The fastest way to have an efficient health care system would be to build it ourselves and separate ourselves from the insurance companies.
Health care for all children should be part of our school taxes. It should include children from birth to age 20, 23 if attending college, and pregnant women.
When we pay for car insurance, we are not buying it for maintenance and wear and tear. Homeowner's insurance also does not cover maintenance, etc. We should be able to get routine medical care at a fair price, and count everything that we spend as a tax deduction. Insurance should only be needed for injuries and diseases, and it should cost one tenth of what it does now.
There are plenty of doctors and nurses out there who are willing to simply make a good living, not a killing. So let them work for the government. We already have an Indian Health service. Why not a health service for the rest of us? We can provide educations to people who are willing to work for a good living. There are plenty of talented and compassionate young people out there who don't need to make ten times more money than the president and get rich off misery and suffering.
It would be cheaper to educate legions of healthcare workers than to continue to try to appease the insurance company monsters. The health insurance companies will never have our interests in their hearts.
3 comments:
When we tied health care to a profit motive, we made sure that health care in this country would play second fiddle to the maintenance of heathy profits for insurance companies.
Ideally, capitalism, with its emphasis on "free market" forces, should have kept health insurance prices low, as competition increased.
Without competition, what we have now--ever increasing premium costs--was inevitable.
You have put forth some intriguing ideas: school taxes/health care for kids; doctors and nurses working for the government; tax deductions for "routine medical care."
Current health care deductions are inadequate: they only kick in when health costs exceed a certain percentage of income.
If we fail to act now, during the next 10 to 15 years, average Americans will be spending a disproportionate amount of real income to "appease the insurance company monsters."
And many will be clamoring for what's being fought against now--reform of the health care insurance industry.
I think if we can get people to invest in their own health, we can overhaul the system more quickly.
This old saw has been around for years but it's true...an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
The average person can take steps to make themselves and their family more healthy, and they should be rewarded for that thru tax incentives.
You are so right that prices should have come down; it works that way with every thing else...things are developed and they are very expensive for a while(like tape recorders and walkman's were) and then the prices come down. Not so in health care. One of those defibrilators like in Cheney's chest costs around 75 thousand dollars. And if you kick the bucket, they bury it with you.
I can't see how health is a commodity; it should be viewed as a God given right.
It is only expensive to go to an emergency room because the hospitals and insurance companies have made it so.
What nonsense. What is there in the ER that makes it so expensive..solid gold toilets maybe?
It is very hard to track down the truth because hospitals and insurance companies hide inside convolutions.
They have a system of "bonuses and incentives" that they exchange with each other. Some doctors are also willing participants. But ultimately, a tiny fraction of what we think is actually being spent on our care. The rest is pure profit.
This is the real home truth as I seee it. Talent is everywhere. You realize just surfing the net how smart, how funny, how gifted people are out there. We don't need the bastards who are in charge of the stock market and health insurance. There are plenty of smart people out there who can do it...we just neeed them to be ethical.
"I can't see how health is a commodity; it should be viewed as a God given right."
Absolutely. Now, all we need do is convince all those Repubs and Dems who're wallowing in all those greenbacks they've gotten from health insurers to defeat health care reform, or to sweeten their take.
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