Health Care: is it just me or do others see a better way too?

After watching all the events unfold for the last year in an adnauseum state of gastro-intestinal flux, does anyone else agree that the better method to fix Health Care is via a series of multiple, topic specific bills, to address each issued individuallly?

God forbid these elected dipshits would be required to write a new constitution or even a constitutional amendment. I seriously believe they would argue whether or not the surface of the sun was hot or not.

Years ago, in the military my drill instructor taught me one thing to keep in mind when ever I am trying to get a point across or even a series of points. Keep It Simple Stupid also known as the KISS principle. Tackle one item at a time until a consensus of decision or majority decision can be reached, and keep it at the eighth grade reading level. Then move on to the next point. DON'T discuss multiple issues at one time.

I think they should abolish health insurance all together and instead make a standard tax to pay. I pay 500.00 a month for three people. Every year it goes up 40%. Nobody will be able to afford it in a couple of years anyway. They will all be going bankrupt because nobody can afford it. Mark my words we will see all of them fall within 10 years.

sherryjeffries wrote:I think they should abolish health insurance all together and instead make a standard tax to pay. I pay 500.00 a month for three people. Every year it goes up 40%. Nobody will be able to afford it in a couple of years anyway. They will all be going bankrupt because nobody can afford it. Mark my words we will see all of them fall within 10 years.

I no longer have health insurance. They increased my monthly premium by $188.00 and I had to drop out. Could not afford that extra. The older you get the more you pay. I hate our healthcare system, it stinks worse than a skunk.

Our health care system definitely needs some fixing, but not they way they are doing it. Medical community doesn't seem to be able to add their two cents and I certainly don't want something backed by the insurance companies and I'm afraid they are doing major lobbying to get things to go their way. I also don't want to be paying for insurance for those who are too lazy to go out and work and I'm not talking about the elderly or disabled here either.

LindaMarie wrote:Our health care system definitely needs some fixing, but not they way they are doing it. Medical community doesn't seem to be able to add their two cents and I certainly don't want something backed by the insurance companies and I'm afraid they are doing major lobbying to get things to go their way. I also don't want to be paying for insurance for those who are too lazy to go out and work and I'm not talking about the elderly or disabled here either.

I agree all medical insurance companies need to be dropped, non-prescription and prescription drugs and health care facilities need to be cost regulated, and none of this should be profit making. Everyone should be provided health-care, not just those with jobs that provide it. Some people work for jobs that do not have health-care coverage. It is really not that difficult. All they have to do is look at the health-care system Australia has and go forward. If you have a social security card, you get health care for you and your family, if you don't, then too bad you pay for everything out of pocket. The government is just creating the difficulties.

sherryjeffries wrote:I think they should abolish health insurance all together and instead make a standard tax to pay. I pay 500.00 a month for three people. Every year it goes up 40%. Nobody will be able to afford it in a couple of years anyway. They will all be going bankrupt because nobody can afford it. Mark my words we will see all of them fall within 10 years.

I agree. Private health insurance companies are a completely parasitic industry. Every cent that goes into their physical plant, salaries, bonuses, transportation costs, office supplies, communications networks, schmoozing of politicians etc., etc., and so forth comes out of our pockets. Hello? This is a huge, overwhelming, thick layer of health cost we all need like a hole in the head.

Payments to and profits of insurance companies contribute NOTHING to the actual health care of our population. Why bleed money into their pockets?

I am also bewildered by some Republicans in Congress who are so concerned about the cost of malpractice insurance and "tort reform" yet ignore the parasitic existence of the health insurance companies.

How much money would be saved if we erased the parasites?

Bill Silver Eagle wrote:After watching all the events unfold for the last year in an adnauseum state of gastro-intestinal flux, does anyone else agree that the better method to fix Health Care is via a series of multiple, topic specific bills, to address each issued individuallly?

God forbid these elected dipshits would be required to write a new constitution or even a constitutional amendment. I seriously believe they would argue whether or not the surface of the sun was hot or not.

Years ago, in the military my drill instructor taught me one thing to keep in mind when ever I am trying to get a point across or even a series of points. Keep It Simple Stupid also known as the KISS principle. Tackle one item at a time until a consensus of decision or majority decision can be reached, and keep it at the eighth grade reading level. Then move on to the next point. DON'T discuss multiple issues at one time.

Please read the message to you over on the Personal Board - Polly

LindaMarie wrote:Our health care system definitely needs some fixing, but not they way they are doing it. Medical community doesn't seem to be able to add their two cents and I certainly don't want something backed by the insurance companies and I'm afraid they are doing major lobbying to get things to go their way. I also don't want to be paying for insurance for those who are too lazy to go out and work and I'm not talking about the elderly or disabled here either.

And don't forget that they will begin to collect the extra taxes to run this immediately after it passes, yet, the insurance plan will not go into effect for FOUR years. What they want is our money because our government is broke.

Many of us are of a differing opinion when it comes to the present form of legislation. A nine person sampling doesn't really reach any qualitative opinion poll, though it appears that 2 out of 3 persons who participated believe smaller individual pieces of legislation fixing individual items separately are better than a lump sum provision with many flaws.

I'm still curious how when insurance companies and medical professionals are licensed by individual state boards or agencies, how is Congress going to attempt to regulate an industry for which they at present have no licensure authority? Under the present system of individual state licensure, which makes it an intra-state activity instead of an inter-state activity, aka, commerce, there will have to have a ratified authority by each individual state to release control of its licensure status, would there not?

I personally can not agree with the present lump sum bill, and all its 2400 or so pages, and do not agree that something, even if partially flawed, is better than nothing. Consider for a moment, that if the present bill becomes law, when it comes time to fix the flawed sections, how much support will they be able to gain to fix problem areas.

I'm not for selling out yet .... and it will take a lot of convincing that this something is better than nothing.

Bill

LindaMarie wrote:Our health care system definitely needs some fixing, but not they way they are doing it. Medical community doesn't seem to be able to add their two cents and I certainly don't want something backed by the insurance companies and I'm afraid they are doing major lobbying to get things to go their way. I also don't want to be paying for insurance for those who are too lazy to go out and work and I'm not talking about the elderly or disabled here either.

I agree with you LindaMarie.

One of the things that no one wants to tackle are the number of frivolous lawsuits that are filed each year. The cost of medical malpractice insurance is positively ridiculous. You have a physician who has no claims filed against him in his lifetime of practice. Depending upon the branch of medicine that the physician specializes in, he/she can be paying over $7K per month in premiums. Here in CA each physician needs to carry $3M/$1M/$3M. That $7K per month is taken right off the top before any patient is seen, any office staff member is paid, any utilites are paid, any rental payment is made and any salary the physician makes is paid out. When you have Medicare reducing payments effective March 1, 2010 by an additional 20%, what is a physician supposed to do? We want people to provide medical services to us, yet we complain about the cost. Medical school debts (which can run over $400K and that is without any speciality the physician decides to go into)also need to be figured into the equation. It takes many physicians years, if not decades to pay off these loans. I certainly don't think any of us would go into business for ourselves and then take a loss on the services we charge, yet we expect physicians to do that.

I have a friend who is going to need a malpractice attorney. She has had two surgeries to correct a problem in her neck and they have failed. Her last surgery in January is now causing her problems with pain, numbness, and a loss of vision in her left eye. She thinks that the surgeon may have either left something trapped or by re-doing the surgery, trapped some nerve somewhere and now the effects are starting to show. She has left several messages for him to call and has to date not received a call back. I don't trust this surgeon and for very good reason. When she was initially diagnosed, he told her she needed surgery ASAP or she would be paralyzed for life. I have a very good neurosurgeon that I see every year or so because of problems with my back. I told her to go to him to get a second opinion which she did but she was so shell shocked over what this first surgeon said to her that she ignored what my physican told her. He told her that no one could say for sure that she would be paralyzed and that while her neck had some compromize in it, that is wasn't absolutely necessary at that point in time and that she wouldn't become instantly paralyzed, she would show different signs that might be happening. So she has the first surgery and it has been nothing but problems. Now she has the second surgery and she has nothing but problems, expect this time her vision is affected and she still has not gotten the partial use of her left hand back yet either. Prior to both surgeries she had use of the hand and her vision was not affected. I told her that she needed to get an attorney and that maybe that would help her get a return call. While I understand that neurosurgery is a complicated area of expertise, a sign of a good surgeon is knowing when to cut and when NOT to cut. I was told that by a trauma surgeon that I worked with. He was an excellent surgeon and really helped save a number of people that otherwise would have passed due to their injuries.

I think that there are areas of our health care system that need to be looked at and improved on. That said a complete overhaul of the system is not something that needs to be done. I just wish this government would listen to the people instead of trying to push through a health care bill that will increase wait times, decrease the number of physicians that can see people and will not address the costs associated with health care, including malpractice insurance.