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Healthcare Mess in America

I never liked anything done by Michael Moore. Most of his movies are self promoting and full of exaggerations and half truths. He is apparently an extreme liberal. I have my doubts as to his real feelings on many things. He is making a great living in show business and we all have to remember that he is really just an entertainer and does what he does not out of some moral cause but just to make money and make himself more marketable.

But I do have to give him credit for his latest money maker movie Sicko. When he was talking about the plight of some of the people in the movie he was even able to conjure up some tears in his eyes. Some of them may even been sincere.

In my opinion one of the biggest whores of the world is the health care medicine industry. NOBODY SHOULD MAKE THAT MUCH MONEY OFF OF OTHER PEOPLES MISERY. I know that is quite harsh and unsympathetic, but that is how I feel. Mr. Moore’s move Sicko even if it is exaggerated and bent to his personal flavor, does show many of the problems we, as a nation face in the medical field. I know a little about what I am talking about as I worked in a hospital for about 3 years after I retired from my regular profession. I could tell you stories that would latterly make you sick to your stomach.

Now do not get me wrong, people like doctors, nurses, ambulance drivers etc, should be fairly compensated for their work. Pharmaceutical companies and hospitals should be paid for what they do. But how much compensation is too much?

I retired from my regular profession as a fairly young man. I was 54 years old. When I retired I was paying, to the same insurance company I have now, about $250.00 per month including dental coverage. By the time I qualified for Medicare, I was paying close to $1,100 per month for the same coverage from the same provider. I never would have imagined that the cost would go up that much. I had carefully planned my retirement and made appropriate investments, but how could I ever have anticipated this extreme escalation in health care costs? How could anyone. Actually had I not taken another part time job, I am not sure I could have made it financially and still remained retired as I had planned. So I know we need some kind of reform. I think everyone, no matter what their politics is, feels the same. But how to get the job done is the question.

We are currently in the middle of a debate about medical coverage here in the US. As of this date July 2009 there are intensive opinions as to what we need to do to provide health care to all citizens of the US. Congress and the president have a health care bill that is over 1000 pages long. Nobody seems to have read it and in fact the president admitted he has not read it completely as of this date. There seems to be a hurry up and do something right or wrong attitude. I am not sure this is wise as it is so important to most of us, but this methodology seems to be the norm under this administration. Don’t give anyone time to object and understand what is going on.

I hear talk like the cost will be so high that it will bankrupt the country. I hear and read that there are many options including keeping what you have for coverage currently, and other plans you can select. I understand that one of the plans will be a government uniform plan that people can enroll in if they like and if a person can not afford a plan, this will be the plan provided to them. I am told that this will allow competition to drive the price down. That assumes the government plan is the less expensive.

Well I don’t think it takes a rocket scientist to see that if the government plan is the cheapest plan, that eventually everyone will migrate to it, unless that plan is so poor that you may as well just die and get it over with. If the government plan is satisfactory, then slowly everyone will go to it, making the remaining insurance companies even less financially responsive and they will eventually be driven out of business by the government system as it is subsidized by our government. How can private business compete in that arena?

When a reasonable person tries to predict the possible outcome on any future event, one tends to look at past experiences. We currently have healthcare programs ran by the government. Medicaid, Medicare, and the Veterans’ Administration health care systems come to mind. All are in serious trouble. Some are so far in the hole that they may never recover and become self supporting. We hear and read of massive failures in all these systems. How can we expect that a new national health care system is somehow going to be real successful?

There has been no real concrete plan to fund this new system as far as I can see. The administration and congress talk about doing things like taxing the rich and making massive improvements to existing government health programs to help fund the new system. Still the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) predicts that there may still be a trillion dollars short. That is a trillion. (12 zeros)

It is so easy to say we will just let those evil rich people pay for it. Oh my God not again. In 1913 we were going to just put those same evil rich people under the thumb of the IRS. Just the top 1 percent. We see how well that has worked out, or maybe you are a democratic cabinet member and don’t pay your taxes. No, if we have to pay taxes, lets not make a class struggle out of this, lets just all pay taxes if we must.

Ok I have bitched and complained about this I know. I really hate people who do this and have no idea, no matter how crazy to fix a situation. Secular Progressives (liberals) do this all the time. They just complain and have no idea how to make things better. So here goes my crazy ideas.

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Lets keep our current health plans structure in place. Insurance companies, or HMOs. But have the government pay each health care provider the same amount they currently pay for people who are on Medicare. Patients would get insurance from private companies for the supplement and the government would pay part A, B as it does now for Medicare recipients. Put a new health care tax in place for all citizens. If you work and make a wage or have a business, you pay the same amount to this health system for life. Make the tax high enough as to make some attack on the deficit in Medicare overall. This is not a government health system but a government assisted private system.

Lets put people who have no income on Medicaid until they get a job.

Citizens are expected to carry their own insurance not employers. Premiums can be picked up by employers if they chose as an incentive to attract employees, but that is voluntary on their part.

Lets make sure anyone in the US getting health care coverage is a citizen and, if not, they must show proof that they have medical coverage in their country that can be provided to them while they are here. If they can’t provide that, then send them home right away no exceptions.

Still allow Tort Claims, but on a “you lose you pay” basis. That is that if you open a claim against a doctor or medical facility and you lose the case, you pay the amount you were suing for both you and your lawyer. This should stop frivolous claims and lower malpractice costs.

Set cost limits on all procedures, medicines, and practices. Allow increases or decreases based on each state’s cost of living index. It is more expensive in some states than others and prices should be adjusted yearly to reflect those changes.

Allow for the interchange of information between systems and government agencies only with explicit patient authorization for each occurrence of exchange.

Disallow the advertisement of prescription drugs in the media completely. Doctors should know what medicines are available and prescribe them without patients asking for them by name. By not spending money on TV adds and such the cost of drugs should go down. Also patients would not be “talked into” symptoms they think they have by adds.

Fund healthy living life styles. encourage sports and exercise of all kinds. Fund athletics or some kind of physical activity for all citizens.

Mandate that you can not have your coverage terminated for any reason. Also if you lose your job and have to go on the Medicare plan for a time, when you start work again, your former insurance company must give you the same coverage at the same price as before adjusted for Cost of Living index factor.

No insurance company can refuse you or require you to pay higher rates than others covered even if there is a pre-existing condition.

Many more ideas could be explored by a non governmental panel with health care professionals serving on the panel. This must be doctors and providers working currently in the field not just college professors who theoretical ideas.

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As a child I had a doctor who brought me into this world. When I was sick, more than once he sat in a rocking chair in my bedroom and watched over me through the night to make sure I stayed alive. He was a kind loving man who had patched up many GI’s in WWII; so many so that he had to spend some time in an institution to try to get his mind back. But he was one of the most respected doctors in our town and we all loved him. Yes he made a lot of money had a big black Cadillac, but money was not his biggest motivation. The sincere desire to improve our lives was his cause and we all knew and trusted him. He really took his oath seriously. I wanted to be like him.

I don’t expect we can ever have that kind of personal health care again. Doctors are too hard to come by I guess, but at least lets make sure that all doctors are trained and competent. Lets make it easier for bright young people to get to be doctors and nurses by forgiving them their educational loans when they get certified and are working in the field. This would encourage more people to go into medicine.

We have got to fix this folks. It is going to mess us all up if we do nothing. I think everyone agrees with that. People are losing their homes and everything they have worked for because they can’t pay for health care. The biggest cause of bankruptcy in this country is because of some catastrophic health condition that happens to people. There are people who were paying for health care but did not understand that there were so many ways for the insurance company to not pay claims. It is not the fault of the insurance company employees, so don’t take your anger out on them, it is the executives, and lobbyists and shareholders who demand great profit who are to blame. For crying out laud, when banks need money they go to insurance companies so I don’t think we have to cry for them, just treat them fairly.