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Health Care: A Better Idea - 8/12/2009 5:01:16 PM

SpinnerofTales

Posts: 1586
Joined: 5/30/2006
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Every now and then I like to stop tearing things down and try to build them up, just for the change. Now the topic is health care. And the big question seems to be "Do we go with Obama's plan or leave things as they are?" Let's change that question: How would you (anyone, please) alter the current health care system in order to decrease costs, increase accessibility and generally stop the medical care finances from being controlled by HMO's who make more money denying care than providing it?

Can we come up with some GOOD ideas?

Post #: 1

RE: Health Care: A Better Idea - 8/12/2009 5:14:30 PM

tazzygirl

Posts: 37833
Joined: 10/12/2007
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I have one, at least i think its good.. im sure some will come along and say not.. lol

anyways... why can we not simply have free health clinics set up in each town.. for larger cities, more than one may be required.

who will man them?

anyone who takes a government loan or grant related to health care.

Dr's would not start their repayment until after residency.

Nurses, medical assistants, ect, could start after graduation and completion of any boards.

Depending on the number of medical schools, hospitals, population... the payoff would amount to one year of service for each year of government funding of education, no matter what form.. even pell grants. Not only do they gain experience, they also save money in repayments of certain loans. and their community is healthier.

_____________________________

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Dont judge me because I sin differently than you.
If you want it sugar coated, dont ask me what i think! It would violate TOS.

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Post #: 2

RE: Health Care: A Better Idea - 8/12/2009 5:18:51 PM

Mercnbeth

Posts: 11766
Status: offline

Not saying that it will solve ALL of our problems, but legalizing cannabis & it's relative hemp, at the federal level could provide a reasonable alternative for more than just health care.

millions of Americans use cannabis. recent research on cannabis, done within the last 30 years has all pointed to positives... tumor-reducing, pain-relieving, insomnia curing, nausea relieving, stress-relieving, mood elevating, etc.

it's cheap & easy to grow...and doesn't require a pharmaceutical company to manufacture...even in concentrated orally ingestible forms.

quote:

...Stephen DeAngelo, chief executive of Harborside Health Center, a medical marijuana dispensary in Oakland, California, has tried to provide a medical marijuana benefit through the health plan he provides to his 67 full-time employees.
“Blue Cross Blue Shield will not reimburse for medical marijuana; we checked,” he says. “It’s illegal under federal law and they can’t do anything that will break federal law.”
Instead, he provides his employees, all of whom are medical marijuana patients, with a free gram of marijuana for every shift they work, a policy he says has lowered his company’s health insurance costs.
“Many of these patients had drug bills of several hundred dollars a week before they began using medical marijuana,” he says. “Now they are about $40 or $50 a week.”...
Marijuana Reimbursement Claims Highlight How Pot Could Be Gold For Employers

(in reply to SpinnerofTales)

Post #: 3

RE: Health Care: A Better Idea - 8/12/2009 5:24:26 PM

mefisto69

Posts: 370
Joined: 1/19/2007
Status: offline

1. immediately shut down 50% of current HMO's.... in particular those that have high rates of denying benefits.
2. create guidelines for Realistic costs for procedures - build in inflation adjustments.
3. put caps on fees set by hospitals...... no more nonsense like: $8.00 for an aspirin.
4. put rat out procedures in place for all those MD's that enjoy billing but don't actually see the inpatient on a daily basis. ( insurance billing fraud )
5. Dr's will charge by the fraction of an hour..... not full fee for seeing a patient for 10 minutes.
6. malpractice insurance dropped to 40% of the current rates. ( md's will be rated and reviewed )
7. much tougher standards for earning the right to practice medicine.
8. give Americans (back) the right to shop worldwide for meds - we SHOULD NOT be paying astronomical costs for meds - we need parity with the rest of the world.
9. death threats to big Pharma for continuing to produce meds that have More Toxic side effects than the disease meant to be cured ( public executions )
10. BAN the pharma and medical PACS

(in reply to SpinnerofTales)

Post #: 4

RE: Health Care: A Better Idea - 8/12/2009 5:59:13 PM

DomKen

Posts: 19457
Joined: 7/4/2004
From: Chicago, IL
Status: offline

Single payer plan with full ability to negotiate prices with big pharm, hospitals and doctors.

If that's too radical:

Ban recission of health insurance policies for non fraudulent errors in application. (up to half of people with serious expensive conditions have their policies canceled due to innocent errors on their applications.)

States should place non health care professionals on the state boards of medical licensing. This would tend to reduce unethical behaviour by MD's and also contribute to getting rid of bad doctors.

Regulation of health insurance providers should be increased to ensure ethical practices and to limit profits to a reasonable level.

(in reply to mefisto69)

Post #: 5

RE: Health Care: A Better Idea - 8/12/2009 6:19:36 PM

BeingChewsie

Posts: 1633
Joined: 10/27/2005
Status: offline

As long as there is an option for people who wanted to pay back their loans and not do the community service piece and as long as after you did your 1 year there was 100% loan forgiveness, I'd support that. I don't think it would solve the problem long term though.

We could follow the model of Switzerland that has universal health care, make insurance mandatory. They have 99.5% of their population covered. They have over 60 insurance plans to choose from, subsidize the low income people, make everyone else pay for it. The average family in Switzerland pays $7,000 a year for health insurance, it might mean a few less people take a trip to disney or have direct TV or a flat panel for that matter but you need to pony up and make paying for your healthcare the priority. They can do it by premium payment or by taxing the $7k on average per family/per year or whatever as long as people are paying for it so they might start to take some responsibility for their health. It works in Switzerland so why not here? In fact I'd support giving tax credits to people who make efforts to improve their health year over year.

I'm a mid-level provider(nurse practitioner), I do family mental health, I deeply believe in reform because both private insurers and the GOVERNMENT do a lousy job in the area of covering mental health issues. Most of my colleagues do not even accept insurance anymore and they have a three to four month backlogs for appointments because so many people need care and are willing to pay out of pocket.

I'm a conservative, very much so. I loathe the idea of the government taking over anything, being a capitalist society is what made us great, it is the only way to be great and have money to fund top notch medical care. We have not even begun to address the shortage of primary care providers. The government and insurance companies better start reimbursing more or it will only get worse. Who the hell wants to be a primary care provider these days when reimbursements are so low? It is much better to specialize be that as a NP, PA or doctor, that is where the money is. So we need tort reform, lower malpractice rates, higher reimbursement rates for NP's, PA's and MD's who are in primary care, loan forgiveness, higher salaries for nurses and insurance reform to start, allow people to buy insurance across state lines, then maybe make insurance mandatory, make everyone over a certain percentage above the poverty line pay a monthly or yearly premium, give them lots of insurance choices, do not allow insurance companies to profit off the "basic health care mandatory plans", only allow them to only profit off the supplemental plans all these countries with universal health care have for citizens who can afford it.

quote:

ORIGINAL: tazzygirl

I have one, at least i think its good.. im sure some will come along and say not.. lol

anyways... why can we not simply have free health clinics set up in each town.. for larger cities, more than one may be required.

who will man them?

anyone who takes a government loan or grant related to health care.

Dr's would not start their repayment until after residency.

Nurses, medical assistants, ect, could start after graduation and completion of any boards.

Depending on the number of medical schools, hospitals, population... the payoff would amount to one year of service for each year of government funding of education, no matter what form.. even pell grants. Not only do they gain experience, they also save money in repayments of certain loans. and their community is healthier.

_____________________________

"In fact, it is my contention that most women are accepting of way less than optimal circumstance constantly, and are lucky to be 'snagged' by the right man, if ever. But it is more by happy accident than by their design. "
~Ron and Hup

(in reply to tazzygirl)

Post #: 6

RE: Health Care: A Better Idea - 8/12/2009 6:39:14 PM

tazzygirl

Posts: 37833
Joined: 10/12/2007
Status: offline

one year service for one year of government funding. and why would it be a bad idea to make it mandatory?

_____________________________

Telling me to take Midol wont help your butthurt.
RIP, my demon-child 5-16-11
Duchess of Dissent 1
Dont judge me because I sin differently than you.
If you want it sugar coated, dont ask me what i think! It would violate TOS.

(in reply to BeingChewsie)

Post #: 7

RE: Health Care: A Better Idea - 8/12/2009 6:56:33 PM

awmslave

Posts: 599
Joined: 3/31/2006
Status: offline

mefisto69
titleAndStar(266,0,0,false,"","

quote:

1. immediately shut down 50% of current HMO's.... in particular those that have high rates of denying benefits.
2. create guidelines for Realistic costs for procedures - build in inflation adjustments.
3. put caps on fees set by hospitals...... no more nonsense like: $8.00 for an aspirin.
4. put rat out procedures in place for all those MD's that enjoy billing but don't actually see the inpatient on a daily basis. ( insurance billing fraud )
5. Dr's will charge by the fraction of an hour..... not full fee for seeing a patient for 10 minutes.
6. malpractice insurance dropped to 40% of the current rates. ( md's will be rated and reviewed )
7. much tougher standards for earning the right to practice medicine.
8. give Americans (back) the right to shop worldwide for meds - we SHOULD NOT be paying astronomical costs for meds - we need parity with the rest of the world.
9. death threats to big Pharma for continuing to produce meds that have More Toxic side effects than the disease meant to be cured ( public executions )
10. BAN the pharma and medical PACS

I agree. The fact that USA spends about two times more per capita for medical care in compared to other industrial nations should be the starting point for solving the problem. As introduction of true competition into medical industry (Ron Paul and McCain solutions) is in practice almost impossible the price control would be the easiest and the most logical solution. Part of the money that would be saved can be used to aid people who can not afford care now. The price control for medical services would also have additional benefits like for example redistributing wealth (accumulation of wealth on the top is inhibiting real economy).
The bad news is that the US government has little interest for real solutions.

(in reply to BeingChewsie)

Post #: 8

RE: Health Care: A Better Idea - 8/12/2009 8:23:24 PM

Arpig

Posts: 9930
Joined: 1/3/2006
From: Increasingly further from reality
Status: offline

Universal single-payer health insurance. Its accomplishes all the aims you set out in your OP.

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(in reply to awmslave)

Post #: 9

RE: Health Care: A Better Idea - 8/12/2009 10:32:22 PM

BeingChewsie

Posts: 1633
Joined: 10/27/2005
Status: offline

What about the english major who took federal financial aid? or the education major? or the engineering major? Why single out health care workers for a year of mandatory unpaid service for taking grants and/or loans available to all citizens? Health care workers are not the only people taking federal funding for education. I would also be concerned that it would unfairly target minorities and lower income families who may find the additional burden of another year without pay too much. We have a major shortage of primary care providers, forcing them to give a year of free work would just make more of them run to the specialities and not choose primary care. Make more voluntary programs that offer 100% loan forgiveness and higher pay to primary care providers for 1, 2 or 3 year term of service and more people will choose it over a specialty.

quote:

ORIGINAL: tazzygirl

one year service for one year of government funding. and why would it be a bad idea to make it mandatory?

_____________________________

"In fact, it is my contention that most women are accepting of way less than optimal circumstance constantly, and are lucky to be 'snagged' by the right man, if ever. But it is more by happy accident than by their design. "
~Ron and Hup

(in reply to tazzygirl)

Post #: 10

RE: Health Care: A Better Idea - 8/13/2009 4:42:30 AM

eyesopened

Posts: 2798
Joined: 6/12/2006
From: Tampa, FL
Status: offline

I was personally involved with a system that I see working today. It might be a bit complicated as I am not able to express myself very intelligently but here goes:

Medicare Part D set up a system where the government acts as a regulartory agency.
Private insruance companies sent private bids to the government for providing medicine based on a formulary of generic and brand name drugs. The formulary required a minimum number of medications from every drug classification.
Based on the lowest bid, the government set up a premium base they would pay each insurance company for coverage. Anything above that, the insurance company had to collect from the insured.
Medicare recipients had a large choice of companies to choose from which in years subsequent led to a huge amount of competition which further led to drug insurance with no premiums paid by the insured at all coupled with richer drug formularies.
Medicare Part D stimulated large pharmacy chains to compete by lowering the cost of prescriptions to the uninsured or underinsured.
The government pays only a single, budgetable amount for each insured.
The cost of administration is borne soley by the insurance companies.
The insurance companies are regulated and audited by the government.
Insurance co-pays are further regulated by a sliding scale based on the income of the insured. From 150% of Federal Poverty Level and below, co-pay @ $1.50 for generic and $5.00 for brand.

A huge success. Everyone benefitted from this change, including folks not eligible for Medicare.

Medicare Part C / Medicare Advantage does the same thing with "supplemental" insurance for Medicare eligible people. It works, except when private insurance companies (who are not restricted or regulated by the government) accuse the governement of privatizing Medicare (HUH?) and dupe senior and the disabled into paying hundred of dollars a month for private supplement insurance.

No doubt in my mind, using private insurance companies who are not afraid to be regulated, audited and scrutinized by the government, who have to bid annually for lowest premium, set competitive co-pays and competitive coverage will work. The cost goes down becuase doctors are under scrutiny for procedures and tests that are not medically necessary, waste, fraud and abuse are reported and even for the docs, the instances of malpractice should decrease dramatically.

_____________________________

Proudly owned by InkedMaster. He is the one i obey, serve, honor and love.

No one is honored for what they've received. Honor is the reward for what has been given.

(in reply to SpinnerofTales)

Post #: 11

RE: Health Care: A Better Idea - 8/13/2009 5:09:46 AM

LillyoftheVally

Posts: 1826
Joined: 7/22/2009
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FR

Actually a huge issue in the UK at the moment was Palins rather melodramatic claim that the British system of NHS is 'evil' with a wonderful ad over there in the US which uses British peoples opinions without actually having informed them about what their opinions would be used for. I actually think that though there are flaws in our system, such as waiting list, free health care for all is a damn good idea, and I would not enjoy having the US system. It is funny because I will be the first to complain about the problems we have but us Brits seem to have taken a bit of a 'no one hits my younger brother but me' attitude in response to the wonderfully pragmatic words of Palin.

_____________________________

'My doctor says that I have a malformed public-duty gland and a natural deficiency in moral fibre, and that I am therefore excused from saving Universes.'

Nah I am not happy to see you either

(in reply to eyesopened)

Post #: 12

RE: Health Care: A Better Idea - 8/13/2009 5:16:19 AM

FullCircle

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Status: offline

The other problem is the NICE (national institute for clinical excuses.) This body will tell you exactly why you can’t have that drug that’ll save your life usually it goes along the line of (brrrwhat! this drug will only save one person a year but cost 10 squillion pounds!!!).

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Post #: 13

RE: Health Care: A Better Idea - 8/13/2009 5:50:44 AM

FirmhandKY

Posts: 8948
Joined: 9/21/2004
Status: offline

An interesting take on the subject:

Midas Muffler, Not Canada is the Model for Health Care Reform
By Robert Weissberg
August 12, 2009

Empathy aside, ObamaCare is an extravagant, wasteful, overly bureaucratized answer to a quandary for which a less costly and more efficient solution that already exists. This solution is, moreover, totally capitalistic, requires minimal government funding, entails no life-or-death decisions made by faceless bureaucrats, nor will it transform the US medicine into bumbling, British-style Socialism-Lite. Though hardly a miracle panacea, it is way ahead of what is on today's Congressional menu.

This solution is "Convenient Care" or, more colloquially, Doc-in-a-Box, since facilities often resemble box-like fast food restaurants. It consists of no-appointment walk-in medical offices with extended hours (including evenings and weekends) with a small staff treating commonplace illnesses. A nurse practitioner runs it, though under a physician's supervision.

...

Convenient care dates from 2000, and use has exploded. That legislators and well-paid healthcare experts have no need for such prompt, cheap services may help explain its invisibility in today's debate. These clinics are represented by a national trade association -- the Convenient Care Association -- and one industry market research firm estimated their number to be 1,200 in 2008 and predicted that this would increase to 2,400 with revenues of $2 billion by 2013.

...

Everybody benefits. Consumers can get their sinusitis, bronchitis, throat infections, urinary tract infections and multiple other bothersome illnesses treated quickly, cheaply at a nearby strip mall or corner Walgreens. Meanwhile small facilities boost walk-in traffic that often bring sales elsewhere in the store.

...

This is free enterprise heaven. That profits come from performing thousands of small services means intense pressure to improve efficiency, while price transparency will make savvy medical shopping akin to buying meat and potato commodities.

...

Moreover, as our examples suggest, convenient care may address two problems that have traditionally perplexed today's medical system -- prevention and follow-up.

Lots of more detailed information in the full article. This was just a taste.

Firm

_____________________________

Some people are just idiots.

(in reply to FullCircle)

Post #: 14

RE: Health Care: A Better Idea - 8/13/2009 11:11:12 AM

Brain

Posts: 3792
Joined: 2/14/2007
Status: offline

Multimillion-Dollar AARP Campaign Busts The Myths Of The Health Care Debate

This week, AARP will launch the next phase of its Health Action Now campaign with a multimillion-dollar national advertising and grassroots push to ensure every American has a choice of doctor and dependable, affordable health insurance.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/160381.php

(in reply to FirmhandKY)

Post #: 15

RE: Health Care: A Better Idea - 8/13/2009 11:22:36 AM

Mercnbeth

Posts: 11766
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Brain

Multimillion-Dollar AARP Campaign Busts The Myths Of The Health Care Debate

This week, AARP will launch the next phase of its Health Action Now campaign with a multimillion-dollar national advertising and grassroots push to ensure every American has a choice of doctor and dependable, affordable health insurance.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/160381.php

An self proclaimed agenda based PAC for the +50 given as a good reference pointing to a position which will "ensure every Amercan". Appreciating you as posting any reachable straw; do you ever think through and consider the agenda of the sources you post?

Now is AARP was "busting the myth" of 'dirty old men' at least that would be an entertaining link to read; but similarly informative and newsworthy.

(in reply to Brain)

Post #: 16

RE: Health Care: A Better Idea - 8/13/2009 11:22:54 AM

Brain

Posts: 3792
Joined: 2/14/2007
Status: offline

Dennis Kucinich: Here's What We Need to Do on Health Care :

"We need to show people that the only real way to control costs and to make health care widely available and to have your doctor choice is through a single-payer system. (youtube.com)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWXRwrYa4oU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWXRwrYa4oU

(in reply to Brain)

Post #: 17

RE: Health Care: A Better Idea - 8/13/2009 11:32:17 AM

Brain

Posts: 3792
Joined: 2/14/2007
Status: offline

http://healthactionnow.org/

(in reply to Mercnbeth)

Post #: 18

RE: Health Care: A Better Idea - 8/13/2009 11:38:43 AM

Mercnbeth

Posts: 11766
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Brain

http://healthactionnow.org/

Posting disjointed links can be FUN!

< Message edited by Mercnbeth -- 8/13/2009 11:42:31 AM >

(in reply to Brain)

Post #: 19

RE: Health Care: A Better Idea - 8/13/2009 12:03:41 PM

Sanity

Posts: 22039
Joined: 6/14/2006
From: Nampa, Idaho USA
Status: offline

Its either grass roots or it's the lefty special interest group AARP's standard astrotrufing, but there is no way that it it can be both.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Brain

Multimillion-Dollar AARP Campaign Busts The Myths Of The Health Care Debate

This week, AARP will launch the next phase of its Health Action Now campaign with a multimillion-dollar national advertising and grassroots push to ensure every American has a choice of doctor and dependable, affordable health insurance.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/160381.php

< Message edited by Sanity -- 8/13/2009 12:04:09 PM >

_____________________________

Inside Every Liberal Is A Totalitarian Screaming To Get Out

(in reply to Brain)

Post #: 20

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