Duude

The Hypocrisy and High Stakes of Healthcare Reform

I agree with most all points but I think doctors discussing options, risks and costs regarding different options is still not enough. If everyone is using 'an allowance' to buy their own insurance, patients will usually always be agreeable to another test, so long as its not very invasive nor dangerous. They've already paid their insurance and will instinctively soak up all the benefits of the extra cautious approach because it doesn't cost them more. Tort reform is critical but I would also recommend an overhaul of how hospitals make their money. Quality care at an affordable price is the goal. Hospitals make money for quality care which includes procedures, treatments, and tests. The tests must be farmed out to onsite medical research companies with no financial ties to the hospitals.

On Oct 22 07:32 AM fwi wrote:

> The central problem with health care expenditures is that consumers
> think of their insurance like an all-you-can-eat buffet. They overconsume,
> primarily because "it is already paid for", and they do not know
> what anything costs. Doctors often over-treat because of fear of
> grotesque lawsuits. And insurers only compete within a state, often
> with very few players.
>
> We no more need the Federal Government to take over our healthcare
> than we need a Federal bureaucrat picking out our clothes. Wholesale
> overhaul is complete madness. We need only address the above three
> issues in the following ways:
> 1. Each consumer uses his own allowance to buy his own insurance.
> For those employers who want to provide , fine, but not in purchased
> insurance, but with money to the employee. For the person who cannot
> afford insurance, the government provides the consumer with a cash
> allowance, with the freedom to use it as he would any other life
> sustaining purchase. For example, food stamps allow the consumer
> to purchase his own food choices. If food stamps were run like a
> public option, then the Feds would tell the consumer what brand of
> bacon to buy, how often he could buy it, and what store he was required
> to use. How long would anyone stand for that?
> 2. Doctors would stop over-prescribing procedures and tests if they
> told the patients what each cost, and what the dangers were if the
> tests were not done. The two then decide how best to manage the
> risks and benefits. Out of control lawsuits would be capped. One
> thing that everyone has forgotten is that the practice of medicine
> is as much an art as a science. To hold doctors to a standard of
> infallibility is unfair, as politicians and money managers are clearly
> not.
> 3. We are in a global economy and insurance cannot be purchased
> across state lines. The consumer then overpays to an insurer who
> is under challenged by the marketplace. This crazy law must be overturned.
> If you live in Florida and can buy controlled drugs in Canada, why
> cannot you buy cheaper insurance from Georgia?
>
> None of these reforms cost a dime, no new bureaucracies and entitlements
> created. Consumers take control of their own health care, insurers
> would have a more competitive marketplace, and doctors would practice
> more common sense medicine and less "defensive" medicine.
>
> If the Federal Government has decided that the citizens of this country
> cannot handle their own healthcare decisions, then what is the next
> thing they will decide we cannot handle? We must be beware of the
> unthinkable, because it is already happening.