Tom Toles for September 08, 2009

Self-fulfilling diagnosis…

Allocate 500 billion dollars to a newly created czar to eliminate the 250 billion dollars of waste and fraud in the medicare and medicaid system.

How about change a few regulations to make health care insurance companies NON-profit again.

Set up new definitions as to what insurance fraud is nationally, and make it clear on the application form.

Pre-existing conditions that really aren’t is why many people have had their policy canceled.

Make the insurance company prove that the condition was known before the policy is issued and refund all of the premiums.

wtfallnamestaken (love that!), not only do people need to “fear catastrophic health care costs,” they need to fear “simple” ER care. My husband went over his bicycle handlebars resulting in two broken fingers and a chipped elbow. After a very cursory look at him and overbinding his fingers (the orthopedist we saw TWO DAYS LATER was liviid), we get the amounts charged to insurance…over $11,000.!! Granted, the next day my husband had an MRI to rule out concussion. OVER $11,000. Is that not “catastrophic?” Universal Healthcare NOW!

It is catastrophic. And that’s the part Obama should be working on; Reduce the cost, make things affordable, not try to get the $11,000 covered by tax payers.

And with universal healthcare, there is no such thing as “get an MRI the next day” to rule something out. MRIs take 5 months in Canada unless they think you are going to die, and you NEVER EVER get one just to rule something out. That is also catastrophic.

Obama’s done what he could in leaving it to Congress; they’ve blown it, so it’s time to put a stake in the ground and go for it. Forget the GOP and the Blue Dogs; they’re uninterested in anything that reduces profits for insurance companies. If they want a real debate, they should have one, rather than this nonsense about “death panels” and talking about how it’ll cost so much but it’ll drive for-profit insurance companies out of business with low costs. Make up your mind!

cjr53, how about if we eliminate the category of pre-existing condition altogether? After all, if you have a condition, you really do need insurance, no? How absurd is it that a sick person can’t get insured? If you’re born with a condition, you’re up a creek. If you lose your job and insurance, then get sick, you’re up a creek. And if you start costing the company too much money, they can dump you through their various means. So maybe there needs to be a provision that says the only reason a company can dump you is if you quit paying or die.

Killed by the death panel run by Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin and the spinless part of the republican party.

Party first, country second.

I’m almost ashamed to say I’m a Democrat. They are more concerned with getting re-elected than providing health care with a public option which would really help people. Instead they listen to the people who believe the lies about Obama (who really are just racist and wouldn’t like anything he did/does, ie -his talk to schools.) They don’t want to say it’s race so they say he’s trying to make the country socialist. We could also use better education - have far too many uneducated people in the country who can’t think for themselves and so believe the lies told by Glenn Beck, Limbaughs etc. so if we get anything it will be a watered down useless plan that lets the insurance companies keep all their huge profits and pay off the politicians.

to DrCanuck, henrie paetow,wittyvegan,cdward, moviemagnus, billdog,barbaratoo etc.etc……..enjoy your Bliss facts might erase it. The people protesting Obamacare are the people……..and the end-of-life-councilling is in there. purpose to get seniors on medicare to accept death quietly rather than opt to have some of the money they contributed over the years in taxes and premiums spent on them. the money saved is there for congress to give to AIG, ACORN, GM, GE, SEIU and Mexican Invaders.

Motivemagnus

So if the Blue Dog Democrats and the Republicans are against something that only far reaching left wing Democrats are for then could there not be the possibility that there are many undesirable items in the bill? You list the extreme arguments but you never address the plausible ones.. That is attempting to discredit the opponents of your views without looking at everything they are saying. Re-frame your thought process and lets debate this some..

Magnaut, such an accurate view. I’ll save it … it’ll be placed in the “cranky Old Man” folder.

magnaut, counseling about end of life treatments happens every day … the proposed bill simply allowed physicians to be reimbursed for the time spent doing so. It would apply, mostly, to primary care docs, the doc most people trust the most. I think it was more about fairness, since family practice/primary care docs earn so much less than specialists.

If that provision doesn’t make into a final bill, it won’t be the end of the world and good family practice docs will continue to provide the counseling just as many do now.

Maybe you haven’t had a lot of situations in your family where these issues are confronted. I have. There’s nothing nefarious about it. It’s to the patient’s benefit. If I was told I had a fatal illness, I would want the counseling, and the truth and the facts to make up my mind what treatment I wanted.

DrC:Fair enough I haven’t lived in all the provinces. But I have lived in the Maritimes, lived the experience in Nova Scotia, know enough that it’s at par or worst than Quebec in all eastern provinces….5 out of 10 is not that bad of a survey.

But sure, for fairness sake I’ll try to say “many provinces in Canada”. ..Even though I’m pretty sure the only provinces not having a hard time are Ontario and Alberta.

WestTex, I have no real need to reframe my thought process, actually; I’ve spent some time looking at this. The main problem with this “debate” – and indeed every government-supported health-care debate in this country since FDR – is money. We spend more for our healthcare and get less than any other industrialized nation. See this for some details: http://tinyurl.com/n7b4py But the biggest cost isn’t legal fees (though I’m happy to cap them appropriately), it’s the insurance companies. One of the facts in that link: Percentage increase in profits at 10 of the country’s largest insurers, 2000 to 2007: 428 It’s a complicated issue in that we have some interlocked issues – the cost of educating doctors in this country, the cost of malpractice insurance, the “thing-focused” approach to healthcare instead of “results-focused” or even “patient-focused,” which promotes (and pays) the development of specialists far more than Family Physicians, the inefficient use of medical resources in order to enable hospitals to compete – but the number one, overriding problem with healthcare in this country is the way we fail to deal with insurance. We must deal with this first. My objection to the Blue Dogs is that most of the strongest take a lot of funding from the insurance industry (which spends $1.4 million in lobbying per day - must be a reason, right?). My objection to the GOP is that they are not engaging in a debate. They are pretending to have a debate, when in fact they have no interest in compromise at all, since they will categorically never vote for anything that resembles a universal healthcare law.

I also say, forget the bi-partisan schtick, and whip the blue dogs into line, and go for the big reforms, the single payer public option and regulation to knock off the for-profit motivation. It’s do or die time.

So who needs the Repubs? The D-party is in command, the house,senate, pres. What’s the problem. Why Cave-in? Didn’t they promise to fix everything. They can also control the blu dogs if they wanted to. No backbone.

Tigger: proud that there are congresspeople who openly take money from the insurance industry to maintain industry profits against the wishes and benefit of their constituents? Strange.

Blue dog = corporate butt licking Dems.

Just ask Max Baucus, who had a few doctors arrested for bringing up the public option debate back in June. He’s also the main recipient of health insurance money by far.

Is this the type of person you want negotiating a public option?