New Health Reform Ad Touts 'Public Option'

As with most things, I am pretty sure there is a "middle ground" that can be achieved between what the Healthcare Industry wants and what reformers want. First pass should provide competition with the Healthcare Industry with monitors in place to make sure that it is competitive, but not overly so. Also, we need additional focus on creating additional Doctors, Physicians Assistants, Nurse Practitioners, Nurses, etc... Getting some of the currently unemployeed retrained as health care professionals will reduced the need for the large bonuses being paid currently for health professionals AND allow for enough health professionals to start treating the increased number of people with health care coverge.

During the 2008 election, Stephen Blythe, a physician, ran for Congress in the Florida 15th district, near Orlando. He wanted a Canadian-style system. He had practiced in Maine, near the Canadian border, and had a lot of experience with it. Based on his first-hand experience, he thought the Canadian system worked great. He lost to incumbent Weldon, also a physician. Trusting the markets for health care is like trusting the markets to deliver safe airlines. After they die in a plane crash due to inexperienced and cheaper pilots, consumers will go to a safer carrier the next time they fly. The markets brought us the S&L crisis, the tech and telecom bubbles, the sub-prime crisis, and the credit crisis. The markets are working the same magic in the health-care industry. We can all die, but insurance company profits will stay high.

I am one of the uninsurable. Pre existing conditions make it impossible for me to afford the extreamly high (because of the pre existing condition ) cost of insurance. Even though they exclude the condition that makes it unaffordable. So I do with out health care for the most part. That is not a life style that most readers understand or care to. Creating a competative priced health care will not help the uninsured. Also, What kind of Americans are we if we worry about our neighbor getting a doctors appointment when he has cancer effecting our ability to see a doctor for a sore throat? There are plenty of doctors to go around and if not then it will create much needed jobs in our country. The doctors are not the problem to begin with it is the greed of the insurance companies. I say insure everyone NOW. How many have to suffer before everyone wakes up and says thats enough?

"Health care," & "health insurance" are two different things. Your doctor gives you "health care," your "health insurance" pays his bill. Whether you pay Medicare taxes, or private insurance premiums, you're giving someone else your money to pay your doctor bills. Both the government & your insurance company charge you for this service. Who gives you a better deal? The insurance industry's own "educational arm," The Council For Affordable Health Insurance," answered this question. (Medicare's Hidden Administrative Costs - A comparison of Medicare & The Private Sector - by Merrill Matthews, Ph. D., January 10, 2006.) They concluded the government charges you 5 cents of every Medicare tax dollar, while your insurance company charges 16 cents per premium dollar. The 11 cent difference is advertising, sales commissions, stockholder profits, & high executive salaries; money out of your pocket that supports the insurance industry, but doesn't pay your doctor bills. Politicians & the industry fear that 119 million Americans will shift from private coverage to a government plan if it is opened to everyone. Why shouldn’t we shift if we get 11 cents more health care for every dollar we pay? Where is it written that we must pay unnecessary expenses that provide corporate welfare, but give us nothing in return?

The only solution to our helath care problems is a Single Payer National Health Plan. It can be done "American-style", and those working in the health insurance industry now can be helped to make the transition (see the HR676 bill for details). It will immediately cut costs simply by changing all the paper work to a single payer system. It will provide health care for everyone. It will help business because they will no longer need to pay for employees health care. It will prevent Amercians from going bankrupt because of medical care. We will no longer pay our insurance fees or premiums which will more than make up for a reasonable tax increase. I respect what President Obama is trying to do, but his half-measure reform will not work. We need to shift to a single payer system now. Americans should not be afraid to make this change. It is a system that works. Ask for the Single Payer Health Care system to be put on the table for serious discussion and comparison. The only reason it is not there now is because of lobbying interests who have self-interest in keeping things the way they are. No one, not even those who work in the insurance industry, should be afraid of this change. It is the future, and it will be a future style of health care that we are all thankful for.

When the people in Congress do not even allow the proponents of "Single Payor Healthcare" to be at the table, their sincerity can legitimitly be questioned. Our country is one of the wealthiest in the world and yet, we cannot get over our greed enough to make sure that the poorest in our country have access to healthcare.....SHAME on US....

I am an RN that has the responsibility of precertifying hospital admissions with managed care companies. This takes up half of my day, keeping me from seeing patients. Our hospital has to hire a team of social workers and RNs just to deal with insurance companies, who do dictate the care of patients including whether or not to prescribe meds, discharge dates and alternate levels of aftercare. If the MDs decide that the patient needs longer care the patient will be billed and he or she often opts out leaving against medical advice. Managed Care companies are managing your health care and causing hospitals to spend huge amounts of money additional staff just to deal with them. Those care providers could be utilized to provide direct patient care. Don't be fooled by these campaigns against government sponsored health care. Managed care is expensive for everyone and puts your health at risk!

Week before last, Illinois Senator Dick Durbin bluntly stated the relationship that the big banks have with Congress: "Frankly, they own this place.” If we needed a reminder that the finance sector isn’t the only corporate boss that Congress bows to, Senator Baucus provide it last week, when he refused to give single-payer health care experts even 1 of 15 seats on the guest panel to provide testimony to the Senate Finance Committee Hearings on Health Care Reform. Chairman Baucus provided plenty of room for the insurance industry, however. Could his decision possibly be influenced by the huge campaign contributions that he and his Senate colleagues receive from the insurance and pharmaceutical industry? The industry is terrified of holding an honest debate with health economics professionals who have a plan to help all Americans, genuine reform that the for-profit insurance industry cannot hope to compete with. A single-payer reform would make care affordable through vast savings on bureaucracy and profits. As shown in research published in the New England Journal of Medicine, administration consumes 31 percent of health spending in the United States, nearly double what Canada spends. In other words, if we cut our bureaucratic costs to Canadian levels, we’d save nearly $400 billion annually — more than enough to cover the uninsured and to eliminate co-payments and deductibles for all Americans. The fact is that a single-payer, “Medicare for All” type plan is preferred by 60% of Americans, including doctors and nurses.

As a physician, I believe that access to health care is a basic human right. As long as we treat health care as a commodity that can be bought, sold, and traded like a refrigerator,there will be a place for private insurance companies operating at a profit. When health care is viewed as a human right, there is a proven alternative to assure that care is available to all at a reasonable cost: single-payer. This is the best system for America and has the potential to assure a much higher quality of care than we now experience for all of us. Both houses of congress already have bills for single-payer ready for consideration and debate now. For more information go to www.pnhp.org.

If you are uninsured and does not have insurance, you should check out the website http://UninsuredAmerica.blogspot.com - John Mayer, California

Just because there is some rationing of healthcare now does not mean it is a good idea. Much of the healthcare rationing in the industry now is from medicare. Medicare is a government run health insurance plan. It is also financially broke. Why do we think a totally nationaliaed plan would be different.

I am on Medicare presently. I have never had to ask Medicare if I could get treatment, nor has Medicare ever rationed treatment that I needed. When I was covered under private insurance, I always had to make sure that my service provider called and got a mother may I from that private insurance company. I seem to remember a year or so ago there was a a big story about a teenage girl that needed a liver transplant. Her private insurance told her no, they said liver transplants were experimental. After the insurance company received too much press and the girl's doctors and her hospital protested, the insurance company relented and gave permission for her to get a liver. That permission was granted on the day she died. Why would anyone think the private insurance industry would change, it is all about maximum profits.

A new study shows that SINGLE-PAYER HEALTHCARE REFORM WOULD BE A MAJOR STIMULUS FOR THE US ECONOMY and would provide: ** 2.6 Million New Jobs, ** $317 Billion in Business Revenue, ** $100 Billion in Wages, and ** $44 Billion New Tax Revenues The press release is here: http://www.calnurses.org/media-center/press-releases/2009/january/nurses-to-congress-expanding-medicare-could-reverse-job-losses-and-repair-our-broken-healthcare-system-and-safety-net.html Here’s the study: http://www.calnurses.org/research/pdfs/ihsp_sp_economic_study_2009.pdf It’s clear that single-payer is the solution, not only in terms of providing quality care for all, but also economically! WHY ISN’T SINGLE-PAYER ON THE TABLE?

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