Indeed sir. I work there.

Your problem, is that you see making the system "free" as being the answer.

Interesting...


What's funny, is the red tape you would find once uncle sam gets his mitts into things. I have heard of people flat out walking out of the VA, to get cancer treatment in a local hospital, even though he had to pay out of his own pocket. This is not a good system.

My solution is to find the inefficiencies, and fix them. This is the only way to benefit everyone. This is where you use those mathematic skills of yours, and find that there is more truth to what i speak than you originally acknowledged.

And for the record, i was never a fan of privitizing the healthcare industry either. I believe there needs to be a balance.

But, what you fail to understand, i assume that's because democrats are now in charge, is the fact that the biggest businesses in the world more or less run the government. So even if we had "angels in the form of kings" to run our country present day, what would happen when those pesky republicans take over again?

Instead of market manipulation, you are now letting the business control the law, as well as manipulate the market. Hmmm....maybe total government control is not the answer either...

Kerry, one thing i think we can agree on, is that congress needs to find itself on our public healthcare system, as well as our social security. Perhaps then, they would try to fix it...

I don't think anyone said "We can't". I think what you are hearing are people pointing out that it is more complicated then we first gave it credit for.

The healthcare industry, banking, the economy, welfare, government spending, are all interlinked.

The only thing you can do is take from one, to give to another. So which would you sacrifice in order to gain "free" healthcare?

Side note: Efficiency is the only possible way you can improve something, without taking from something else...

Ok, Drivin, you work in a hospital. How does that experience compare with being the one wired and plumbed up in ICU with brain swelling and dealing with things like being double-billed for procedures, or being billed for a $300 session of physical therapy that never happened.

How about paying $70 dollars out of my own pocket for something called a 'facilities fee'? What it amounted to was a surcharge on the consultation for the privilege of sitting in a hospital annex's waiting room. Of course my crappy insurance didn't cover that, but there's ALL KINDS of hidden fees like that that you're never told about by the providers OR that they're not covered by your insurance.

Efficiency, you say? Well, as an insider, maybe you could tick off a few of them and what you'd do about 'em?

I've given you specifics, examples and figures. All I've gotten back from you are generalities and nebulous tautologies.

Have you ever heard the definition of a committee? It's a dead end down which ideas are led and quietly strangled. And that's about what's going to happen again if the vested interests get their way. When playing the McCarthy card doesn't work, they'll pump more money into lobbyists and the conservative movement's mouthpieces and misrepresent any and all ideas that show signs of cuttting them out of the picture.

Last time this happened, the Clintons shamed the Republicans into at least passing HIPAA. And without going into too many details, provisions of that act literally saved my butt.

So my cards are on the table. Call, raise or fold?

-Kerry O.

This healthcare option being offered to those who cannot afford insurance otherwise or for whatever reason is not a bad idea.

One thing you fail to mention or take into consideration is the FACT, that all you have to do is negociate with a hospital. You can't afford a $3000 dollar bill. You set up a payment plan. 5$ a month would be doable by almost anybody. Hospitals HAVE to accept these deals as long as the said person is willing to make payments.

But, uh oh, that means people will have to try to pay for the bill they create.

Nothing is for free. If you make it free for the general public you will sacrifice care given.

"Have you ever heard the definition of a committee? It's a dead end down which ideas are led and quietly strangled. And that's about what's going to happen again if the vested interests get their way. When playing the McCarthy card doesn't work, they'll pump more money into lobbyists and the conservative movement's mouthpieces and misrepresent any and all ideas that show signs of cuttting them out of the picture. "

That, Right there, has nothing to do with what we are discussing. I don't care about a comittee. I at least TRY not to listen to the propoganda machine. I care not about what the "right wing says" because all they care about is stopping and downtalking the left. It may be wise to forget about that childish "war", which is blinding people, and start thinking about how a system would work.

"Last time this happened, the Clintons shamed the Republicans into at least passing HIPAA. And without going into too many details, provisions of that act literally saved my butt."

Some government regulations are good. As i said, i never agreed with making healthcare completely privitized. I'm glad it helped you. All i am saying, is A: Nothing is free, and B: Just because something "means" to do good for people, doesn't mean it is going to.

Was that ride in an ambulance worth year's argument for the bill? Was not the visit to the ICU not worth the red tape as well?

I bet we could make every trip easier for you if we removed some of that red tape. More cost affective as well. Prescription drugs, make them almost all generic, then you can remove about 20% off your total payments. Find a way to get rid of defensive medicine. (Not easy, i know) Then you could take another 20% off your costs.

Now start a movement for general health, you know, encourage healthy diet and exercise. Hold the FDA to their standard of taking poisons off the market. You know, highfructose corn syrup, reduce the quantities of refined sugars. Hell, i would go as far as to say we could have the GOVERNMENT start clinics to monitor the health of people. You know, preventive medicine... These combined things could potentially decrease the cost of healthcare by 50% or more.

Oh, and here is another thought, maybe we could take some of this extra cash Obama seemed to find laying around everywhere, and PAY the government's hospital bills. Medicare is YEARS behind on their bills. This is one major addition to our hig insurance costs. Insurance companies have make up for the bills that Uncle Sam can't afford.

Do you have any ideas of your own?

Kerry, i never said we have an efficient system. But I think we need one.

Not necessarily a good idea either. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

I Think we are wasting too much time arguing about whether or not we should have a universal system, and instead focus on what we could do to make our system more efficient. I would like to do this BEFORE the government takes over and turns this into a bigger mess.

Trot into the sign-in desk at the Weinberg Cancer Center at Johns-Hopkins, have them swipe your orange card and tell them "I'm here for my follow-up angiogram. I'm only here because the imaging done at my local metropolitan hospital was done incorrectly and the neurosurgeon who did my op was so digusted with the last films he almost threw them on the floor. I see your sign that says 'Payment for ALL services must be previouly arranged for or made before service is rendered', but would it be okay if I pay for this $5/mo." Let me know how that works out.

Drivin', last time, I had doctors threatening to send $55 bills for office consultations off to collection agency when my insurance company dragged their feet on paying them. The imaging companies are even worse.



We're ALREADY there! Let's do some math here. How long would it take to pay off $50 grand for a neuro procedure at $5 month. Oh look, it's 833 years. I guess if you're a Christian, you could have checks sent from heaven until it's paid off, but since I'm an agnostic, I don't think they'll go for that. :)

On the other hand, I have no trouble with reasonable co-pays for bills that aren't inflated to cover what I call the Methusula Surcharge as explained above. People with Cadillac plans paid for by their businesses or, like members of Congress, their organizations don't care about this phenomenom because they probably never even see bills. And the people that pay nothing or token amounts probably don't want change. But what about the vast majority of people in the middle like me?

Yet, when it's brought up that a public option for health insurance might help alleviate this, it always gets shouted down. "We must confound the Evil Government at every turn!"



I don't disagree. But one very effective tactic in this little 'war' really IS the equivalent of red-baiting. Everyone who even suggests that government have ANY role whatsoever is immediately drowned out in a chorus of SOCIALISM SOCIALISM SOCIALISM like the red alert klaxons on the Enterprise. The dicsussion stops right there and people don't even want to share their bad experiences for fear of it being inferred that they aren't Real Americans.



Moot point, since I had no choice. One has to think about survival first and deal with the aftermath later. Until you go through it, though, I don't think you can appreciate what a soul-crushing experience it could be. And if the FUD being spread by the likes of the Limbaughs of the world is any indication, this very same objection is always first and foremost in their arsenal- "You'll be subject to endless red tape." Well, I'v been to their status quo and its very own mountain of red tape. And I'M not making millions of dollars every year to shill for powerful lobbies. I'm just a nobody sharing my experiences. Not that that's going to make any diff to the lemmings following such Pied Pipers in the hopes that some of that bling will rub off on them.




To quote that ex-governor of Alaska, "You betcha!"

Make it possible, thorugh a public option, for groups of people to set up their own healthcare co-opts so they can get the same kind of clout the big insurance companies have with the providers.

Get the insurance companies out of the malpractice insurance business and make that a legal function of Government just like the FDA. Or set up a program like the FDIC for doctors and providers.

At the same time, make them eat their medical mistakes instead of making the insurance companies pick up the tab for them. From what I've read, there have been some pretty brazen deeds pulled off by providers and it got so bad that the states finally started passing laws saying "NO! You WILL NOT bill ANYONE for amputating the wrong part."

Take a page from the European healthcare book and make it cheaper for doctors to get an education and go through their internships. IIRC, in many European countries, the government pays for doctors' education.

Do everything possible to get what Objectivists call 'rentseeking' out of the system. Make it possible for innovative people in the sciences and engineering to expand the technology of life science to make a fair return for having done so. Nuture them with grants etc, NOT with blood money from Wall st., which basically sit back on their big surpluses and plays roulette with peoples' lives and retirement dollars. Give

Consider this: done correctly, publically funded assists to healthcare could be like a diesel locomotive-- it's a heavy pull at first, but once it gets up and running, its inertia can be unstoppable. It can move freight for pennies on the dollar when compared to what the Rentseekers have and are offering.


-Kerry O.

We have had decades to make our system more efficient and we have not done so because we kiss the butts of the medical establishment and the insurance companies and the drug companies and the companies that manufacture health equipment, and some doctors for that matter.

It's not secret that the powers that be don't want this to happen, and why....