CNNPolitics.com: Health care overhaul clears divided Senate committee
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/07/15/healthcare/index.html#cnnSTCText
This article contains a message that should be very important to every American who pays taxes and could possibly need the services of a health care provider at some time in their life. The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee passed by a 13 to 10 vote a proposal to overhaul the U.S. health care system. The CBO or Congressional Budget Office estimated the proposal would cost the American taxpayers $615 billion over 10 years. Senator Mike Enzi, the committees top Republican called the proposal “a prescription to failure” and estimated the true costs to the taxpayers would be closer to $1 trillion because of a proposed expansion of the federally funded Medicaid system for low-income families. The proposal includes a government-run health insurance program that would compete with private insurance companies, requires small business, those with 25 or more employees to provide medical coverage to their workers, and sets up an “exchange” that would allow people to choose from a variety of insurance options. To get the full message contained in the article, however, the reader needs to carefully read between the lines. American Health Care is just about the best health care in the world. People of means travel from the far corners of the world to be treated for their ailments. Many of these people are coming here from countries with some form of socialized medicine because our health care system is superior to their own. Be very cautious of anything that creates any new bureaucracies. I believe there are better, more efficient ways of providing all Americans health insurance.
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4 comments:
I believe you present some interesting ideas. Let me ask you a few things though:
"people are coming here from countries with some form of socialized medicine because our health care system is superior to their own."
Do you have proof of this statement or is this an assumption? Do you know personally anyone that has come to this nation for their health?
I agree that this country has specialized doctors whom sick people would want, but is our system "the best in the world????"
I would argue not. Medicine in this country is not about sick people getting healthy, it's about the money to be made from the research, production and distribution. It's about making sure people don't stop "needing" medicine. It has become a part of our health culture.
You may have evidence to believe that people are flocking to the US for our amazing health, but personal experience says that people are flocking to Cuba and Canada for better care and cheaper medicine.
I encourage you to read my post about health care too. I do NOT advocate for Obama's plan.
I would suggest you read the articla at http://www.healthandsharing.com/21/articledetail (sorry, I could not insert a hyperlink) to fully understand how the World Health Organization, or WHO, ranks a nations health care and realize that U.S. citizens traveling to Canada and/or Cuba are doing so because of the cost of having a procedure performed in one of the aforementioned countries is “cheaper” than here in the United States, not because the health care is better.
As to you comment about “…making sure people don't stop "needing medicine. It has become a part of our health culture.” I would argue that it is about, not our health care culture, but our society seeking cures for every little thing that comes along, the U.S. population suffering from an epidemics of diabetes, asthma, and allergies, as well as that timeless search for the elusive “fountain of youth”, and of course mass media advertising that seems to promotes hypochondria… one little muscle ache must mean fibromyalgia!
Too many people in the U.S. have decided that health care is a right, and not a privilege that should have to be paid for. If you want the best you must pay for it. What’s next, Government Motors producing the “peoples’ car” and we no longer have a choice in what we drive. This may sound silly to a great many readers, but that is what the Obama Administration and the Congressional Democrats are trying to do to our health care system!
If the politicians who are pushing health care reform really want to make health insurance more affordable why not allow a tax credit that could result in a refund for up to 100% of the premiums paid for taxpayers purchasing their own individual or family health insurance plan? This would make it possible for more people to afford health insurance while choosing a plan that best suits their needs without creating another massive government bureaucracy and perpetuating the great tradition of bureaucratic inefficiency. Or would you rather have some government bureaucrat or politician making our health care insurance choices for us and then making decisions on what diagnostic tests and treatments we can or cannot have?
If you are looking for someone to blame for the high costs of health insurance you might try looking to our legal system that has driven the cost of insurance up to the current levels. The United States is one of only thirteen nations that allow attorneys to charge fees contingent upon the outcome of the civil action and in several of the other countries it is limited to a more reasonable amount than 40% of the total amount awarded. You should also know that the same insurance companies that are selling individual and group health insurance plans are also selling malpractice insurance to the doctors who have to defend themselves against the excessive awards being handed down by our juries, thus causing the doctors’ malpractice premiums to increase which causes the doctors to increase their fees thereby causing health insurance companies to increase premiums… it’s a vicious circle! And I ask you, who benefits from this? I hope you answered “the attorneys”! Plaintiff attorneys filing suit on behalf of the injured parties and defense attorneys defending the doctors and insurance companies!
I think it is worth mentioning that 26 of our 43 different presidents have held law degrees including Bill Clinton and Barack Obama? Former First Lady and NY Senator, and our current Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, also holds a law degree. At the beginning of the 109th congress in 2005, there were 58 lawyers among the 100 members of the U.S. Senate, and 172 lawyers among the 435 voting members of the U.S. House of Representatives. In 1983 66% of the states Governors were lawyers. (See pages 1143 -1144 in Encyclopedia of Law and Society by David Scott Clark)
While everyone is worrying about special interest groups and lobbyist no one mentions that the lawyer’s lobby is inherently the most powerful!
By the way, George W. Bush is not a lawyer. He is just a businessman who was elected to the office of President of the United States and then got really pissed off when Islamic Terrorist killed two thousand seven hundred forty one (2741) of his fellow Americans and two hundred thirty six (236) foreign nationals who were here as invited guest, making the total number of people killed on September 11, 2001, two thousand nine hundred seventy seven (2977), or five hundred seventy four (574) more than the total number of Americans killed on December 7th, 1941, during the surprise attacked on Pearl Harbor by the Empire of Japan.
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