I enjoy reading this guys weekly soupboxes. He hasnt really tapped into the HC debate until now on the website. I think its a good template as he states later in the article. I would be for this as a first step.
http://www.robarnieanddawn.com/newsite/robsoapbox.html
"Monday, October 12th, 2009
HEALTH CARE REFORM
There have been a lot of accusations thrown around lately about America?s health care system and attempts to reform it: The insurance companies are evil, the government wants to create ?death panels? to determine whether it?s cheaper to let someone die than it is to treat them, illegal immigrants will be given free insurance, and Medicare benefits will be cut, just to name a few.
All of those things are outlandish and, unfortunately to some extent true. But the most outrageous accusation thrown around this year has been that the quality of care in America is anything less than the best.
While I am the first to agree that the system needs changing to better serve patients? needs, the level and quality of care does not. Everyone travels from all other places on earth to come to America and get the best care. The only reason people go elsewhere is to save money and you get what you pay for. Pakistan may have fine doctors and inexpensive surgery rates, but do you really want your transplanted kidney to be marinated in curry?
Using manipulated statistics ranging from life expectancy to infant mortality many false claims about America?s quality of care have been made. It takes hours of painstaking research to debunk each and every claim, but they are all untrue. Other countries, for example, only count babies that actually leave the womb breathing on their infant mortality rate stats, whereas in America we count a still birth and all related horrors amongst our infant mortality rates. Ergo, our rate is higher because of our honesty.
Let?s leave aside the absurd claims on all sides. No talk here of pulling the plug on granny or doctors playing too much golf or insurance companies gouging prices. Let?s talk solutions; real, easy, simple solutions.
Fixing America?s health care system should be easy; it isn?t and won?t be, because of the horribly dirty, corrupt system we all live in, but it should be.
Lawyers, doctors, insurance companies and everyone else that has a stake in the reform process have allied themselves with the proper politicians and are spending billions of dollars to manipulate the outcome so that no matter what our health care looks like when this is all over, they will all make more money somehow.
Did you notice an interest group missing? That?s right?patients; we have no voice. Please, dear God, don?t claim that the AARP is the voice of the people because we all know that is patently untrue. The normal, hard working, day to day Americans have no voice in this process, no seat at this table and that is why no matter what they do, we will suffer. Welcome to America.
Health care in America could be vastly improved and cleaned up, while still maintaining our freedoms, privacies, pursuits of profits and high level of care. The reason that the plan below works is because everyone can find something in it to hate. True compromise occurs when all sides feel as though they are giving in.
- Mandate by law that no American can be turned down access to health insurance due to ?pre-existing conditions?
- Provide tax exemptions and incentives to health insurance companies who provide competitive, affordable policies to people with ?pre-existing conditions.?
- Allow and demand that health insurance companies create laddered pricing; based not on random models such as age but on personal behaviors and health history. Smokers, the overweight and sedentary, alcoholics, drug users, etc will all pay more for their choices. If someone lies about their behavior their insurance will be cancelled and their rates will skyrocket; just like in auto and home insurance; if you lie about owning a pit bull that attacks someone in your home, your policy is void; same thing if you lie about your smoking and get lung cancer. Also, people who freely participate in dangerous activities will also have to pay higher premiums; everything from skiing to mountain climbing puts plenty of people in casts each year?if you choose the behavior, you will choose the cost.
- Conversely, reward patients who engage in healthy lifestyle checks. Yearly physicals will be free to the patient and the full battery of tests will be paid for by the insurance company. This works in two ways; it allows patients to confront health problems early and begin fixing them and also may lead to additional needed care which would provide more business for the insurance company and doctor.
- Allow and demand a la carte care. Patients will be able to add only the things they want to their policies. For example, a single man of 25 doesn?t need maternity coverage and may only want catastrophic care for ER visits and nothing else. So be it; create that policy for him.
- Mandate that prescriptions cannot and will not be used against patients to raise their premiums. If the patient is treating his or her conditions with drugs, then they should be rewarded, not punished, for addressing the problem.
- Allow insurance companies to compete across all states. Currently you can only buy health insurance from a company in your state, as opposed to the way we conduct our auto insurance industry. Allowing all companies to bid on all people across all state lines would create a fervor of competition and lower rates.
- We are mandated by law to provide Emergency Room medical care to anyone. Therefore, mandate by law that all citizens must carry, at minimum, catastrophic health care coverage to address the ?what ifs? in life.
- Vastly restrict and cap the amount of money someone can sue their physician for. Absurd lawsuits have caused skyrocketing malpractice premiums and have scared doctors to death. No doubt there needs to be restitution for a patient who has the wrong leg amputated; however that one legged man doesn?t need to be given $1 billion for his pain and suffering. Mandate that all lawsuits will be capped not to exceed paying for the victim?s full needs and care for all forms of living (rent, utilities, medical, etc) for the rest of their lives and no more than an additional $1 million will be paid punitively. While becoming wealthy via frivolous lawsuits has become the norm in America, it isn?t right.
- Pass a constitutional amendment that only legal citizens of America have a right to anything beyond emergency medical care. Emergency care will be defined simply as ?life or death.? Illegal immigrants will not be allowed to die on ER floors, but they will also not be allowed access to any other form of medical care in America. You want our care? Become a citizen. This not only enhances our current system, it provides a deterrent for sneaking into our country; for too long foreigners have used our compassions against us and it is literally bankrupting our nation. No more.
- Begin the process of transferring ownership of Medicare to private insurance companies. Individual companies will be able to ?buy up? bundles of patients and take over their care. This process will, within 20 years, fully privatize the admission of all Medicare. Costs will still be paid, via tax incentive and re-imbursement, by the government to the companies, but care will be administered and regulated by the doctor and insurance company. Currently, doctors deal directly with government agents and fraud is rampant. Insurance companies will provide a middle ground, although fraud will still be a problem; audits will be needed. We all need to accept that in a $13 trillion nation, some crooks are going to win, but we should do a better job of trying to catch them within the Medicare system.
- Most of the savings are built in to this plan, but for various incentives the government needs to spend money and for that we will increase the Medicare withholding portion of everyone?s paycheck; currently a miniscule 1.45%. No one will even notice a small increase, and they will get that money back in droves through their far cheaper health insurance policies.
There it is; simple, clean, effective. While I am sure that I am not addressing every single problem, I am addressing more of them than any of the current plans being discussed. If people truly wanted to improve medical care in America, they would start over using my plan as a template. Sadly, the people in charge of improving your life don?t actually have any desire to make your life better. They have a desire to make you think they improved things while they laugh all the way to the bank with more money, power and control over you."
http://www.robarnieanddawn.com/newsite/robsoapbox.html
"Monday, October 12th, 2009
HEALTH CARE REFORM
There have been a lot of accusations thrown around lately about America?s health care system and attempts to reform it: The insurance companies are evil, the government wants to create ?death panels? to determine whether it?s cheaper to let someone die than it is to treat them, illegal immigrants will be given free insurance, and Medicare benefits will be cut, just to name a few.
All of those things are outlandish and, unfortunately to some extent true. But the most outrageous accusation thrown around this year has been that the quality of care in America is anything less than the best.
While I am the first to agree that the system needs changing to better serve patients? needs, the level and quality of care does not. Everyone travels from all other places on earth to come to America and get the best care. The only reason people go elsewhere is to save money and you get what you pay for. Pakistan may have fine doctors and inexpensive surgery rates, but do you really want your transplanted kidney to be marinated in curry?
Using manipulated statistics ranging from life expectancy to infant mortality many false claims about America?s quality of care have been made. It takes hours of painstaking research to debunk each and every claim, but they are all untrue. Other countries, for example, only count babies that actually leave the womb breathing on their infant mortality rate stats, whereas in America we count a still birth and all related horrors amongst our infant mortality rates. Ergo, our rate is higher because of our honesty.
Let?s leave aside the absurd claims on all sides. No talk here of pulling the plug on granny or doctors playing too much golf or insurance companies gouging prices. Let?s talk solutions; real, easy, simple solutions.
Fixing America?s health care system should be easy; it isn?t and won?t be, because of the horribly dirty, corrupt system we all live in, but it should be.
Lawyers, doctors, insurance companies and everyone else that has a stake in the reform process have allied themselves with the proper politicians and are spending billions of dollars to manipulate the outcome so that no matter what our health care looks like when this is all over, they will all make more money somehow.
Did you notice an interest group missing? That?s right?patients; we have no voice. Please, dear God, don?t claim that the AARP is the voice of the people because we all know that is patently untrue. The normal, hard working, day to day Americans have no voice in this process, no seat at this table and that is why no matter what they do, we will suffer. Welcome to America.
Health care in America could be vastly improved and cleaned up, while still maintaining our freedoms, privacies, pursuits of profits and high level of care. The reason that the plan below works is because everyone can find something in it to hate. True compromise occurs when all sides feel as though they are giving in.
- Mandate by law that no American can be turned down access to health insurance due to ?pre-existing conditions?
- Provide tax exemptions and incentives to health insurance companies who provide competitive, affordable policies to people with ?pre-existing conditions.?
- Allow and demand that health insurance companies create laddered pricing; based not on random models such as age but on personal behaviors and health history. Smokers, the overweight and sedentary, alcoholics, drug users, etc will all pay more for their choices. If someone lies about their behavior their insurance will be cancelled and their rates will skyrocket; just like in auto and home insurance; if you lie about owning a pit bull that attacks someone in your home, your policy is void; same thing if you lie about your smoking and get lung cancer. Also, people who freely participate in dangerous activities will also have to pay higher premiums; everything from skiing to mountain climbing puts plenty of people in casts each year?if you choose the behavior, you will choose the cost.
- Conversely, reward patients who engage in healthy lifestyle checks. Yearly physicals will be free to the patient and the full battery of tests will be paid for by the insurance company. This works in two ways; it allows patients to confront health problems early and begin fixing them and also may lead to additional needed care which would provide more business for the insurance company and doctor.
- Allow and demand a la carte care. Patients will be able to add only the things they want to their policies. For example, a single man of 25 doesn?t need maternity coverage and may only want catastrophic care for ER visits and nothing else. So be it; create that policy for him.
- Mandate that prescriptions cannot and will not be used against patients to raise their premiums. If the patient is treating his or her conditions with drugs, then they should be rewarded, not punished, for addressing the problem.
- Allow insurance companies to compete across all states. Currently you can only buy health insurance from a company in your state, as opposed to the way we conduct our auto insurance industry. Allowing all companies to bid on all people across all state lines would create a fervor of competition and lower rates.
- We are mandated by law to provide Emergency Room medical care to anyone. Therefore, mandate by law that all citizens must carry, at minimum, catastrophic health care coverage to address the ?what ifs? in life.
- Vastly restrict and cap the amount of money someone can sue their physician for. Absurd lawsuits have caused skyrocketing malpractice premiums and have scared doctors to death. No doubt there needs to be restitution for a patient who has the wrong leg amputated; however that one legged man doesn?t need to be given $1 billion for his pain and suffering. Mandate that all lawsuits will be capped not to exceed paying for the victim?s full needs and care for all forms of living (rent, utilities, medical, etc) for the rest of their lives and no more than an additional $1 million will be paid punitively. While becoming wealthy via frivolous lawsuits has become the norm in America, it isn?t right.
- Pass a constitutional amendment that only legal citizens of America have a right to anything beyond emergency medical care. Emergency care will be defined simply as ?life or death.? Illegal immigrants will not be allowed to die on ER floors, but they will also not be allowed access to any other form of medical care in America. You want our care? Become a citizen. This not only enhances our current system, it provides a deterrent for sneaking into our country; for too long foreigners have used our compassions against us and it is literally bankrupting our nation. No more.
- Begin the process of transferring ownership of Medicare to private insurance companies. Individual companies will be able to ?buy up? bundles of patients and take over their care. This process will, within 20 years, fully privatize the admission of all Medicare. Costs will still be paid, via tax incentive and re-imbursement, by the government to the companies, but care will be administered and regulated by the doctor and insurance company. Currently, doctors deal directly with government agents and fraud is rampant. Insurance companies will provide a middle ground, although fraud will still be a problem; audits will be needed. We all need to accept that in a $13 trillion nation, some crooks are going to win, but we should do a better job of trying to catch them within the Medicare system.
- Most of the savings are built in to this plan, but for various incentives the government needs to spend money and for that we will increase the Medicare withholding portion of everyone?s paycheck; currently a miniscule 1.45%. No one will even notice a small increase, and they will get that money back in droves through their far cheaper health insurance policies.
There it is; simple, clean, effective. While I am sure that I am not addressing every single problem, I am addressing more of them than any of the current plans being discussed. If people truly wanted to improve medical care in America, they would start over using my plan as a template. Sadly, the people in charge of improving your life don?t actually have any desire to make your life better. They have a desire to make you think they improved things while they laugh all the way to the bank with more money, power and control over you."
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