statement on health care bill......

[bigsteve]

Hogwarden,
Well thought answer. I appreciate the time and effort you put into it. I'm also glad this thread hasn't turned into a knock down drag out.

I agree the system is broken. And you and I didn't break it. You and I live in the USA, the home of greedy Doctors, greedy insurance execs, and greedy folks who want to get rich via frivilous lawsuits.

That said, it's time this country pulled up it's britches, got the heck off the toilet, and gets something done. The goverment wastes so much money on stupid stuff. Throw some of it toward the single working mom who can't take her kids in for a check up.

What's the answer? Beats the heck out of me. I'm torn. I was raised in an ultra liberal household. I married into an untra conservative family. It seems to have made me an ultra moderate. I'm sick of both wings. And I'm sick of waiting. I wish the far righties and the far lefties would just go away so something could get accomplished.

Well, I've waded far too deeply into politics again. I'm going back to the 50 yard line seats.

 

[athabaskar]

Here's my .02 on reducing the cost of medical care.

Currently, whenever an illegal immigrant approaches any medical care provider that provider must tend to these individuals by law. Care cannot be refused. Our emergency rooms are overrun with these people using the emergency rooms as their primary care physician. I recently spent hours in one of these rooms with my wife's appendicitis. It is disgusting the convoluted way the system works.

My solution; redirect these people to the newly created illegal immigrant care center. It can be nearby in any ran down store front and it should offer the same exact level of health care that this person would receive in their home country. Why is it that I have paid, paid, and paid taxes all these years, and still any mutt that can make it across the border can be treated before my dear wife who is in obvious distress?

Thanks for putting up with my semi hijack.

 

[werdwolf]

Being a doctor of course I have several comments and will try to keep them fairly neutral.

We are taught that every patient is a potential litigant. We have to practice defensive medicine, and I would estimate that between 30-40% of the tests I order are to cover my backside or to get something approved for the patient that they should be able to get in the first place.

Notice that in the health care reform, Obama does not want any provisions to curb malpractice cases. If only we had the German system here. If you sue a health care professional or institution and lose, you have to pay their legal fees. This would make it so only the true and flagrant malpractice cases would end up in the courts where they probably belong.

Any doctor who is truly below standards will get taken care of. Everything we do is monitored by multiple agencies or committees (in the hospital setting) and insurance companies.

Now as for the greedy doctors; of course there are some.

However most went into medicine to help people.
Lets look at becomming a family physician. first I went thru the 23rd grade, while paying for my education for 8 of those years and living on peanuts for the 3 years of residency (worked out to a dollar something an hour, 20 years ago). The current student enters the work force 7 - 12 years later than a traditional college graduate, with approximately $200,000.00 in school debt.

My sister (CPA) and I compared and I finally caught up to her when I was 49.

So yes I make a decent living, but I am also on call regularly without pay, have given away most of my younger years to training, have multiple scars in my heart and mind from this practice of medicine.

Yet I can't imagine doing anything different. Call me crazy!

 

[beer-b-q]

http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h3200/text

 

[shooterrick]

My family physician whom I have a great deal of respect for is always complaining that various 3rd parties interfere with his decisions and I have witnessed this first hand being a heart and diabetic patient. I am under control and eat very small helpings of what I prepair on my smoker and elswhere. I have had Quad bypass and that was 11 years ago and feel great today and each visit to the cardiologist confirms good things. Our system of health care is the best in the world. I do not see folks leaving the USA for Europe or Canada to take advantage of their systems.

All this said: These discussions and arguments have been going on and on since before $600 toilet seats and nothing is or will change without changing who is in all branches of our government. It is not beneficial for those in the house, senate, and executive branch to change a system that benifits them greatly. It is simply not going to happen unless we make it happen.

Would you tell your employer that John down the street can do your job much better and will work for less and is available? Those in Washington are about self preservation not about what is best for the country as a whole. That notion went out with the citizen politician. The professional politician is about re-election and preserving and promoting their agenda not yours.

Is there a solution? I hope so! Can we still change it with a vote? Probably not without a 3rd serious party of independent thinking folks.

 

[deltadude]

1st the fact that we are discussing this on SMF, tells you how deep a cord this strikes in all of us pro or con. It is now PC not to discuss politics or religion. I choose to be Non PC when it comes to stuff that is so critical to each of us and our country. So hopefully you will take the time to read my rambling.


They, the loony left in Washington and the White House, are selling you a pig in a poke. You can go online right now and find HMO for about $100-120 a month per person, with a $5000 annual deductible and unlimited catastrophe for life, no charge on medication up to $100 per day max.
This is basically catastrophic insurance. This is equivalent to PL & PD on a newish economy car insurance premium. Car insurance doesn't come into play unless you have an accident, and a lot of people have $1000 deductible if they do pay for collision which runs the premium over $250+ per month.

I know this example is really weak but it does represent the question, why is Obama Care projected to cost so much?

40,000,000 x 1200 annual cost per person = 4,000,000,000 that’s $4 billion

But that is for 40 million healthy people, so using the 80/20 rule we will add money for 8 million who are not healthy

8,000,000 x $250 per mouth x 12 months = 24,000,000,000 or $24 billion

so far $28 billion, notice I didn't reduce the 20% from the initial 40 million uninsured cost ($4 billion), I just added the 20% cost on top.

But lets do like business does and figure 20% waste and add another 20% just to be on the safe side

$28 billion x 1.20 = $33,600,000,000 or $33.6 billion. Now add in the money states already pay to subsidize the uninsured, maybe another $4-6 Billion. So approx. $40 Billion for those without health care.

Wait a sec, only $33.6 billion to cover 40 million with an HMO similar to plans that about 25-30 percent of America is currently buying? In other words without Obama's inflated $1 trillion those that are uninsured can have basic catastrophic health care, so why is the CBO saying Obama Care will cost $1 trillion dollars? You could triple the numbers even quadruple the number above, and let the health care industry with government oversight not control provide good health care for those that need it.

WHY $1 Trillion? BECAUSE THE GOVERNMENT CAN'T DO ANYTHING EFFICIENTLY! THE REST OF THE MONEY IS FOR A CREATING A NIGHTMARE BUREAUCRACY with the only outcome, destruction of the best health care in the world. Who in their right mind would be willing to pay an extra $900 billion for something that should cost $100 million or less? We won't even discuss how all this will get paid for. The Wall Street Journal has stated H.R.3200 is the worst legislation ever written in modern times.

Reform not take over, since when does Government have the right to take over entire industries, Banks, Real Estate, Credit, Auto, now health, and right around the corner all Energy. WAKE UP PEOPLE! What the loons have planned for America is nothing close to what our father's, grand fathers, and the founders of this country either envisioned or believed in. 44 CZARS?

As for thinking doctors and insurance companies get rich, as well as business tycoons or executives. As long as it is legal, moral, ethical, more power too them. America is about every individual having the opportunity to become whatever they want to achieve. Creating class envy by highlighting some who have managed to get get rich or have extremely high paying jobs, just belittles the accomplishments and hard work that it took most high achievers to earn those positions. Just as the werdwolf said he worked his butt off not to make a lot of money but to serve, costing him years of hard work and study. Sure there is a reward, as there should be. Yet the media and the left lump his life of work into the class of "greedy" and the weak minded chime in and say YEAH!

America is in trouble because of a defective government not because of a defective private sector. It took both democrats and republicans to get us here today, if you believe the government that got us into this mess is going to also get us out of the mess, think again.

 

[bigsteve]

Werdwolf,
Sorry if I painted with a very broad brush earlier. It's easy to start blaming everyone involved in an industry, when frustration levels rise.