HealthFear Only In America!

[domwilson]

Here is how other countries do it... http://www.healthpaconline.net/rekin...es/Glasser.htm

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/2/8/8130/55731

[domwilson]

Found this one...H.R. 626 http://www.pnhp.org/nhibill/nhi_bill_final.pdf
Needs exclusion of illegal immigrants among other things such as the only participating providers have to be non-profit or public organizations. Would like to include private providers as well. Good news is that it is only 27 pages long.

[RCprince]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VMKFjk_mio&feature=player_embedded

[rockwerks]

Found this one...H.R. 626 http://www.pnhp.org/nhibill/nhi_bill_final.pdf
Needs exclusion of illegal immigrants among other things such as the only participating providers have to be non-profit or public organizations. Would like to include private providers as well. Good news is that it is only 27 pages long.

So DOM you have skirted the question, If you only use Not for profit companies then what do you do with the 5.5 million displaced health insurance employees?

[domwilson]

Good Video. Regardless of what some think, we need very affordable, accessible healthcare reform. High healthcare costs affect the profitablility of american businesses, net income of U.S. citizens and the operations of good healthcare. If we can build an infrastructure of Roads and Highways, Why can't we build one of healthcare?

[domwilson]

So DOM you have skirted the question, If you only use Not for profit companies then what do you do with the 5.5 million displaced health insurance employees?

Read post #104. I have not skirted he question. They don't have to be displaced nor did I state that they would be. Insurance companies can adjust their market focus. Japan hasn't removed insurance companies from their system. I don't believe that we will either.

[Darin Jordan]

OK... let's get something straight here... This calling it "Healthcare Reform" is irritatingly mis-leading... They have not said ONE thing about doing much to improve the actual Quality of healthcare in this country... we have some of the best now...

This is about Health INSURANCE Reform... or remaking, or whatever you want to call it. And while we are talking about it, it's not actually "insurance" that we are talking about... it's more like a "health maintenance contract". "Insurance" is the thing that pays for damage to your car... the service contract takes care of the oil changes and tuneups...

Part of this SNOWJOB that is going on has to do with the rhetoric they are choosing to use, which is very misleading to most people when they see the headlines....

[rockwerks]

Aetna, The Hartford, Conn., company said it earned $346.6 million, or 77 cents a share, compared with $480.5 million, or 97 cents a share, a year earlier. Adjusted earnings per share were 68 cents. Revenue grew 11% to $8.67 billion.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expected earnings of 78 cents a share on revenue of $8.56 billion.

Aetna said premium revenue grew 12%, and medical membership was flat at 19.1 million.

Aetna said its prices didn't fully account for higher medical costs. It cut its profit forecast for the second time in two months.

The profit margin is less than 4/10ths of a percent. ONE bad quarter and they are in the red. Most insurance companies do not have a large profit margin but usually skirt with financial disaster each year.

Our biggest problem is the heath care system itself not the insurance companies. When your doctor charges you 15.00 for an advil4, or 65.00 for an office visit that takes the doc less than 5 minutes with you.

Trust me if the Gummit takes over they will build a bureaucracy that will waste billions a year and costs will increase not decrease.

[domwilson]

Overall, there are many problems in our system. Overcharges, Lack of transparency, fraud, accessibility and the list goes on and on. In the end, we all pay for it in higher premiums, taxes and the worry. We need a better system.

[Darin Jordan]

http://collectingmythoughts.blogspot.com/2009/08/another-one-who-has-read-hr-3200-bill.html

[Flying Scotsman]

The problem is privately owned hospitals who can charge what they wish for a medical procedure, and you may not get very good surgery from a suspect hospital that your insurer states you must attend

Douggie

[domwilson]

The person who wrote this article states that she read it. But in her post she states..
Norma said...
"Don't take anyone's comments as gospel....Norma, your email is associated with an educational facility....make it proud....READ the bill yourself." So you have read it and understood all the gov't jargon and implications, but I haven't. You can read your party's interpretation, but i can't. Don't forget my other "educational facility," the one where I translated communist medical newspapers from Russian into English.

As I stated a few times, I'm not too fond of HR3200. I don't think we can blame any one entity for the problems that we have. But the important question here that no one seems to ask, "Why have healthcare costs grown so much?" Doctors and hospitals blame insurance companies. Insurance companies blame the Doctors and hospitals for the increased costs.

[domwilson]

The problem is privately owned hospitals who can charge what they wish for a medical procedure, and you may not get very good surgery from a suspect hospital that your insurer states you must attend

Douggie

Thank you Douggie. If there were more transparency in billing, maybe these costs could be controlled. Hospitals negotiate contracts with insurance companies for services. Then they all too often find ways to inflate the costs and bill the insurance companies beyond the negotiated contracts. Fraud and lack of clear billing practices are major concerns that should be addressed in any kind of healthcare reform. Medicare estimates that it loses from $60 to $120 billion a year in fraud. Imagine what private insurers have to contend with?

[domwilson]

Our biggest problem is the heath care system itself not the insurance companies. When your doctor charges you 15.00 for an advil4, or 65.00 for an office visit that takes the doc less than 5 minutes with you.

This is one aspect of the problem as a whole. All these need to be addressed for a new system to work effectively.

[Darin Jordan]

As someone who has had way too much experience with Government run Hospitals ( the VA), I do NOT want the Government running all of them... it was FILTHY, poorly run, and had horrible service.

By contrast, HarborView in Bellevue treated my wife and my daughter this past summer, my wife with a life threatening condition that scared the hell out of us, with nothing but first class care.

My Grandpa had to be in the VA for over a year, and it took their Government payed Staff FOUR TRIES at amputating his leg to finally get it right, AFTER performing a surgery WITHOUT doing the necessary testing that any other hospital would have done, knowing that the patient had Diabetes...

My Wife was in for 3-days... got follow-up calls and all the information and testing she needed...

Sorry, but there is NO, NONE, NADA, ZIP evidence that the Government can run ANYTHING better than the Private Sector. I want them as far away from my family and me as possible...