Selling Health-Care Reform, by the Numbers

i'm certainly no expert when it comes to this but then WHY does the government allow mergers like say US Healthcare and Aetna years ago?, United Healthcare and Oxford in NY?

I was watching a special this evening which showed many people in the "town hall" sytle meetings on health care reform getting outraged - illogically so. More and more Americans are going without health care coverage. This puts everyone in the situation of oweing hospitals large amount of money or simply not paying and forcing insurance premium increases. We are all paying anyway as people simply get care and do not pay because they cannot affoard care. Looking at a recent poll, looks like many are optimistic that this will happen:

http://www.polladium.com/poll.php?poll_id=141&location_id=1

There are certainly a lot of thick headed people out there when it comes to disseminating accurate information regarding the reforms that Congress has put forth. Whenever I challenge someone who opposes health care reform I do two things.

The first is I ask them to lay out their own specific plans so that I can understand how they would fix the current broken system. And second I ask them to give me the link to the exact Bill#, Title#, Subtitle (if applicable), Part#, and Section# that Congress has put forth that spells out exactly what they are so nightmarishly afraid of. And 99.9% of the time all they can do is spout out sayings like "Government takeover" and "Euthanasia for all". I've yet to find a person who opposes the current reforms be able to legitimately provide proof of their concerns or a plan of action regarding their own personal solutions to the mess we're in now.

But as an individual myself who has dedicated my life and career to the medical profession and my patients I've spent hours to learn about what we can do to successfully reform the mess we're in now. Here's the solutions that I would put in place - http://bit.ly/9QLV8

rxvette, here's another simpler way to make a point that healthcare reform legislation is necessary and not a boogeyman:

Grandpa, look at me. GRANDPA, OVER HERE. I'LL EXPLAIN WHAT THESE PEOPLE ARE ABOUT WHEN WE GET HOME. YOU'RE OKAY (patting his hand). Then in his ear: These people are stooges.

Turns out, grandpa knew that before I did and was there for the kicks and the lunch afterwards.

It is interesting to me that some children of victims of Adolf Hitler are calling Obama a "Nazi." Something tells me that this type of name-calling goes beyond health care.

There is an extremely powerful (but "invisible") health care elite in this country who have raked millions in premiums and high health costs from the American people over generations. This elite now feel that their "means of livelihood" is being threatened by this administration's push to offer the American people a way out of this slavery. The very individuals that have been cheated now defend those who have taken their money and denied them justified claims and unconditional quality health care.

It is a great tragedy that many of the people who would benefit from such an option are duped into being "barking and snapping bulldogs" for the same interests that have ripped them off. The dog food ? - fear, lies, and the falsehood that this health initiative constitutes a breakdown in the American government.

Reining in health costs is simple. All we need to do is require that any medication, treatment, procedure or operation be supported by level 1 or level 2 evidence in order to qulify for coverage at taxpayer expense. All other therapies, that is, those with only level 3 evidence or below, would be at patient expense. What's so hard about that? Why should taxpayers be covering treatments that lack objective proof of efficacy? We do now...to the tune of nearly $300 billion annually.

Reining in costs shouldn't be a problem. We can just take the money we are now using to support socialist farmers in Kansas, Texas, Nebraska, etc. and use it to help pay for health care. Since the Republicans are so worried about socialism, I am sure they would be happy to make sure there were no socialist farmers in their districts. For the rest of us, it would mean we wouldn't have to pay for food twice.

Republicans are great at dissembling. The current scare tactics about the aged and euthanasia is one of them. Currently the Republicans love the fact that patients don't really understand either the living will or the idea of durable power of attorney. Under the current situation, all the hospitals or even insurance companies have to do is offer it, and they can explain it anyway they choose. Page 425 of the current legislation changes that because it requires a doctor or hospital to inform them of these things, but send them off to a third party that has no economic interest in the matter to counsel them on it if they want to be counseled. Right now, a hospital can slip it in with the rest of the papers, tell the patient that it is in their best interests, and that is that. Insurers can also do the same, and so avoid long and very expensive payments for keeping patients on life support.

HR 3200 changes all of that. The medical and insurance professions have to actually explain what these things are, and then tell the patient about other agencies where they can get some form of medical/legal counsel about it, from someone who is not going to financially benefit from them having it or not.

I certainly would not want to rely on an insurance company when it comes deciding on whether to sign a living will or not. If I were to design my own, it would read "Use and an all extreme and superhuman methods available to keep me alive"

HR3200 does not mandate what has to be in the living will, it just requires that a patient be FULLY informed as to all of the implications and by an objective third party

As it currently stands, there is little or no choice at all in the current health care market. The 4 largest companies in the country have 70 percent of all the insured in the major metropolitan areas of the nation.

Also as it stands, the government funds 60 percent of all health care in the country and things like Medicare,Medicaid and Federal Employees health care don't come close to making anywhere near half of that 60 percent. The government by direct or indirect means, subsidizes about 60 percent of private employer base health care. By the time the employer receives its subsidies, through grants at times, tax breaks at others, the employer pays about 20 percent of the cost. The employee pays 20 percent, the taxpayer picks up the rest. Which means pretty much that anyone who has employer based health care is paying about 80 percent of it, one way or the other.

The nation spends 2.4 trillion on healthcare today. In the last full year, there were 117 million households in America. Do the math. About 20,000 dollars a year per household is the share of the current health system that Americans pay.

As it exists, the top 5 percent of income earners use fifty percent of the private sector portion of the health care economy. Whether this is waste or not, I do not know, but I know my own doctor sees tons of people who see the latest drug advertisement on television and comes running into the office asking for it whether it is designed to treat an illness they have or not, usually because they have self diagnosed and decided that what the commercial is describing is what ails them.

a. Wendell Potter, former VP for Cigna, was on PBS two weeks ago and revealed that in 1996 the Health Insurance's portion of
dollars spent on health care was 5%, today its 20%.

b. Last Sunday I heard on Stephanolous' show that health care costs 2.5 trillion dollars a year. If that figure is accurate we could save $375 billion a year just by driving down the Healthcare Insurance Industry's take back to 1996 levels.

c. We spend the most of any nation and yet WHO (the World Health Organization) ranks us 37 out of 191 nations with health care
systems.

d. The straw dog the GOP attacks is Canada, the prime example of 'socialized medicine' - never mind the fact that Canadian doctors make almost as much as ours.

e. Canada is rated # 33 (by WHO) out of 191.

f. Watch that neither France nor Italy will come up in the conversation - France is rated # 1 and Italy # 2.

g. When you talk about the health care system you have to make a distinction between the group and the individual. For those with health care coverage the US has the best system in the world according to Time Magazine. However, if that is true it's not due to the Insurance companies but the investments in R & D made by the US government from 1945 to 1965 when no other nation was making any.

h. But as far as group totals France's are almost three times as good as ours. And we are all both individuals and parts of groups. God help you if you lose your coverage under the current system and get sick. You either go bankrupt or die.

i. A study by the Toronto newspaper showed that if the US adopted the Canadian system we could cover everyone and save 1 trillion dollars. But if we adopted France or Italy's system we would still save money and have a much better system - maybe the best due to our superior technology.

j. France's and Italy's systems are mixed - single payer and healthcare insurance - sounds strange but it works.

France, Germany and Canada are all having increasing problems paying for their health care. They can not afford the newer technology without waiting lines.

agapn9 you quote the WHO statistics as gospel but perhaps have not considered why the US ranks where it does.
#1 Longevity was highest for countries with fairly homogeneous gene pools, Norway, Sweden, Japan for instance. We are a nation of multiple races and it affects our longevity statistics. If you track Japanese people who live in America they have the same life expectancy as if they lived in Japan. Health care here didn't shorten their life span! The US has a much higher incidence of deaths at an early age from violence, ie. car accidents, shootings. Those people never make it to a hospital. So the statistics are skewed by non health care issues.
#2 Infant mortality: The US has a 20% high school drop out rate. Young kids, no jobs leads to more drugs/alcohol/pregnancies. These young women do not get prenatal help. Its available and paid for but they don't go. Lower birth weight babies with higher mortality. Another non health care factor that skews the statistics.

Of the last ten major medical break throughs, eight have come from the US. We are #1 or 2 in outcomes for breast, colon, and prostate cancer. We lead in liver, kidney and heart transplants. There are more Nobel prizes in Medicine to the US then all other countries combined.

Yes there have to be changes on how we spend health care dollars and deliver care but don't be to quick to jump off the bus because there is no perfect system. The present much debated bill does little to address the true problems.

We have a public health care plan in place today. It is the plan the members of Congress enjoy. Instant reform is as simple as this.

1) Members of Congress must pay 100% of the policy premiums for the Consolidated Congressional Care Plan (CCCP).

2) Any member of the public may join the CCCP by paying 100% or their premium.

3) No member of the public may be denied coverage or services under the CCCP.

4) Premiums for the CCCP will be based on the average annual claims for the previous 5 years plus 15% to cover expected increases.

5) All surplus premiums collected by the CCCP will be placed in escrow to maintain a perpetually increasing reserve to fund future claims and these funds must remain prohibited from being used for any other purpose.

6) At no time will the CCCP be authorized to be subsidized to rely on taxpayer funding. This requirement is to protect the private insurance industry from unfair competition and is intended to ensure that the CCCP is always less competitive that private insurance.