Article Source: msnbc.com
from:msnbc.comMany experts believe that the newly passed health care reform law falls short on taming costs, and that will force Congress to revisit health care in a few years
You're in Easy Mode. If you prefer, you can use XHTML Mode instead. |
Scientists turn skin cells into beating heart muscle1 in 3 developmentally delayed babies untreatedFake drugs impede progress made in war on malariaAbstinence-only sex ed defies common senseSigmoidoscopy an option for colon cancer screeningDunkin Donuts going zero grams trans fat Bagged lettuce recall expands across nationBorn to run barefoot? Some end up getting injuredGet the body you want without paying the priceSeafood benefits outweigh mercury risks
Leave a Comment:
Hopefully cost cuts will come in the form of efficiencies and not price caps. Price caps cause shortages.
I can't help thinking of the people who say they lived past 100, because they stayed away from the medical industry :)
The republicans were screaming that this law didn't do anyting to curb costs and were ignored. What makes anyone think Pelosi and Reid would be willing to listen to them seriously this time around. This is the sinkig ship the republicans referred to when this bill passed. Democrats now have to own up to thier greed and ignorance. Each day we'll find another thing that was lied about or slipped through the cracks, becuse they new they would never get it through without the majority they have now.
This is one case where doing nothing was warranted. The democrats and Obama wanted a legacy. They got one, but it's not the one that they wanted. As costs continue to rise, and actually rise faster because of this debacle, anger will continue to grow. The republicans will actually be able to truthfully say that they tried to stop this disaster in the making. The democrats own this mess.
There's only one way to get a handle on medical costs, outlaw insurance. Go to a single payer system. You are the single payer. Please pay cash. Forcing medical consumers to directly pay for their medical consumption will force consumers to shop aggressively according to price, and will force consumers to be careful in the amount of medical services they consume. This will in turn force medical providers to be more cost competitive, driving down prices as such competition does in any free market.
It will be important for government to remove impediments to competition such as "certificates of need" and other restraints of trade which decrease competition. Requiring each medical provider to publicly post prices charged is also a necessary step in establishing a competitive market for medical services.
This is all just common sense. We know how unfettered free markets work between buyers and sellers. We know they are the most efficient way to allocate services and costs. We've just let the government, and insurance companies, interfere to the extent the medical market is no longer a free market. That can be changed.
Outlaw insurance.
JohnCarter-428979, I came on over to say the same thing, but you beat me to it!
There is another big thing we can look at. The "Public Health" movement concentrates on disease, not health. Our chances of NOT getting an illness are very high, but we do not reassure people of their health chances.
There is no sense in testing all these healthy bodies for symptoms. Most early "symptoms" are simply signs of the exquisite system of imbalances of the State of Health.
We need to give our own natural instincts more respect. In other words, people know when something isn't "right". We know when to go for help, if we are only taught to listen to ourselves. We need to move our focus away from the fear of disease and place our attention toward confidence in our HEALTH!
The people that try to watch what they do to be healthy are not a very large part of the problem. It will be the people that do not wish to apply any self control to sustain or even initiate healthy habits. They will drag this whole system down.
I like the paying cash idea. I've been uninsured for years and pay close attention to how much services cost. None of my insured friends have a CLUE how much their care costs. Many of them overuse the system-going to the dr for every little thing and wanting every test and treatment that exists, whether or not it's indicated.
JohnCarter
Look at how well that works in the retail sales industry. You end up wit cost cutting giants like walmart, kmart, target, and company that give you low prices, increasingly bad service, and products made by third world slave labor forcing jobs out of our own country. Applied to the health care industry it will mean bigger conglomerate hospitals and clinics that base their profitability on volume, which leads to worse service, over worked/ under payed staff, downward spiralling plant conditions, less competition and eventually a movement of the best and brightest out of the industry leading to a greater shortage of qualified health care professionals. Good thought though.
Peggy - I'm with you. I haven't had health insurance now for 3 years, and I've saved myself $36,000 by not buying health insurance. Instead, I save that money in an account or invest some of it. Now it's worth about $45,000, which would be higher if the economy was better off. Even if I got cancer, it probably would not cost me more money than what I've saved. Plus, when you go to the doctor and tell them you have no health insurance and that they have to do the absolute mimimum to address your issue, it's amazing how much cheaper the treatment comes to you. Doctors know how to curb costs. By not having insurance and by explicitly telling them that they can only do what is absolutely necessary, you get the doctor out of the ligitation-threat arena of medical decisions and down to the bare nitty gritty, which is where I think most doctors want to be anyway. They won't order that CAT scan unless they think it is absolutely necessary. Etcetera.
In other words, the only way to truly curb costs and to truly get streamlined medical care that is efficient and cost-effective is to have NO health insurance at all.
I generally agree with this, but catastrophic insurance should be an option. When I was growing up, that's the only kind of medical insurance there was. It covered things like broken bones, accidents and the like.
The number one third rail in cost control: eliminating malpractice lawsuits. This would not only eliminate the cost of insurance for providers it would also eliminate "defensive medicine" (AKA CYA)-ordering needless tests and procedures so providers are covered in case of a suit. Providers can be disciplined by their respective state boards (which they already are) and payouts can be limited to medical costs caused by the event. Eliminating defensive medicine alone could save billions.
Iotrogenesis refers to injury from medical treatment or advice.
In the U.S., Iotrogenisis is the third leading cause of death. That does not include the people living with permanent injury and disability caused by the medical industry.
The only way to eliminate malpractice law suits is to eliminate malpractice.
Physicians are human, the body is complicated, malpractice will always exist. However, reducing defensive medicine can save $100-$200 billion per year. $1-$2 trillion over 10 years. Unfortunately there is nothing in the current reform bill that addresses tort reform, because our genius representatives have stayed away from it because the Trial Lawyers Association are big supporters of the Democratic Party. We have been sold out for a political favor. I don't care what side of the isle you support, tort reform needs to be implemented.
ill tell you who sold us out that jewbag lieberman who killed the public option which killed any hope for cost control a public option insurer who doesnt have to worry about profits can consentrate on the actual medical costs to wring out savings theres no board or shareholders to gum up the works with obscene profits and denial squads
mick - firstly your Ant i-Semitism is unacceptable and you should be banned from this site. Secondly you obviously have no concept of how badly the government has screwed up nearly every program they have administered. Thirdly no company can compete with an organization that is willing to lose massive amounts of money regardless if there there isn't enough funding available to support it.
The obscene health insurance profits you refer to average 2-3%, not exactly Wall Street or the Silicone Valley. And by the way the organization with the highest number of denials is Medicare, a government health plan.
You and people like you represent the problem in this country, you are ready to shoot off your mouth and you have no accurate information, but you are ready to call people names and make idiotic comments.
I don't care what others say about this. It's helping people. They want my husband to sign a petition to stop this and I told him not to sign anything because of this article I read:
America has spent more than $6 billion since 2002 in an effort to create an effective Afghan police force, buying weapons, building police academies, and hiring defense contractors to train the recruits-but the program has been a disaster. More than $322 million worth of invoices for police training were approved even though the funds were poorly accounted for, according to a government audit, and fewer than 12 percent of the country's police units are capable of operating on their own. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, the State Department's top representative in the region, has publicly called the Afghan police "an inadequate organization, riddled with corruption." During the Obama administration's review of Afghanistan policy last year, "this issue received more attention than any other except for the question of U.S. troop levels," Holbrooke later told NEWSWEEK. "We drilled down deep into this."
More than a year after Barack Obama took office, the president is still discovering how bad things are. At a March 12 briefing on Afghanistan with his senior advisers, he asked whether the police will be ready when America's scheduled drawdown begins in July 2011, according to a senior official who was in the room. "It's inconceivable, but in fact for eight years we weren't training the police," replied Caldwell, taking part in the meeting via video link from Afghanistan. "We just never trained them before. All we did was give them a uniform." The president looked stunned. "Eight years," he said. "And we didn't train police? It's mind-boggling." The room was silent.
This is part of the reason taxes are high. Don't give me that crap about Obama either. This is way before him.
This article has all the questions that I had before the Health Care Reform bill was signed. Let look into the future since most of the bill does not take affect till 2014. Small businesses are getting a 35 percent tax break for medical insurance, but many small businesses are on the edge now. Many of the unemployed will have to take lower paying jobs which might in 2014 qualify them for medicaid. Heatlth insurance premiums will go up from now to 2014, what makes Obama think even with subsides the middle class without health insurance will be able to afford insurance in 2014. Medicare, tax on high price insurance and 10 percent tax on tanning salon is not going to bring enough revenue to cover half the cost of this bill. The one issue that the democrats did not address that would of made this bill work, was placing price controls on providing health care. Do you think the cost of health care is going to stay the same, this cost of health care goes up 25 percent a year, do the math. Americans be prepare to pay up the nose for this fiasco. The problem most of the politicians will probably be out of office when this bill takes full affect, I see a lot of democrats now not seeking reelection. American people, please vote any politician with more than two terms out of office, we need to get back on track, and move into the 21 century, not back to the 19th century.