My Thoughts - Regarding Health Care/Insurance Reform

[PBS Poll-435]

If there had been real and genuine attempts to transform the current system of care and payment in the US, since Teddy Roosevelt was in office, than I am sure that we, collectively as a Country, would have made every effort to make sure that Doctors/Nurses/Aides would have, if they wanted to pursue the field, be granted (at least partially) the education.

Why do (most) students have to go into massive debt in order to obtain the education and licensing necessary to practice Medicine?

Why do we need Tort Reform (READ THIS)? How, by denying the right to judicial grievance do you harm the Country?

Why do the Tea(**)ers complain about *rationing* and *Death Panels* when they "lobby" against making health care affordable by all.

[ananda]

1. Answer: Look to who's in charge of this government..

.. corporations.

[caty]

2. Health insurance companies

are working tirelessly to find loop holes to get around the restrictions in the HCR. They are planning on raising rates as high as possible while they can. Our lives mean nothing to these people. This is a game to them. The only way to beat them is with a public option. Why is our government dragging their feet on this? A public option would save lives, make life better for most Americans, and save money that could go on the deficit. So what's the problem? If it takes much longer, our country will fail beyond repair.

[subterranean]

3. It shouldn't be hard for insurance companies to find the loopholes.

After all, they wrote most of them.

[John Q. Citizen]

5. My Senator Baucus runs a revolving door with the industries he regulates.

His staff are famous for lucrative positions in private industry.

Baucus certainly works for the health care industrial complex, if anyone does.

[Uncle Joe]

4. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, PBS Poll.

[patrice]

6. Why do TPs defend corporations who would not even exist without tax SUBSIDIES?

If they had to pay the real market value for the resources, goods, and services they use, they'd go broke. They are not economically functional entities and yet Teapartyers defend them from taxes as though they paid their fair share for what they cost us.

And NO ONE ever brings up the question if the jobs that we pay for with our TIFs and other tax breaks given corporations are the jobs Americans SHOULD have, and not just paychecks. Working for Wal Mart et al is not necessarily the fulfillment of everyone's god-given purpose in life.

[jotsy]

7. I say to leave the health insurance industry in the loop in anyway is a mistake

They represent the least relevant part of the service rendered and yet suck the bulk of benefits by failing to deliver what they said they would. I refer to the entire industry as serial mass murderers for money.

The organization I trust for ethically sound health care policy is Physicians for a National Health Plan, what they support is HR676, the single payer plan proposed by Dennis Kucinich and John Conyers. All the wrong parties were allowed to frame the debate, which from there was made a mockery of with the town hall brawls that were the public's best chance to be heard by their own elected officials.

The divisiveness of two party politics has made for great theater with all the posturing and pandering, but that's not what we pay them $75,000,000 a year to do. 537 people are paid that sum collectively to effectively govern. If that's not enough to see them do the job honestly, then I suggest no sum will. I understand politicians avail themselves of two things, getting elected and raising funds to get elected. What I want is the distinction between the institution of government and the more active properties of governance.

Screw the pony, I'm after the damn unicorn now.

Those are the meat of my thoughts on the matter.

[murphyj87]

8. Tort Reform in Texas

In spite of rhetoric to the contrary, the data show that the health care system in Texas has grown worse since 2003 by nearly every measure. For example:

• The percentage of uninsured people in Texas has increased, remaining the highest in the country with a quarter of Texans now uninsured;
• The cost of health insurance in the state has more than doubled;
• The cost of health care in Texas (measured by per patient Medicare reimbursements) has increased at nearly double the national average; and
• Spending increases for diagnostic testing (measured by per patient Medicare reimbursements) have far exceeded the national average.

“Members of Congress have conjured the supposed benefits of the Texas law out of thin air,” said David Arkush, director of Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division. “The only winners have been the insurance companies and, to a lesser extent, doctors.”

Defenders of the Texas law claim it has prompted a massive influx of new doctors into the state, especially in underserved rural areas. But this, too, is false, according to state data. The growth in the number of doctors per capita in Texas has slowed since the liability law took effect. Meanwhile, the number of doctors per capita in underserved rural areas has decreased since 2003.

The only improvement shown by the data is a decline in doctors’ liability insurance premiums. But the reported 27 percent decrease in those premiums is dwarfed by the 67 percent reduction in malpractice payments, suggesting that liability insurance companies have pocketed most of the gains. The Texas data provide no evidence that patients or taxpayers have shared in the windfall at all.