, and the picture today is almost certainly bleaker.
Various analyses have tried to decipher just who the uninsured are. These are the main conclusions, with the caveat that there is overlap in these numbers:
THE WORKING POOR The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that about two-thirds of the uninsured — 30 million people — earn less than twice the poverty level, or about $44,000 for a family of four. It also estimates that more than 80 percent of the uninsured come from families with full-time or part-time workers. They often cannot get coverage at work or find it too expensive to buy. They surely deserve a helping hand.
THE BETTER OFF About nine million uninsured people, according to census data, come from households with incomes of $75,000 or more. Critics say that is plenty of money for them to buy their own insurance. But many of these people live in “households” that are groups of low-wage roommates or extended families living together. Their combined incomes may reach $75,000, but they cannot pool their resources to buy an insurance policy to cover the whole group.
Still, about 4.7 million uninsured people live in families that earn four times the poverty level — or $88,000 for a family of four — the dividing line that many experts use to define who can afford to buy their own insurance.
Those people who could afford coverage but choose not to buy it ought to be compelled to join the system to lessen the possibility that a serious accident or illness might turn them into charity cases and to help subsidize the coverage of poorer and sicker Americans.
YOUNG ADULTS Some 13 million young adults between the ages of 19 and 29 lack coverage. These are not, for the most part, healthy young professionals making a sensible decision to pay their own minimal medical bills rather than buy insurance that they are unlikely to need. The Kaiser foundation estimates that only 10 percent are college graduates, and only 5 percent have incomes above $60,000 a year, while half have family incomes below $16,000 a year. Many of these younger people would be helped by reform bills that would provide subsidized coverage for the poor and an exchange where individuals can buy cheaper insurance than is now available.
ALREADY ELIGIBLESome 11 million of the poorest people, mostly low-income children and their parents, are thought to be eligible for public insurance programs but have failed to enroll, either because they do not know they are eligible or are intimidated by the application process. When such people arrive at an emergency room, they are usually enrolled in Medicaid, but meanwhile they have lost out on routine care that could have kept them out of the emergency room. They will presumably be scooped up by the mandate under reform bills that everyone obtain health insurance.
THE UNDERINSURED The Commonwealth Fund estimates that 25 million Americans who had health insurance in 2007 had woefully inadequate policies with high deductibles and restrictions that stuck them with large amounts of uncovered expenses. Many postponed needed treatments or went into debt to pay medical bills.
NON-CITIZENS Some 9.7 million of the uninsured are not citizens; of those, more than six million may be illegal immigrants, according to informed estimates. None of the pending bills would cover them.
If nothing is done to slow current trends, the number of people in this country without insurance or with inadequate coverage will continue to spiral upward. That would be a personal tragedy for many and a moral disgrace for the nation. It is also by no means cost-free. Any nation as rich as ours ought to guarantee health coverage for all of its residents."
The United States has two parties now—the Obama Party and the Fox Party. The Obama Party is larger, but it is unfocused and its troops are whiny. The Fox Party, which shows up en masse to harass politicians, is noisy and practiced in the art of simplistic obstruction. As the health-care debate rages, it's the Party of Sort-of-Maybe-Yes versus the Party of Hell No! The Yessers are more lackadaisical because they've forgotten the stakes—they've forgotten that this is the most important civil-rights bill in a generation, though it is rarely framed that way.
The main reason that the bill isn't sold as civil rights is that most Americans don't believe there's a "right" to health care. They see their rights as inalienable, and thus free, which health care isn't. Serious illness is an abstraction (thankfully) for younger Americans. It's something that happens to someone else, and if that someone else is older than 65, we know that Medicare will take care of it. Polls show that the 87 percent of Americans who have health insurance aren't much interested in giving any new rights and entitlements to "them"—the uninsured.
But how about if you or someone you know loses a job and the them becomes "us"? The recession, which is thought to be harming the cause of reform, could be aiding it if the story were told with the proper sense of drama and fright. Since all versions of the pending bill ban discrimination by insurance companies against people with preexisting conditions, that provision isn't controversial. Which means it gets little attention. Which means that the deep moral wrong that passage of this bill would remedy is somehow missing from the debate.
Sure, it's important to fight for a public option (or a souped-up cooperative that can be made nearly as good). And we need to stand against a secret deal with Big Pharma, tighten insurance regulation, and assure that the bill includes language establishing clearly that doctors and patients—not bureaucrats, who are no better than insurers—make medical decisions. But these worthy goals have overshadowed the moral principle of nondiscrimination. The well-meaning woman who left a message at my office saying that she wouldn't demonstrate in support of any bill without a public option has lost her perspective.
The same goes for those who focus on cost ahead of principle. Whether we can "bend the cost curve" in five years or 10 years is fundamentally unknowable. Washington's elite policy mandarins obsess over "out-year" projections that never prove accurate. We must "pay" for the bill with new revenue streams, but let's not pretend that any of the real costs (and incentivized cost savings) are discernible now. Look at "cash for clunkers." The money that Congress set aside for a year lasted less than a week. The short-term projections were off by 99 percent. Any bill this big will be full of unintended consequences and will have to be fixed. The only way the system can't be fixed is if the bill dies and no one tries reform again for many years.
History suggests that major social policy unfolds on a continuum. The Social Security Act of 1935 disappointed liberal New Dealers because what was called "old-age insurance" covered only about half the adult population. It excluded farmhands, domestics, employees of small businesses, and most blacks. That was because FDR needed the votes of Southern Democrats, the Blue Dogs of their day. (The bill cleared the House Ways and Means Committee with only one Republican vote.) Similarly, the Civil Rights Act of 1957, immortalized in Robert Caro's Master of the Senate, was weak tea. It had to be strengthened by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In the later bills, Lyndon Johnson betrayed Southerners he had made deals with in 1957. If Nancy Pelosi can't break Rahm Emanuel's promise to Big Pharma's Billy Tauzin this year, she can try to break it in the future. And Tauzin will lobby for more favors as the all-important new regulations are issued. Nothing in Washington is ever set in stone.
The only thing that should be unbreakable in a piece of legislation is the principle behind it. In the case of Social Security, it was the security and peace of mind that came with the knowledge of a guaranteed old-age benefit. (Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush got slam-dunked when they tried to mess with that.) In the civil-rights bills, the principle was no discrimination on the basis of an unavoidable, preexisting "condition" like race.
The core principle behind health-care reform is—or should be—a combination of Social Security insurance and civil rights. Passage would end the shameful era in our nation's history when we discriminated against people for no other reason than that they were sick. A decade from now, we will look back in wonder that we once lived in a country where half of all personal bankruptcies were caused by illness, where Americans lacked the basic security of knowing that if they lost their jobs they wouldn't have to sell the house to pay for the medical treatments to keep them alive. We'll look back in wonder—that is, if we pass the bill.
Alter, a national-affairs columnist, is the author of The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days And The Triumph Of Hope.
First, Health care is definitely not a right (which is inalienable and given by god (insert your religious faith here).
"The Fox Party, which shows up en masse to harass politicians"---- the masses of people protesting about the health care are not solely Fox News constituents but more balanced as their are a mix of Reps, Dems, and Inds. Fox News is basically the only voice of opposion to open to discuss the items brought up by Congress and not just go with whatever the BHO(Barack Hussein Obama) says. Besides it was BHO's idea to have these townhall meetings in the first place (he just didn't think it would back fire).
#2 If it were a right, then who is supposed to provide said right....the gov't...I don't think so. You don't have to have insurance to get health care which many americans get by going to the emergency room anyway (which is one of the reasons health care is so expensive)
"Although the United States spends more than twice as much on health care as other western countries, many Americans say they are forced to forgo care because of costs, experience more medical errors, and say the health-care system needs to be overhauled" --- I do agree with this statement but what is currently being offered as a solution would not solve anything and would further ration the care provided (if you need examples see the Canadian/European health care system). The options provided do nothing to reduce the cost of health care which is the key problem
The options provided do nothing to reduce the cost of health care which is the key problem.
The cost comes from the fact that we are a very unhealthy nation. Let me give you an example. We give our children at my school free breakfast and lunch. Weeeeee! The problem is that many of the menu options are laden with sugar, simple carbs and saturated fats, but it keeps costs down. Extend this to our fast food nation: cheap and deadly.
You seem to think the problem is government. The problem is ECONOMICS. Our whole fuc*ing value system is not based on human decency or taking care of others, it's based on PROFITS. We'll profit from our children, our grandchildren and their children as well.
Government can provide limits and a vision that moves away from profits in areas that need it and toward something that is sustainable and healthy. I believe that because some will do everything you can to STOP social advancement for the sake of freedom and, more importantly, PROFIT!!!!!
PROFIT making has been the key problem. How, then, can we become a healthier nation? By giving incentives and options for people to be healthier. We can also provide heath care to all. This whole notion of providing health care to all is NOT for an idea for some because it does not seem or sound PROFITABLE in any way. What, then, do folks accomplish by ignoring the problem? You end up paying for it anyway at the back end. DUH!
I call it the KEY problem: we will sabotage efforts to improve a broken system or just say things like, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." so that people that are in the BUSINESS of making a PROFIT off health care can continue to do so.
In college, I got health insurance. I was completely healthy. Then, I suffered a hernia. After the surgery was performed, the insurance company refused to pay for it. The fine print stated that a hernia had to be strangulated. Mine was SO painful, I could not walk, but I was suddenly in debt for thousands of dollars.
I imagine that you have never had to deal with the situations we see all over the nation such as going into debt to pay for an illness/accident. Only then will YOU be broke and see the need to fix it.
You are definitrly not a capitalist. Yes, PROFIT is a main motivator, but who is to say what is healthy or not. So by your interpretation you would rather let some beauracrat tell you what you should eat rather than reallying on what you can learn on your own. No one is forcing you to eat those foods.
The basis of my arguement is that the Dems are willing to overhaul the entire health care system for the sake of a few people as comapred to the entire population. (1/6 of the gen. pop.) Again, what the Dems, in Congress have proposed to alledgedly save our health care system, have done nothing to reduce the cost of care.
What drives up cost is the high malpractice insurance that doctors pass on to the patients. Or the many frivalous lawsuits filed against then which would raise their own insurance. Believe it or not, many doctors' are willing to give you a lower cost for your care if they are given cash (so basically they don't deal with the whole health care insurance boondogle). Why isn't tort reform in the bill? Why not cost effective ways to pay for your health such as a health care savings account supplemented by catastrophic insurance?
The Gov't is pushing for a competative insurance plan so that the private ins. would have to compete. But this is not true, since any Gov't program does not have to produce a profit. They even have a committee to decide if you have sufficient coverage, and if you do not (the employer rather) you will get taxed/fined. At which time said comittee will "randomly" choose a plan for you and you will have to pay for it.
One of the ways the Gov't plans to cut cost (but not really) is to have "death panels'" which are another committee that counsel the elderly about end of life decisions every five years. The committes will try to persuade them not to take those life saving medications b/c they are to costly and have them take pain medications instead. B/C according to the Gov't, to extend her her life for another 1 -10 yrs is not cost effective and they have outlived their productive use to society.
That does nothing about the current cost, but just a cold way of cutting/saving money.
For once, mainstream journalists did not retreat to the studied neutrality of quoting dueling antagonists.
They tried to perform last rites on the ludicrous claim about President Obama's death panels, telling Sarah Palin, in effect, you've got to quit making things up.
But it didn't matter. The story refused to die.
The crackling, often angry debate over health-care reform has severely tested the media's ability to untangle a story of immense complexity. In many ways, news organizations have risen to the occasion; in others they have become agents of distortion. But even when they report the facts, they have had trouble influencing public opinion.
In the 10 days after Palin warned on Facebook of an America "in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel,' " The Washington Post mentioned the phrase 18 times, the New York Times 16 times, and network and cable news at least 154 times (many daytime news shows are not transcribed).
While there is legitimate debate about the legislation's funding for voluntary end-of-life counseling sessions, the former Alaska governor's claim that government panels would make euthanasia decisions was clearly debunked. Yet an NBC poll last week found that 45 percent of those surveyed believe the measure would allow the government to make decisions about cutting off care to the elderly -- a figure that rose to 75 percent among Fox News viewers.
Less than seven hours after Palin posted her charge Aug. 7, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann called it an "absurd idea." That might have been dismissed as a liberal slam, but the next day, ABC's Bill Weir said on "Good Morning America": "There is nothing like that anywhere in the pending legislation."
On Aug. 9, Post reporter Ceci Connolly said flatly in a news story: "There are no such 'death panels' mentioned in any of the House bills." That same day, on NBC's "Meet the Press," conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks called Palin's assertion "crazy." CNN's Jessica Yellin said on "State of the Union," "That's not an accurate assessment of what this panel is." And on ABC's "This Week," George Stephanopoulos said: "Those phrases appear nowhere in the bill."
Still, some conservatives argued otherwise. On the Stephanopoulos roundtable, former House speaker Newt Gingrich said the legislation "has all sorts of panels. You're asking us to trust turning power over to the government when there clearly are people in America who believe in establishing euthanasia, including selective standards."
And on Fox the next night, Bill O'Reilly played a clip of former Democratic Party chairman Howard Dean saying Palin "just made that up. . . . There's nothing like euthanasia in the bill." O'Reilly countered that as far as he could tell, "Sarah Palin never mentioned euthanasia. Dean made it up to demean Palin."
Ultimately, the media consensus was that Palin had attempted "to leap across a logical canyon," as the conservative bible National Review put it, adding that "we should be against hysteria." But the "death" debate was sucking up much of the political oxygen. President Obama kept denying that he was for "pulling the plug on Grandma." On Aug. 13, the Senate Finance Committee pulled the plug on the provision, with Republican Sen. Charles Grassley saying the idea could be -- yes -- "misinterpreted."
Health Care in Crisis: 14,000 Losing Coverage Each Day
Even when the economy was growing, 46 million people in America did not have any health insurance. Since the recession began, an estimated 4 million additional Americans have lost their health insurance and 2 million have become uninsured. The recent turmoil in the job market is likely increasing the number of uninsured at the rate of 14,000 a day. And yet, congressional conservatives opposed efforts to stop the erosion of our health care system and help millions of Americans hold on to the coverage they have or get it for the first time.
As many as 14,000 Americans are losing health coverage each day
Many Americans did not have any health insurance even before the recession began. During the six years of the last economic expansion, the number of uninsured Americans grew by 7 million, reaching 46 million in 2007.
That number is almost certainly higher today because the economy has lost 3.6 million jobs since the start of 2008. A one percentage point rise in the national unemployment rate causes 2.4 million people to lose employer-sponsored health coverage, according to Urban Institute researchers. Of these people, 1 million rely on Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program and 1.1 million end up uninsured.
Since the Census Bureau’s figures for uninsured Americans were collected in the spring of 2007, the unemployment rate has grown from 4.4 percent to 7.6 percent. As a result, an estimated 3.5 million people have lost their health insurance and are now uninsured.
Moreover, the loss of coverage is accelerating. The unemployment rate grew by 0.8 percentage points in December and January alone, implying that nearly 900,000 people became uninsured in these two months. That’s about 100,000 people a week, or 14,000 people a day. The rapid growth in the number of uninsured Americans will continue as long as the job market remains in a free fall.
The number of newly uninsured would be much higher if it weren’t for people enrolling in Medicaid and CHIP. Rising unemployment rates since the last Census report imply that an additional 3.2 million Americans now rely on Medicaid or SCHIP. Congress recently provided more resources for Medicaid and CHIP, but if it had not, states would have been forced to cut eligibility for these programs. Without federal assistance, many people now on Medicaid or CHIP would likely become uninsured as well.
If you're an "If it's not broken, don't fix it" person, I hope you hang onto your job/health benefits. For if you don't and you need medical attention, it'll be a case of "I'm broke, and I can't fix it."
Oh, and those "long waiting lists" for countries with "socialized medicine"
"Most Americans have heard horror stories of long waits for health-care services in other countries. But according to a study by the Commonwealth Fund,Americans wait longer to see primary-care physicians than patients in Britain, Germany, Australia, or New Zealand—all countries with strong public-health systems. Nearly one quarter of Americans reported waiting six days or more for an appointment with their doctor. New Zealand scored best, with just 3 percent waiting that long, followed by Australia (10 percent), Germany (13 percent), and Britain (15 percent). Canada rounded out the bottom, with more than a third waiting six days or more. Similarly, America shares with its northern neighbor the dubious honor of being ranked last in terms of patients' ability to make same-day appointments. Only 26 percent of Americans and Canadians reported being able see their doctor on the day they called, compared with 60 percent in the Netherlands and 48 percent in Britain. Karen Davis, president of the Commonwealth Fund, says America ranks last overall in the fund's comparative studies, which consider access, equity, cost, quality, and efficiency measures across select developed countries. "Where we do well is on …selective surgery," she says. Only 8 percent of Americans have to wait four months or more for an elective procedure, and 62 percent wait less than a month. In Britain, 41 percent of patients have to wait four months or more. The disparity between primary and elective care, says Davis, is mostly due to a shortage of primary-care docs in the U.S.; we produce more specialists because specialists earn a lot more."
What Palin said about "death panels" is not far from the truth\. What else would you call the committee that counsel the elderly about end of life decisions every five years? This is basically what is done to our military (VA Health care system) and that is an example of a Gov't run health care system and don't tell me they don't already ration their care as is.
In the VA system, many veterans are denied care, they do have to wait at least a year to specialist, or even counsel to recieve a nesecary surgery. I heard a situation with one vet who needed surgery for a torn ligament and would not recieve the surgery b/c it was severe enough. That same person went to a private doctor and the doctor said it was absolutely nesecary.
Rationing is inevitable under a Gov't run health care (see the VA Health care system)
You'd be amazed by how COMPETITION (real competition, that is, such as would be provided by the public option) can cut costs. Hey, that's capitalism at its best.
"The Sunday morning political talk programs were filled to the brim with health care reform discussions, and central to these discussions is the idea that the insurance industry needs competition. Competition, in the form of a public option or in health care cooperatives, is supposed to level the playing field and bring down premiums for all Americans while providing as close to universal coverage as we can do right now.
There's just one itty bitty, teeny weeny problem. The insurance industry has federal IMMUNITY from competition!
The federal government has not been able to attack the insurance companies through federal anti-trust laws for over 60 years. Under the McCarran-Ferguson Act passed in 1945, insurance companies (and Major League Baseball!) are specifically excluded from federal anti-trust laws as long as the state regulates in that area, and federal anti-trust laws will apply ONLY in cases of boycott, coercion, and intimidation.
Under the McCarran-Ferguson Act, Big Insurance is allowed to collect and SHARE data with each other about claims. With this information, Big Insurance can fix prices, set coverage requirements, outline conditions for coverage denials (like pre-existing conditions), and many, many more.
That's right, folks! Big Insurance can plot together to bring us all down!
This problem is one of the biggest when it comes to creating insurance industry competition, and not one single major news outlet, pundit or other talking head has covered it as of my publishing. In fact, the only time where I saw anti-trust regulation brought up was a minor squawking by Big Insurance. They claimed that they actually would be in trouble under the anti-trust laws if they were forced to work together to reduce costs to consumers. But the laws don't apply, so what's the problem, Big Insurance??
Back in2007 in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, a bipartisan group went after Big Insurance for the way that it was screwing over homeowners who lost everything in those terrifying storms. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) introduced the Insurance Industry Competition Act, along with the judiciary panel's ranking member, Senator Arlen Specter (then R-PA), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, (D-NV), and Senate Republican Whip Trent Lott, (R-MS). Companion bipartisan legislation was also introduced in the House by Reps. Peter DeFazio (D-OR), Gene Taylor (D-MS), Bobby Jindal (R-LA), Charlie Melancon (D-LA), Rodney Alexander (R-LA), and Walter Jones (R-NC). This bill intended to repeal the McCarran-Ferguson Act. These legislators noted the blatant collusion among Big Insurance and the drought of competition in the insurance industry.
For the last six decades, insurance companies have enjoyed immunity from federal anti-trust investigation and prosecution. The bipartisan bill introduced today would give the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission the authority to apply antitrust laws to anti-competitive behavior by insurance companies.
Now, about the VA. Tell me, do you have any PERSONAL experience with the VA? I certainly do. Let's see some DOCUMENTATION about this:
"hat else would you call the committee that counsel the elderly about end of life decisions every five years? This is basically what is done to our military (VA Health care system) and that is an example of a Gov't run health care system and don't tell me they don't already ration their care as is."
because in MY experience NONE of this bears any resemblance to the truth. Where does this baloney like this
"This is basically what is done to our military (VA Health care system)" come from?
And the same for this:
"In the VA system, many veterans are denied care, they do have to wait at least a year to specialist, or even counsel to recieve a nesecary surgery. I heard a situation with one vet who needed surgery for a torn ligament and would not recieve the surgery b/c it was severe enough. That same person went to a private doctor and the doctor said it was absolutely nesecary."
I KNOW the VA and how it works. I don't "hear about" cases that supposedly happened to "someone else."
I've gotten medical care from the VA for the past forty years, and it has always been prompt and FIRST-RATE.
"3.Distorting the Purpose of Veterans Affairs ‘Your Life, Your Choices.’. Recently, some folks have been distorting the purpose of a Veterans Affairs planning tool called ‘Your Life, Your Choices.’ The booklet is designed to help Veterans deal with excruciating questions about what kind of health care they would like to receive if they are unable to make decisions for themselves, a topic that Secretary Shinseki takes very seriously as we continue to create a 21st Century Department of Veterans' Affairs that provides the care and benefits our nation's veterans have earned. The document was developed under a federally funded research grant over a decade ago and in 2007, the Veterans Health Administration convened an outside panel of experts to review the tool and assess its merits. Overwhelmingly, the panel of experts, which included a diverse group from the faith based and medical communities, praised ‘Your Life, Your Choices’ and endorsed its use in the Veterans Health Administration. Your Life, Your Choices’ is not an Advance Directive or Living Will, it is an educational resource. The National Advance Directive that the VA utilizes today is the same document that was authorized by the Bush Administration in 2006."
I've USED this, and, believe me, it ain't no "death panel."
And, if anyone got poor health care from the VA, maybe this explains why:
"Number of American veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars who have been denied health care 2003 - 2008: 452,677"
And we all remember what administration was in office then, don't we?
What Palin said about "death panels" is not far from the truth\. What else would you call the committee that counsel the elderly about end of life decisions every five years?
Death support?
When my mother was dying of a brain tumor, we spoke to a hospice
nurse who guided us in making the right decision for her. The practice is quite normal and necessary.
Offering information to the elderly does not mean encouragement to die. That was a scare tactic that worked. Fortunately, most people searching for the truth, not those looking for ways to put the breaks on reform of course, know better.
Majority of Americans Believe Health Care Reform 'Myths
More than 50 percent of Americans believe a public insurance option will increase health care costs, according to a new survey on assertions the White House has called myths.
The national survey, conducted from Aug. 14 – 18, involved a random sample of 600 Americans aged 18 and older living in the 48 contiguous states and Washington, D.C. Respondents indicated whether or not they believed 19 claims about health care reform, each of which is considered a myth by the White House.
The results could speak to the current partisan debate on a proposed health care overhaul. While overall the majority of Americans said they believe many of the assertions, more Republicans and Independents than Democrats stood by the claims.
"It's perhaps not surprising that more Republicans believe these things than Democrats," said study scientist Dr. Aaron Carroll, director of Indiana University's Center for Health Policy and Professionalism Research. "What is surprising is just how many Republicans – and Independents – believe them. If the White House hopes to convince the majority of Americans that they are misinformed about health care reform, there is much work to be done."
Among the results on items the White House considers myths:
67 percent of respondents believe that wait times for health care services, such as surgery, will increase (91 percent of Republicans, 37 percent of Democrats, 72 percent of Independents).
About five out of 10 believe the federal government will become directly involved in making personal health care decisions (80 percent of Republicans, 25 percent of Democrats, 56 percent of Independents).
Roughly six out of 10 Americans believe taxpayers will be required to pay for abortions (78 percent of Republicans, 30 percent of Democrats, 58 percent of Independents)
46 percent believe reforms will result in health care coverage for all illegal immigrants (66 percent of Republicans, 29 percent of Democrats, 43 percent of Independents).
54 percent believe the public option will increase premiums for Americans with private health insurance (78 percent of Republicans, 28 percent of Democrats, 58 percent of Independents).
Five out of 10 think cuts will be made to Medicare in order to cover more Americans (66 percent of Republicans, 37 percent of Democrats, 44 percent of Independents).
There were exceptions.
Fewer participants believe "myths" regarding the impact of proposed changes on current health insurance coverage. For instance, less than 30 percent think private insurance coverage will be eliminated. And just 36 percent think a public insurance option will put private insurance companies out of business.
In addition, only three out of 10 respondents believe the government will require the elderly to make decisions about how and when they will die.
Americans spend more on health care every year than we do educating our children, building roads, even feeding ourselves—an estimated $2.6 trillion in 2009, or around $8,300 per person. Forty-five million Americans have no health insurance whatsoever. These staggering figures are at the heart of the current debate over health care reform: the need to control costs while providing coverage for all. As John Lumpkin, M.D., M.P.H., director of the Health Care Group for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, says, "There is enough evidence that it is now time to do something and to do the right thing." The key is to focus on the facts—and to dispel, once and for all, the myths that block our progress.
Myth 1: "Health reform won't benefit people like me, who have insurance."
Just because you have health insurance today doesn't mean you'll have it tomorrow. According to the National Coalition on Healthcare, nearly 266,000 companies dropped their employees' health care coverage from 2000 to 2005. "People with insurance have a tremendous stake, because their insurance is at risk," says Judy Feder, a professor of public policy at Georgetown University and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. What's more, in recent years the average employee health insurance premium rose nearly eight times faster than income. "Everyone is paying for health increases in some way, and it's unsustainable for everyone," says Stephanie Cathcart, spokesperson for the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB). "Reform will benefit everyone as long as it addresses costs."
Myth 2: "The boomers will bankrupt Medicare."
If you're looking to blame the rise in health care costs on an aging population, you'll have to look elsewhere. The growing ranks of the elderly are projected to account for just 0.4 percent of the future growth in health care costs, says Paul Ginsburg, president of the Center for Studying Health System Change. So why are health care costs skyrocketing? Ginsburg and others point to all those fancy medical technologies we now rely on (think MRIs and CT scans), as well as our fee-for-service payment system, in which doctors are paid by how many patients they see and how many treatments they prescribe, rather than by the quality of care they provide. Some experts say this fee-for-service payment system encourages overtreatment (see "Why Does Health Care Cost So Much?" from the July-August 2008 issue of AARP The Magazine).
Myth 3: "Reforming our health care system will cost us more."
Think of health care reform as if it's an Energy Star appliance. Yes, it costs more to replace your old energy-guzzling refrigerator with a new one, but over time the savings can be substantial. The Commonwealth Fund, a New York City-based foundation that supports research on health care practice and policy, estimates that health care reform will cost roughly $600 billion to implement but by 2020 could save us approximately $3 trillion.
Myth 4: "My access to quality health care will decline."
Just because you have access to lots of doctors who prescribe lots of treatments doesn't mean you're getting good care. In fact, researchers at Dartmouth College have found that patients who receive more care actually fare worse than those who receive less care. In one particularly egregious example, heart attack patients in Los Angeles spent more days in the hospital and underwent more tests and procedures than heart attack patients in Salt Lake City, yet the patients in L.A. died at a higher rate than those in Salt Lake City. (Medicare also paid $30,000 for the L.A. patients' care, versus $23,000 for the care of the patients with better outcomes in Salt Lake City.)
Myth 5: "I won't be able to visit my favorite doctor."
Mention health reform and immediately people worry that they will have fewer options—in doctors, treatments, and diagnostic testing. The concern comes largely during discussions of comparative effectiveness research (CER): research on which treatments work and which don't. But 18 organizations in a broad coalition, including AARP, NFIB, Consumers Union, and Families USA, support CER—and believe that far from limiting choices, it will instead prevent errors and give physicians the information they need to practice better medicine. A good example: Doctors routinely prescribe newer and more expensive medications for high blood pressure when studies show that older medications work just as well, if not better. "There is a tremendous value in new technology, but in our health care system we don't weigh whether these treatments work," says Feder. "Expensive treatments replace less expensive ones for no reason."
Myth 6: "The uninsured actually do have access to good care—in the emergency room."
It's true that the United States has an open-door policy for those who seek emergency care, but "emergency room care doesn't help you get the right information to prevent a condition or give you help managing it," says Maria Ghazal, director of public policy for Business Roundtable, an association of CEOs at major U.S. companies. Forty-one percent of the uninsured have no access to preventive care, so when they do go to the ER, "they are most likely going in at a time when their illness has progressed significantly and costs more to treat," says Lumpkin. Hospitals have no way to recoup the costs of treating the uninsured, so they naturally pass on some of those costs to their insured patients.
Myth 7: "We can't afford to tackle this problem now."
We may be in the middle of a recession, but as Robert Zirkelbach, spokesperson for America's Health Insurance Plans, says, "the most expensive thing we can do is nothing at all." If we do nothing, the Congressional Budget Office projects that our annual health costs will soar to about $13,000 per person in 2017, while the number of uninsured will climb to 54 million by 2019. Already more than half of Americans say they have cut back on health care in the past year due to cost concerns. Roughly one in four of us say we put off care we needed, and one in five of us didn't fill a prescription. Clearly, the urgency is greater now than ever before.
Myth 8: "We'll end up with socialized medicine."
Some experts favor a single-payer system similar to Medicare or the health program offered to federal-government employees. Yet all the proposals being discussed today would build on our current system, Feder says—which means that private insurers and the government are both likely to play roles. Says Lumpkin: "There are many ways to solve our health care problem, but we will come up with a uniquely American solution, and that solution will be a mixed public and private solution."
Definitely NOT for Obamacare. Government should not run the healthcare system. Medicaid and medicare should be scrapped also. Government has only contributed to the rising costs of health care and under government it will on average get worse.
I'll take that bet, but don't worry - instead of your richer/unhealthy prediction, you'll get poorer/healthier. And better health beats extra money every time.
I'll take that bet, but don't worry - instead of your richer/unhealthy prediction, you'll get poorer/healthier. And better health beats extra money every time.
The difference between Palin's "death panels" and your death support is that you voluntareed to take your grandmother to the hospice and in the"death panels" would be obligatory every five years. The difference is that you chose what to do and was not forced.
John,
Myth 4: "My access to quality health care will decline." >>>> this is happening already in Canada. In Canada, there getting rid of most hospitals b/c they have no way of funding it. The canadian health care system is imploding.
Myth 5: "I won't be able to visit my favorite doctor." >>> this may or may not be true, it all depends on wether your doctor is included in the new health care program (b/c it will soon become illegal for doctors to turn down patients who have the public ins. plan)
Myth 6: "The uninsured actually do have access to good care—in the emergency room." It's true that the United States has an open-door policy for those who seek emergency care >>> FACT, NOT A MYTH
Myth 8: "We'll end up with socialized medicine." >>> AKA a public plan or GOv't run health care. Also, NOT A MYTH
Myth 9:"Government has only contributed to the rising costs of health care and under government it will on average get worse." >>> Look at the Canadian health care system (an example of gov't run health care), it's imploding. Every where its been tried, it has failed.
"Both Keyserling and Dau were particularly troubled that McCaughey insisted — three times, to be exact — that the sessions would be mandatory, which they are not.
For his part, Keyserling said he and outside counsel read the language carefully to make sure that was not the case.
"Neither of us can come to the conclusion that it's mandatory." he said. "This new consultation is just like all in Medicare: it's voluntary."
"The only thing mandatory is that Medicare will have to pay for the counseling," said Dau.
For our ruling on this one, there's really no gray area here. McCaughey incorrectly states that the bill would require Medicare patients to have these counseling sessions and she is suggesting that the government is somehow trying to interfere with a very personal decision. And her claim that the sessions would "tell [seniors] how to end their life sooner" is an outright distortion. Rather, the sessions are an option for elderly patients who want to learn more about living wills, health care proxies and other forms of end-of-life planning. McCaughey isn't just wrong, she's spreading a ridiculous falsehood. That's a Pants on Fire."
The caricature of 'socialized medicine' is used by corporate interests to confuse Americans and maintain their bottom lines instead of patients' health.
By Michael M. Rachlis
August 3, 2009
Universal health insurance is on the American policy agenda for the fifth time since World War II. In the 1960s, the U.S. chose public coverage for only the elderly and the very poor, while Canada opted for a universal program for hospitals and physicians' services. As a policy analyst, I know there are lessons to be learned from studying the effect of different approaches in similar jurisdictions. But, as a Canadian with lots of American friends and relatives, I am saddened that Americans seem incapable of learning them.
Our countries are joined at the hip. We peacefully share a continent, a British heritage of representative government and now ownership of GM. And, until 50 years ago, we had similar health systems, healthcare costs and vital statistics.
The U.S.' and Canada's different health insurance decisions make up the world's largest health policy experiment. And the results?
On coverage, all Canadians have insurance for hospital and physician services. There are no deductibles or co-pays. Most provinces also provide coverage for programs for home care, long-term care, pharmaceuticals and durable medical equipment, although there are co-pays.
On the U.S. side, 46 million people have no insurance, millions are underinsured and healthcare bills bankrupt more than 1 million Americans every year.
Lesson No. 1: A single-payer system would eliminate most U.S. coverage problems.
On costs, Canada spends 10% of its economy on healthcare; the U.S. spends 16%. The extra 6% of GDP amounts to more than $800 billion per year. The spending gap between the two nations is almost entirely because of higher overhead. Canadians don't need thousands of actuaries to set premiums or thousands of lawyers to deny care. Even the U.S. Medicare program has 80% to 90% lower administrative costs than private Medicare Advantage policies. And providers and suppliers can't charge as much when they have to deal with a single payer.
Lessons No. 2 and 3: Single-payer systems reduce duplicative administrative costs and can negotiate lower prices.
Because most of the difference in spending is for non-patient care, Canadians actually get more of most services. We see the doctor more often and take more drugs. We even have more lung transplant surgery. We do get less heart surgery, but not so much less that we are any more likely to die of heart attacks. And we now live nearly three years longer, and our infant mortality is 20% lower.
Lesson No. 4: Single-payer plans can deliver the goods because their funding goes to services, not overhead.
The Canadian system does have its problems, and these also provide important lessons. Notwithstanding a few well-publicized and misleading cases, Canadians needing urgent care get immediate treatment. But we do wait too long for much elective care, including appointments with family doctors and specialists and selected surgical procedures. We also do a poor job managing chronic disease.
However, according to the New York-based Commonwealth Fund, both the American and the Canadian systems fare badly in these areas. In fact, an April U.S. Government Accountability Office report noted that U.S. emergency room wait times have increased, and patients who should be seen immediately are now waiting an average of 28 minutes. The GAO has also raised concerns about two- to four-month waiting times for mammograms.
On closer examination, most of these problems have little to do with public insurance or even overall resources. Despite the delays, the GAO said there is enough mammogram capacity.
These problems are largely caused by our shared politico-cultural barriers to quality of care. In 19th century North America, doctors waged a campaign against quacks and snake-oil salesmen and attained a legislative monopoly on medical practice. In return, they promised to set and enforce standards of practice. By and large, it didn't happen. And perverse incentives like fee-for-service make things even worse.
Using techniques like those championed by the Boston-based Institute for Healthcare Improvement, providers can eliminate most delays. In Hamilton, Ontario, 17 psychiatrists have linked up with 100 family doctors and 80 social workers to offer some of the world's best access to mental health services. And in Toronto, simple process improvements mean you can now get your hip assessed in one week and get a new one, if you need it, within a month.
Lesson No. 5: Canadian healthcare delivery problems have nothing to do with our single-payer system and can be fixed by re-engineering for quality.
U.S. health policy would be miles ahead if policymakers could learn these lessons. But they seem less interested in Canada's, or any other nation's, experience than ever. Why?
American democracy runs on money. Pharmaceutical and insurance companies have the fuel. Analysts see hundreds of billions of premiums wasted on overhead that could fund care for the uninsured. But industry executives and shareholders see bonuses and dividends.
Compounding the confusion is traditional American ignorance of what happens north of the border, which makes it easy to mislead people. Boilerplate anti-government rhetoric does the same. The U.S. media, legislators and even presidents have claimed that our "socialized" system doesn't let us choose our own doctors. In fact, Canadians have free choice of physicians. It's Americans these days who are restricted to "in-plan" doctors.
Unfortunately, many Americans won't get to hear the straight goods because vested interests are promoting a caricature of the Canadian experience.
First, If something is a fact, how could it be a myth:
1.
a traditional or legendary story, usually concerning some being or hero or event, with or without a determinable basis of fact or a natural explanation, esp. one that is concerned with deities or demigods and explains some practice, rite, or phenomenon of nature.
2.
stories or matter of this kind: realm of myth.
3.
any invented story, idea, or concept: His account of the event is pure myth.
4.
an imaginary or fictitious thing or person.
5.
an unproved or false collective belief that is used to justify a social institution.
SASKATOON — The incoming president of the Canadian Medical Association says this country's health-care system is sick and doctors need to develop a plan to cure it.
Dr. Anne Doig says patients are getting less than optimal care and she adds that physicians from across the country - who will gather in Saskatoon on Sunday for their annual meeting - recognize that changes must be made.
"We all agree that the system is imploding, we all agree that things are more precarious than perhaps Canadians realize," Doing said in an interview with The Canadian Press.
"We know that there must be change," she said. "We're all running flat out, we're all just trying to stay ahead of the immediate day-to-day demands."
The pitch for change at the conference is to start with a presentation from Dr. Robert Ouellet, the current president of the CMA, who has said there's a critical need to make Canada's health-care system patient-centred. He will present details from his fact-finding trip to Europe in January, where he met with health groups in England, Denmark, Belgium, Netherlands and France.
His thoughts on the issue are already clear. Ouellet has been saying since his return that "a health-care revolution has passed us by," that it's possible to make wait lists disappear while maintaining universal coverage and "that competition should be welcomed, not feared."
In other words, Ouellet believes there could be a role for private health-care delivery within the public system.
He has also said the Canadian system could be restructured to focus on patients if hospitals and other health-care institutions received funding based on the patients they treat, instead of an annual, lump-sum budget. This "activity-based funding" would be an incentive to provide more efficient care, he has said.
Doig says she doesn't know what a proposed "blueprint" toward patient-centred care might look like when the meeting wraps up Wednesday. She'd like to emerge with clear directions about where the association should focus efforts to direct change over the next few years. She also wants to see short-term, medium-term and long-term goals laid out.
"A short-term achievable goal would be to accelerate the process of getting electronic medical records into physicians' offices," she said. "That's one I think ought to be a priority and ought to be achievable."
A long-term goal would be getting health systems "talking to each other," so information can be quickly shared to help patients.
Doig, who has had a full-time family practice in Saskatoon for 30 years, acknowledges that when physicians have talked about changing the health-care system in the past, they've been accused of wanting an American-style structure. She insists that's not the case.
"It's not about choosing between an American system or a Canadian system," said Doig. "The whole thing is about looking at what other people do."
"That's called looking at the evidence, looking at how care is delivered and how care is paid for all around us (and) then saying 'Well, OK, that's good information. How do we make all of that work in the Canadian context? What do the Canadian people want?' "
Doig says there are some "very good things" about Canada's health-care system, but she points out that many people have stories about times when things didn't go well for them or their family.
"(Canadians) have to understand that the system that we have right now - if it keeps on going without change - is not sustainable," said Doig.
"They have to look at the evidence that's being presented and will be presented at (the meeting) and realize what Canada's doctors are trying to tell you, that you can get better care than what you're getting and we all have to participate in the discussion around how do we do that and of course how do we pay for it."
Okay, after finally reading the article here is what I think. Remember this is just my own opinion based upon my experiences and nothing more.
I do think that something should be done about our healthcare system because it could be better much better, but I am not sure if Obama's plan would do just that. I really don't listen to the scare tactics they claim many Americans are wrapped into. I have lived on all sides of the tracks- uninsured, underinsured, insured, and overinsured and the biggest difference I have noticed is the amount it costs. Health insurance is costly. Doctor bills are costly. I have learned a few tricks for healtcare- a pound of prevention is cheaper than an ounce of treatment.
I do know (from experience) that if you go to a walk in clinic without insurance the bill is cheaper than the one with insurance. It cost me sixty five dollars to take my child to the walk in clinic, but with insurance the bill is over a hundred. Same doctor same procedure. What is up with that. I have also paid 3/4 of my salary for healthcare in the past because I was afraid of not being covered. When you make minimum wage and your pay for two weeks is less than two days wages because you are paying for healthcare for your family that is crazy. I have healthcare through my employer now but because I am a teacher it is state funded- so the government is in charge.
My cut in healthcare- stay away from processed, high sodium, sugar, and cholesterol increasing foods. Walk, move, enjoy life, and remember death is not to be feared because guess what we all will die; I Promise.
