dagblog - Comments for "We Were Wrong About Obamacare"

I'm one of those not

Beetlejuice — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 15:48:20 +0000

In reply to We Were Wrong About Obamacare

I'm one of those not satisfied with Obama care ... it failed to go for the first down. And I don't so much blame Obama as I do the Senate for letting their personal ideology interfere with the legislation and allowing the GOPer's carte blanc access to make it useless, open to criticism and open to funding cuts one little cut at a time to let it die a slow death.

That said, here's an interesting discussion I heard this week-end from Up with Chris Hayes and pretty much nails my opposition to the Obamacare the Senate pork machine produced.

During the discussion concerning over women's conception with Obama's new policy and religious hospitals anger over being forced to provide reproductive services that go against their religious beliefs, Mellisa Harris-Perry said the following.

" ... in order to accommodate real concerns with the ability of the faith community to practice their own faiths, heathcare and health insurance should not be provided through employers. It ought to be a right of citizenship not to an organization of workers because one's health care needs and prescriptive services should not be at the behest of their employer ... "

I've parsed to to make my point understandable. Ms. Harris-Perry eloquently says what I haven't been able to articulate. I have had multiple heathcare plans and each one is dependent on how much the employer was willing to provide. One actually provided a vision plan, but the employee had to pay both the employer and employee fee for the service. Furthermore, there have been a number of recent news reports where employees of religious-based entities have had issues over employee rights with the court system refusing to get involved with the state refereeing an employee vs religious institution.

That said, Obamacare doesn't address the fundamental issue ... removing a disinterested party from the personal healthcare process of citizens. And employers have no skin in the game since back in the day when Ford Motor Company was mass producing autos off assembly lines, they forced the government to back off considering government health care because it would be cheaper for businesses to provide their own.

Too bad the Democrats didn't compare the multiple heathcare plans on the market, both group and individual, and their costs with one comprehensive universal plan laying out what services would be available and the cost to each citizen. That may have turned the tide in UHC's favor by the public.

BTW ... here's the url to the discussion I have used. The talking-point I used is found at the 15:25 mark.

url : http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3096434/#46271969

I suppose what I describe is

Flavius — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 14:50:57 +0000

In reply to Flavius, Isn't this what

I suppose what I describe is a small part of what Obama has in mind.

By accident I had a concrete example as I sat with one of New York's Best Doctors and he was handicapped by the lack of information sitting on pieces of paper in my files.

I'm certainly open to the charge that I am being overly optimistic about the impact of such a specific improvement and that health care costs can only be reduced by some major change. Rationing is usually evoked.

Maybe true. Or maybe the solution is a "cocktail" : a composite of measures rather than one major change. So major that it will clearly never be made and therefore we're told to just give up and let the poor die on the door step of the locked Emergency rooms.

Obama isn't talking about shrinking our medical costs but about bending the cost curve.Seems like a reasonable approach.

Flavius, Isn't this what

Aunt Sam — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 05:08:51 +0000

In reply to As Arrow suggested 50 years

Flavius, Isn't this what Obama keeps talking about, a central data bank that medical professionals can utilize (from password patient delivers)?

Have you given any thought to doing a blog about ideas for a positive healthcare system? hint.

I say we choose someone and

Aunt Sam — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 04:19:35 +0000

In reply to Auntie, That is a damn good

I say we choose someone and harangue them until it's posted!

Auntie, That is a damn good

tmccarthy0 — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 04:05:45 +0000

In reply to tmac, Why is it that

Auntie,

That is a damn good question, I would love an answer, but I sure don't have one. You are right though, that would be an excellent subject for a blog!

As Arrow suggested 50 years

Flavius — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 03:53:30 +0000

In reply to Yes, we are always going to

As Arrow suggested 50 years ago and Dean Baker last week, we could train more doctors, immigrants if necessary and even under the good old market economy some of them would charge less in order to get market share.

Even under the exchanges and no public option system ..........

o procedures costing over X should automatically be elevated for review. You don't really need the MRI of the week.

o every blood test should go into your personal history. Charted.

Usually if a specific result is abnormal the last score is also reported. But just the last test. A hematologist looked at one of my counts two weeks ago and said he really wished he had more history.

I did. At home on pieces of paper.

From which I extracted the data ,charted it and sent it to him..

Seems to me that besides being alerted when one of my specific items went abnormal it would have been more than merely interesting information if a chart showed what was in fact the case that over a couple of years and a number of tests that count for that item had been trending directly towards the abnormal score it reached last week. But for that to happen somebody had to have had it assigned.

Or the world wasn't

Flavius — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 03:21:17 +0000

In reply to I think maybe a sports

the world wasn't created yesterday

Mary McCarthy.

I wish I said it, but she did.

The waiting lines argument

Flavius — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 03:19:25 +0000

In reply to Yeah, right - my wife went

The waiting lines argument had its day in the sun under the reign of the good queen Maggie.

Somehow when I thought of her my mind went to Non sum qualis eram bonae etc. etc. "things are not as they used to be under the reign of the good queen Cynara" .Resurrected by Cole Porter,naturally , as

"I'm always true to you darlin in my fashion"

She created lines in the NHS and talking points for the AMA. I had at least one daughter living in London from 1980 to 2010 so I was kept posted as Maggie's waiting lists went from days, to weeks, to years, to forget it. And were then reversed during the Blair/Brown epoch..

If she hadn't wanted there to be lines , there wouldn't have been.Since there were, she did.

......................................................................................................................

Hadn't realized that Avishai had bruised so many feelings here. Probably he feels the same way and whines about the liberals' circular firing squad.

. I'm reminded of the final line of a Henry Green novel

And the next day they all went on the same

Cheers.

Yes, we are always going to

Dan Kervick — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 03:08:35 +0000

In reply to I believe that as more

Yes, we are always going to have to make morally difficult decisions on what percentage of our total resources to spend on health care. Health care is a finite good; and it always costs something to produce. And there will always be expensive new technologies expanding the boundaries of existing capabilities. Al we can ask is that the care options that exist at any one time be distributed equitably, and that we do what we can to limit the waste and inefficiency that can gum up the delivery of what health care goods we happen to posses - especially the inefficiencies that come from granting extravagant rewards to some of those who work in the delivery system.

A public option for delivering health care would be an excellent way to get the public foot in the door, and to begin to drive down costs, by forcing private sector providers to compete with lower-cost, not-for-profit public alternatives.

tmac, Why is it that

Aunt Sam — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 02:45:00 +0000

In reply to Wow, well said AA, thanks for

tmac,

Why is it that everyone thinks that we would have to mimic Canada or other nation's programs? I would hope we would learn the good, bad and ugly about these and 'design' a better process. Now there's a blog that needs to be done (IMHO).