To call it the American health care system is an oxymoron – there is no “system” to it as a whole. No wonder the House bill is 2,000 pages long. Such a multi-faceted issue is not as simple as whether or not to have a public option.
The shared goal of all our federal legislators for health care reform, as they would tell us, is greater accessibility at lower cost. (I won’t go so far as to say they all agree on “universal” access and affordability. That’s what you and I want, but we don’t get tax-free tips from the health care industry.)
So in those 2,000 pages we see odds and ends of “reform” for who pays, who provides, who insures, what is successful treatment, what’s a fair price, when do you get a subsidy, what does a given service cost, who gets taxed, who’s responsible for supervising, who negotiates, what’s covered, and on and on and on. Reminiscent of herding cats. Where to start?
Americans spend twice as much per capita on health care as the next most expensive country. But we don’t get anywhere near the best care, despite what we pay.
Have you checked the rate-per-hour of a surgeon lately? Thousands! Yet doctors of my acquaintance say they’re barely making it at today’s rates of reimbursement. The cost of their training takes years, decades perhaps, to pay back. Then there’s the cost of all the high tech equipment they need, the medical staff, the liability insurance, the bookkeeping staff. Indeed, some hospitals have pointed out that they have more billing staff per bed than they have nursing staff. Doctors and hospital administrators all live pretty well by my standards, but I will take their word that it’s not like it used to be.
In any case, they pass on to the “payer” the cost of all that. Ultimately, that’s you and me, not them.
No doubt the so-called system today encourages over-testing, over-treating. That’s certainly due in part to their legal liability. Tort reform is an element of reducing the CYA component of health care costs, but it’s not the only fix needed.
So what does either the Senate or House bill do to curtail the CYA practices, and impose industry standards, or “best practices”? Numbers show we over test, and that does NOT improve outcomes. “Evidence-based medicine” requires a payment structure that guides what is seen as potentially helpful and what isn’t. Medicare does it, and it works very well. The docs are relieved of some the legal liability if a government entity decrees a standard that is “evidence-based,” and they follow it. That doesn’t mean they fail to perform tests or treatments they deem necessary for a particular patient. It means they don’t take a shotgun approach when a sighted-rifle will do the job.
Hospitals used to be non-profit. Amazing how the costs of an aspirin and a bandaid provided during your hospital stay have skyrocketed out of control since they became for-profit care providers, isn’t it?
Pharmaceuticals show record profits, but government (Medicare) isn’t allowed to negotiate prices? They can sell their stuff in South America for a fraction of what they sell it to us? How do these bills address this ridiculous situation?
Then there’s the issue of anti-trust exemptions. Insurance companies are allowed to control a market in a specific state. But changing this won’t guarantee more competition; there are different regulations and secured funds requirements in each state; it’s expensive to set up shop in a new state. A few bad customers in a small state (think millions in medical bills for someone with several significant lifelong issues) can kill the profitability of a company with a small market share in that state. Perhaps if they were in every state they could spread the liability around, but surely we can all see that this won’t reduce premiums overnight.
And we come to profits for Insurance Companies. They claim their profits are only 2%. Seems pretty reasonable, doesn’t it? How can we expect them to decrease profits?
I submit that’s creative accounting. That’s what they report to the IRS, not what they report to their shareholders. Wouldn’t a large discrepancy like that raise a few eyebrows if it were offered by a person, not a corporation? Special tax rules for corporations with lots of cash to flash in Washington and throw at campaign offices across America?
And executive salaries are considered expenses, remember? No limits there, of course. That’s just overhead. 30%. Is there any real attempt to limit profits and overhead in the health insurance industry in either bill?
Fiscal conservatives, you should like the idea of letting Bean Counters make the decisions about appropriate care and legitimate overhead -- especially when it’s tax dollars that are paying, like in a “public option.” But that’s not what Blue Dogs and Republicans are jumping on. Truly cutting costs means suggesting that a patient can’t just get every drug and procedure and test they’ve seen on TV. That’s a hard sell to the American public who already have insurance that someone else pays for.
So since we all share the same goals of greater accessibility and lower costs, you might think the Blue Dogs and Republicans would support a plan that gives this highly controlled option not only to Medicaid recipients, but also those too cheap to buy insurance who mess things up for the rest of us. They should get “rationed care” as dictated by the Bean Counters. So that’s where the fiscal conservatives jump in, right? But no, they say forget the public option. Let’s stick with what we’ve got. Gotta save those tax dollars – right? Regardless of the people who pay for that attitude with their health, indeed their very lives. 40,000 die every year from lack of health care coverage and the outrageously high cost of care.
Hate to be a broken record, but the only way to even begin to fix ALL these things is a single-payer system. Truly, a system. Would it be perfect? Of course not. Ask people in countries that have one. But would it cost less? Ask those same people and they’ll give you a resounding “Yes.” Would it improve access to health care? Duh. See previous answer. Would it improve the health of the American people? Just check the statistics that show we rank 37th in the world, behind every country that has a universal single payer system.
But we can’t even consider such a thing. It’s socialism, remember? Best practice, when it comes to health care, is apparently not good business, it’s socialism, according to the Blue Dogs and Republicans. And you know what THAT would mean! Better, faster, cheaper. We can’t have that in America!
* * * * * * * *
Footnote: Then there’s our ol’ pal Joe Lieberman. What I want to know is, where are the protests from Connecticut? 64% of those folks, according to the polls, want at least a public option in the health care reform bill. 64% of the people he represents. And he won’t even let the Senate have an up or down vote on the subject? I should be able to hear the screaming all the way down here in South Carolina. He absolutely does not deserve to caucus with the Democrats, much less be chairman of the Homeland Security committee, or even keep his seat in the Senate. Can you impeach a senator, Connecticut?
JM
Showing posts with label socialized medicine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label socialized medicine. Show all posts
Friday, October 30, 2009
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Shona The Shill:
In our last post we told you about Shona Holmes, the unfortunate woman from Waterdown, Ontario who, as we found out in a dramatic TV spot that recently began airing nationally, was diagnosed with what she described as a brain tumor. And again according to her, the Canadian health care system told her it couldn’t fit treatment of same into their schedule for six months. In her estimation she would have been dead by then…and jeez, a brain tumor! How could anyone ever doubt a story like that?
Funny thing about ‘walking back the cat’ though. When you start pulling on a thread as you trace a story back to its routes, more often than not the entire garment begins to unravel…and pretty soon the emperor, or in this case the empress, has no clothes.
Our girl Shona ended up making her way to the Mayo Clinic in Arizona where, for a mere $100,000.00, they confirmed the diagnosis, did some additional testing, performed the appropriate operation and sent her home fully cured just four days after the surgery. Trouble is, the surgery wasn’t for a brain tumor, or brain cancer as Fox News so typically overstated during their interview with this unfortunate victim of Canada’s socialized health care system. It was for the removal of a benign cyst…and they excised it not by boring through her skull, but by going up her nose with something akin to a Roto Rooter and popping that sucker like a big ol’ zit.
What she actually had was called a Rathke’s Cleft Cyst, a rare, fluid-filled sac that grows near the pituitary gland at the base of the brain. It can cause hormone and vision problems, both of which Holmes had been experiencing, and can also cause more serious problems if left untreated. But it is not…NOT…life threatening, and is normally treatable with minimally invasive surgery, as was the case in this instance.
End of story, right? Our victim/heroine escapes the tentacles of Canada’s oppressive, socialized health care system, heads south to that ‘shining city on the hill’, gets the treatment she was denied in her own country, and finally goes back home to live happily ever after. Wow! If it weren’t for this damn gag reflex it would probably bring tears to our eyes.
Here’s the thing, though. This procedure took place four years ago, but Americans For Prosperity/Patients United Now didn’t see the need to produce and release a TV spot featuring Holmes until just recently… when they undoubtedly felt it could do the most public relations damage to any Health Care Reform initiatives currently being considered by Congress. And the Mayo Clinic, which first wrote about this story in 2007 as a not so subtle dig at Canada’s public health care system, and a not so subtle plug about their own expertise, all of a sudden decided to re-release it this summer to coincide with the release of the TV spot. Oh the humanity!
What a crock of unadulterated horse pucky! For openers there is no way…no freaking way…that anyone with either a life threatening or immediate need medical condition gets put on hold by the Canadian health care system, unless there has been some kind of misdiagnosis or they have somehow fallen through the cracks. And neither of those things could ever have happened here, in the good ol' USA, right?
Oh, you may have to wait a while for that vasectomy or nose job, and maybe even for that hip or knee replacement…and that could never happen here either, eh? But if you need treatment NOW for ANYTHING that is in any way life threatening, the Canadian system will make sure you’re taken care of. Anyone who tries to tell you differently is either misinformed, or just plain lying for their own selfish reasons…like that health insurance agent we told you about yesterday.
We don’t know what Shona Holmes was paid or given for agreeing to do that ill-advised TV spot or the Fox News interview decrying the Canadian public health care system…maybe a ton of money, maybe all the expenses associated with her treatment at the Mayo Clinic, maybe nothing? But what we do know is this. She is nothing more than a shill…and she’s being used by extreme right-wing interests in this country who, for their own selfish reasons, will do anything to try and stop any type of ‘public health care for all’ from becoming a reality in the United States.
The Canadian system isn’t perfect. Nobody ever said it was. But like ours, the quality of care is world class. The difference is that their system is significantly more accessible and exponentially more effective and efficient than what we have here…or maybe ‘what we don’t have here’ would be a more accurate way to describe it!
And here’s a little nugget for you that you probably don’t know…and you’ll certainly never be told by anyone who leans to the right in this country. When asked in a poll at the turn of the millennium to pick who they thought was the most important person in the history of their country, Canadians overwhelmingly selected a man by the name of Tommy Douglas. The late Mr. Douglas is noteworthy for a few reasons. He was the father-in-law of actor Donald Sutherland and the grandfather of actor Keifer Sutherland…and he’s also the man primarily responsible for making Canada’s public health care system a reality. We’re fairly certain the latter reason is why so many Canadians named him the most important man in their country’s history.
For more on the Shona Holmes traveling circus, there's some excellent material on these sites:
Funny thing about ‘walking back the cat’ though. When you start pulling on a thread as you trace a story back to its routes, more often than not the entire garment begins to unravel…and pretty soon the emperor, or in this case the empress, has no clothes.
Our girl Shona ended up making her way to the Mayo Clinic in Arizona where, for a mere $100,000.00, they confirmed the diagnosis, did some additional testing, performed the appropriate operation and sent her home fully cured just four days after the surgery. Trouble is, the surgery wasn’t for a brain tumor, or brain cancer as Fox News so typically overstated during their interview with this unfortunate victim of Canada’s socialized health care system. It was for the removal of a benign cyst…and they excised it not by boring through her skull, but by going up her nose with something akin to a Roto Rooter and popping that sucker like a big ol’ zit.
What she actually had was called a Rathke’s Cleft Cyst, a rare, fluid-filled sac that grows near the pituitary gland at the base of the brain. It can cause hormone and vision problems, both of which Holmes had been experiencing, and can also cause more serious problems if left untreated. But it is not…NOT…life threatening, and is normally treatable with minimally invasive surgery, as was the case in this instance.
End of story, right? Our victim/heroine escapes the tentacles of Canada’s oppressive, socialized health care system, heads south to that ‘shining city on the hill’, gets the treatment she was denied in her own country, and finally goes back home to live happily ever after. Wow! If it weren’t for this damn gag reflex it would probably bring tears to our eyes.
Here’s the thing, though. This procedure took place four years ago, but Americans For Prosperity/Patients United Now didn’t see the need to produce and release a TV spot featuring Holmes until just recently… when they undoubtedly felt it could do the most public relations damage to any Health Care Reform initiatives currently being considered by Congress. And the Mayo Clinic, which first wrote about this story in 2007 as a not so subtle dig at Canada’s public health care system, and a not so subtle plug about their own expertise, all of a sudden decided to re-release it this summer to coincide with the release of the TV spot. Oh the humanity!
What a crock of unadulterated horse pucky! For openers there is no way…no freaking way…that anyone with either a life threatening or immediate need medical condition gets put on hold by the Canadian health care system, unless there has been some kind of misdiagnosis or they have somehow fallen through the cracks. And neither of those things could ever have happened here, in the good ol' USA, right?
Oh, you may have to wait a while for that vasectomy or nose job, and maybe even for that hip or knee replacement…and that could never happen here either, eh? But if you need treatment NOW for ANYTHING that is in any way life threatening, the Canadian system will make sure you’re taken care of. Anyone who tries to tell you differently is either misinformed, or just plain lying for their own selfish reasons…like that health insurance agent we told you about yesterday.
We don’t know what Shona Holmes was paid or given for agreeing to do that ill-advised TV spot or the Fox News interview decrying the Canadian public health care system…maybe a ton of money, maybe all the expenses associated with her treatment at the Mayo Clinic, maybe nothing? But what we do know is this. She is nothing more than a shill…and she’s being used by extreme right-wing interests in this country who, for their own selfish reasons, will do anything to try and stop any type of ‘public health care for all’ from becoming a reality in the United States.
The Canadian system isn’t perfect. Nobody ever said it was. But like ours, the quality of care is world class. The difference is that their system is significantly more accessible and exponentially more effective and efficient than what we have here…or maybe ‘what we don’t have here’ would be a more accurate way to describe it!
And here’s a little nugget for you that you probably don’t know…and you’ll certainly never be told by anyone who leans to the right in this country. When asked in a poll at the turn of the millennium to pick who they thought was the most important person in the history of their country, Canadians overwhelmingly selected a man by the name of Tommy Douglas. The late Mr. Douglas is noteworthy for a few reasons. He was the father-in-law of actor Donald Sutherland and the grandfather of actor Keifer Sutherland…and he’s also the man primarily responsible for making Canada’s public health care system a reality. We’re fairly certain the latter reason is why so many Canadians named him the most important man in their country’s history.
For more on the Shona Holmes traveling circus, there's some excellent material on these sites:
http://mediamattersaction.org/factcheck/200905270002
And if you really want a laugh, check out the Fox News anti-health-care-reform infomercial:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBJGTcfcWGo
Steve
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Part II – Socialized Medicine?
I can’t believe how weak the health care reform bill from the House appears to be. For starters, it leaves at least 10 million people uninsured. It has totally ignored the concept of cutting costs by cutting out the billions we spend on billing 1900 different insurance companies.
The well-funded special interests (“stakeholders” is the new politically correct euphemism!) who are working so hard to prevent a single-payer health program for America want you to believe a whole lot of lies and misinformation. “American’s want to preserve their freedom to choose their insurance company.” Ha! We want the freedom to choose our caregivers and treatment, as we discussed in the previous posting.
We want to choose to PREVENT disease, and get insurance coverage for the programs that will help us do so. Very few insurance companies make this a priority. We had to fight for years to get mammograms and colonoscopies covered. Birth control isn’t covered – but Viagra is!
With a single payer system, would you have to wait forever for appointments and elective surgery? If you check the COMPLETE statistics (not the cherry-picked isolated cases) from countries like Canada, Australia, France, Denmark, Germany and others, you’ll see: absolutely not. At least not more than you already do. Try to get an ablation on your atrial fibrillating heart right now – you’re looking at four to six months here in South Carolina. Need your knees replaced by the orthopedics specialist you believe to be the best? Plan on several months on the waiting list. Will that get better with a single-payer system? No guarantees, but it won’t get worse. And if you show up in an emergency room with severe stomach pain, you won’t be waiting in line behind all those uninsured folks who have only the emergency room to seek treatment for their kid’s ear ache (which is probably much worse than it would have been if they’d seen a family physician two weeks ago when it started, but they couldn’t because they couldn’t afford it!).
What would we give up with a single payer system? Lots of jobs in the insurance industry. Lots and lots. High paying jobs. Really high paying jobs for the executives. Nearly 2 Billion for one United Health Care CEO. We won’t have to pay for those industry bureaucrats anymore.
Lots of jobs in the lobbying industry. High paying jobs. People who put money in the campaign chests of our representatives. Millions and millions of dollars. We won’t have to pay for that anymore.
That might upset those Senators and Congresspersons who currently take millions and millions from those lobbyists. Please see the website cited in the last posting to see some of the Democrats who answer this description. (http://vote.wewantthepublicoption.com)
In a single payer system, all of our premiums will go to a system that is modeled after Medicare. It works. Medicare only uses 3% of its budget for administration. The typical health insurance company spends about 33% of your premium for administration. I’m sure your imagination will suggest some of the ways they waste that money on unnecessary expenses, like office space in high-priced neighborhoods, leather desk chairs, “customer service” representatives whose job it is to find a way to deny a claim, corporate jets for the CEOs, annual meetings in Cancun for the senior managers, etc., etc.
How would we pay for it? Opponents are telling you we can’t afford this “socialized medicine” – but WE ALREADY CAN’T AFFORD THE SYSTEM WE HAVE! In fact, with a single-payer system, we can identify millions – even billions - of dollars of savings over what Americans currently pay (about $500 Billion per year). And the single-payer route is the only version of health care reform that will certainly provide those enormous cost reductions. The money we DON’T pay to health insurance companies will allow us to pay for the public system and put the savings back in our pockets.
Oh, and another thing: the single-payer would be able to bargain for lower prescription drug prices, for everyone. They’d have high volume purchasing power. So your Aunt Hattie wouldn’t have to choose between her heart medicine and groceries.
Socialized medicine indeed. How about medicine whose priority is taking care of the members of our society, not putting money in the pockets of high society?
I’ll put my money into a single-payer system any day. Suppose half of the uninsured gave $1 each to help fund primary opponents of Democrats who backed away from securing good health care for all. $23 million could make a difference, I’m guessing.
Do you think they’d listen to $23 million? Disgusting, isn’t it?
Jacque
The well-funded special interests (“stakeholders” is the new politically correct euphemism!) who are working so hard to prevent a single-payer health program for America want you to believe a whole lot of lies and misinformation. “American’s want to preserve their freedom to choose their insurance company.” Ha! We want the freedom to choose our caregivers and treatment, as we discussed in the previous posting.
We want to choose to PREVENT disease, and get insurance coverage for the programs that will help us do so. Very few insurance companies make this a priority. We had to fight for years to get mammograms and colonoscopies covered. Birth control isn’t covered – but Viagra is!
With a single payer system, would you have to wait forever for appointments and elective surgery? If you check the COMPLETE statistics (not the cherry-picked isolated cases) from countries like Canada, Australia, France, Denmark, Germany and others, you’ll see: absolutely not. At least not more than you already do. Try to get an ablation on your atrial fibrillating heart right now – you’re looking at four to six months here in South Carolina. Need your knees replaced by the orthopedics specialist you believe to be the best? Plan on several months on the waiting list. Will that get better with a single-payer system? No guarantees, but it won’t get worse. And if you show up in an emergency room with severe stomach pain, you won’t be waiting in line behind all those uninsured folks who have only the emergency room to seek treatment for their kid’s ear ache (which is probably much worse than it would have been if they’d seen a family physician two weeks ago when it started, but they couldn’t because they couldn’t afford it!).
What would we give up with a single payer system? Lots of jobs in the insurance industry. Lots and lots. High paying jobs. Really high paying jobs for the executives. Nearly 2 Billion for one United Health Care CEO. We won’t have to pay for those industry bureaucrats anymore.
Lots of jobs in the lobbying industry. High paying jobs. People who put money in the campaign chests of our representatives. Millions and millions of dollars. We won’t have to pay for that anymore.
That might upset those Senators and Congresspersons who currently take millions and millions from those lobbyists. Please see the website cited in the last posting to see some of the Democrats who answer this description. (http://vote.wewantthepublicoption.com)
In a single payer system, all of our premiums will go to a system that is modeled after Medicare. It works. Medicare only uses 3% of its budget for administration. The typical health insurance company spends about 33% of your premium for administration. I’m sure your imagination will suggest some of the ways they waste that money on unnecessary expenses, like office space in high-priced neighborhoods, leather desk chairs, “customer service” representatives whose job it is to find a way to deny a claim, corporate jets for the CEOs, annual meetings in Cancun for the senior managers, etc., etc.
How would we pay for it? Opponents are telling you we can’t afford this “socialized medicine” – but WE ALREADY CAN’T AFFORD THE SYSTEM WE HAVE! In fact, with a single-payer system, we can identify millions – even billions - of dollars of savings over what Americans currently pay (about $500 Billion per year). And the single-payer route is the only version of health care reform that will certainly provide those enormous cost reductions. The money we DON’T pay to health insurance companies will allow us to pay for the public system and put the savings back in our pockets.
Oh, and another thing: the single-payer would be able to bargain for lower prescription drug prices, for everyone. They’d have high volume purchasing power. So your Aunt Hattie wouldn’t have to choose between her heart medicine and groceries.
Socialized medicine indeed. How about medicine whose priority is taking care of the members of our society, not putting money in the pockets of high society?
I’ll put my money into a single-payer system any day. Suppose half of the uninsured gave $1 each to help fund primary opponents of Democrats who backed away from securing good health care for all. $23 million could make a difference, I’m guessing.
Do you think they’d listen to $23 million? Disgusting, isn’t it?
Jacque
Monday, July 13, 2009
Socialized Medicine?
Part I - Socialized Medicine?
WE can’t overstate how tired we are of hearing complaints about health care reform that use the jingoistic phrase “socialized medicine” -- as if the changes we might see would amount to living in a totalitarian, communist state! So let’s start from this point: this is not a slippery slope to communism. The rest of the industrialized world’s democracies have already discovered that people have an absolutely essential need, and a right, to good health care, just like they need highways, fire departments, sewage systems, and public education.
In fact, the single-payer proposals floating around out there are so American. They all involve the patient freedoms so beloved by us. What we want is the freedom to choose our caregivers; what labs we go to for mammograms or blood work; whether we want to pay a little extra for a private room in the hospital; and where we’ll fill our prescriptions (as determined by our doctors, not our insurance companies!).
The health industry lobbies would have us believe that a single-payer system would put a “bureaucrat” between us and our doctors. That’s ridiculous! A single-payer system would actually LIBERATE many of us who are now tied to “networks” of “preferred providers.” Ask your friends how many of them have had to switch doctors because their health insurance carrier changed networks. You’ll also find many who ended up paying extra for lab work because some insurance company drone got between them and a lab that used to be IN NETWORK without bothering to adequately inform them of the change -- BEFORE they were sent for doctor ordered blood work!
Doctors won’t work for the government. They’ll be free to work for YOU! All that changes is how they get paid. Instead of having 10 billing clerks to figure out the complexities and dodges of 1900 different payers, they’ll need 1 to send the paperwork to a single payer.
Do you work for a company that provides health insurance? Lucky you. But what if you don’t get coverage for the treatments or procedures or prescriptions your doctor thinks you need? What choice do you have? Virtually none! You can opt out of the company plan, but you won’t get a raise with the company’s savings, to help you pay for a private plan. Besides which, a private plan with reasonable coverage would cost you big bucks, especially if you arrive with a pre-existing condition -- which they probably won’t cover.
A single-payer plan also won’t exclude coverage for mental health, dental or vision care.
The hospitals won’t be controlled by the government either. They, too, would experience tremendous savings in the outrageously high cost they now have in their billing departments. That money could be spent on more nurses and aides on inpatient floors; more outpatient care for follow up visits; or extending your stay enough to make sure your stitches are healing, your pacemaker is working, or your baby isn’t jaundiced.
There’s more to this story… the lies you’re being fed about waiting too long for treatment, the lies about how we’ll need a gigantic tax increase to pay for this… we’ll take on those issues in the next posting. For now, listen to what Congressman (and Majority Whip) Jim Clyburn has to say about the political realities of this urgent and necessary reform process (click the video below, then come back to our blog):
To help influence those reluctant Democrats, check out this website:
http://vote.wewantthepublicoption.com/
Jacque
WE can’t overstate how tired we are of hearing complaints about health care reform that use the jingoistic phrase “socialized medicine” -- as if the changes we might see would amount to living in a totalitarian, communist state! So let’s start from this point: this is not a slippery slope to communism. The rest of the industrialized world’s democracies have already discovered that people have an absolutely essential need, and a right, to good health care, just like they need highways, fire departments, sewage systems, and public education.
In fact, the single-payer proposals floating around out there are so American. They all involve the patient freedoms so beloved by us. What we want is the freedom to choose our caregivers; what labs we go to for mammograms or blood work; whether we want to pay a little extra for a private room in the hospital; and where we’ll fill our prescriptions (as determined by our doctors, not our insurance companies!).
The health industry lobbies would have us believe that a single-payer system would put a “bureaucrat” between us and our doctors. That’s ridiculous! A single-payer system would actually LIBERATE many of us who are now tied to “networks” of “preferred providers.” Ask your friends how many of them have had to switch doctors because their health insurance carrier changed networks. You’ll also find many who ended up paying extra for lab work because some insurance company drone got between them and a lab that used to be IN NETWORK without bothering to adequately inform them of the change -- BEFORE they were sent for doctor ordered blood work!
Doctors won’t work for the government. They’ll be free to work for YOU! All that changes is how they get paid. Instead of having 10 billing clerks to figure out the complexities and dodges of 1900 different payers, they’ll need 1 to send the paperwork to a single payer.
Do you work for a company that provides health insurance? Lucky you. But what if you don’t get coverage for the treatments or procedures or prescriptions your doctor thinks you need? What choice do you have? Virtually none! You can opt out of the company plan, but you won’t get a raise with the company’s savings, to help you pay for a private plan. Besides which, a private plan with reasonable coverage would cost you big bucks, especially if you arrive with a pre-existing condition -- which they probably won’t cover.
A single-payer plan also won’t exclude coverage for mental health, dental or vision care.
The hospitals won’t be controlled by the government either. They, too, would experience tremendous savings in the outrageously high cost they now have in their billing departments. That money could be spent on more nurses and aides on inpatient floors; more outpatient care for follow up visits; or extending your stay enough to make sure your stitches are healing, your pacemaker is working, or your baby isn’t jaundiced.
There’s more to this story… the lies you’re being fed about waiting too long for treatment, the lies about how we’ll need a gigantic tax increase to pay for this… we’ll take on those issues in the next posting. For now, listen to what Congressman (and Majority Whip) Jim Clyburn has to say about the political realities of this urgent and necessary reform process (click the video below, then come back to our blog):
To help influence those reluctant Democrats, check out this website:
http://vote.wewantthepublicoption.com/
Jacque
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