If they can figure it out....
Also see: Slow Saturday Special: Single Payer Op
"A singular solution for healthcare" by Judy Norsigian and Jennifer Potter | June 15, 2009
A single-payer healthcare system would more effectively control costs than any other plan that Congress is considering as it moves toward a reform bill. And by controlling costs, existing resources could be allocated more equitably, especially for the benefit of women.
Related: Happy Mother's Day
First, single-payer plans eliminate the $300 billion to $400 billion that insurance companies spend annually in administrative overhead and waste. Second, single-payer plans are best positioned to take on the enormous challenge of reducing or eliminating the financial incentives that have led to so much overtreatment and undertreatment.
Maternity care illustrates this phenomenon: We spend far more per capita than any other industrialized country and yet do worse on most birth outcome measures than most of these other countries. So-called best practices - medical practices already demonstrated to improve outcomes - are well described in the medical literature, but they are not widely implemented, even though doing so would lower costs and improve the health of mothers and babies.
And yet our infant mortality rate stinks!!!!
For example, nearly one-third of all US women deliver their babies by caesarean section, a rate that is far higher than medically necessary. One of the reasons is that most obstetricians and hospitals are paid far more for a surgical delivery than for a vaginal birth. Such incentives not only raise costs, but ironically often produce worse health outcomes.
But we luuuuvvvvs our women in AmeriKa, and will lecture the whole world about it!
By reducing the ability of for-profit companies to siphon off huge sums of money for private gain, a single payer system is better able to expand best practices. Why? Because the motivations to over-treat those who are well-insured and to undertreat those with limited or no insurance coverage will no longer be built into the medical care system. Women in particular have much to gain from single-payer healthcare....
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The only national plan for healthcare reform that explicitly includes women's reproductive health services, including abortion, is one sponsored by Representative Barbara Lee, a California Democrat. Other sponsors of single-payer plans are also amenable to including women's reproductive health services.
But I DON'T WANT ABORTION covered!
You can LEAVE THAT BABY-MURDERING MACHINE PRIVATE!
Why in AmeriKa does being a woman = abortion rights? Why is that?
What DIVISIVE AGENDA-PUSHERS are pushing that "right?"
Medical debt is an enormous concern for many women, and single-payer plans effectively address the cost issues that send women into debt and even bankruptcy....
No, no, no, you got it wrong. Only Mulsims do that to their women.
Under Rep. John Conyers' single-payer bill, a family of four making the median income of $56,200 would pay about $2,700 in payroll tax for all health care costs - with no deductibles or copays or concerns about catastrophic costs.
Yeah, Conyers, right: Democrats Drop Contempt Citations Against Bush Administration
Since a single-payer plan may be the only approach that will successfully contain costs, it was a good sign that Congress finally held hearings on a single-payer system last week.
Oooh, I'm all hard because Congress had a show hearing thinking it would shut us up.
Although many progressive members of Congress now support a proposal that includes a "public insurance option" as an alternative to private insurance industry plans, numerous critiques demonstrate how this approach could fail. Unless designed to mirror the effective Medicare system - by automatically enrolling the majority of the population and using Medicare's cost control levers - the public option will not be affordable for all.
When polled, a majority of physicians as well as the public support a single-payer plan. For example, a 2007 AP-
A whopping 65 percent said yes to that question. By political standards, this is a landslide. It is time for Congress to pay attention to the voters, not the well-funded lobbyists.
Judy Norsigian is executive director of Our Bodies Ourselves. Jennifer Potter, MD, is director of the Women's Health Center at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and director of women's health at Fenway Health.Those aren't "radicals" like yours truly, are they, readers?
--more--"
Here is why we need one:
"Facing down the private insurance industry" by Robert Kuttner | June 4, 2009
The US healthcare system is the most expensive and least cost-effective in the advanced world mainly because private insurance companies waste about 25 cents on the dollar on claims, profits, administration, and marketing. They have no serious financial incentives to emphasize prevention, and every possible incentive to avoid sick people. Doctors and hospitals, meanwhile, make their money from increasing costs.
Other countries get better results at lower cost because a universal system naturally emphasizes wellness and prevention, and spends its money on the most cost-effective treatments, not the most expensive ones. Every nation faces similar inflationary pressures because of advances in technology and an aging population; but other advanced countries, using single-payer systems, do a fine job of covering everyone for 10 percent of gross domestic product or less, while we spend upwards of 15 percent and leave out nearly 50 million souls and under-insure tens of millions more.
I rest my case.
I would much rather see Obama battling for public health insurance, making it clear to Americans that the obstacle to real reform is the private health insurance industry. That, however, is not the president we have....
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Not at all: What are Obama’s investments in biotech companies apparently developing the “bird” and “swine” flu vaccine?
Related: Governments Starting Swine Flu Slaughter
Norman B. Goodman, chief executive of Signature Healthcare Brockton Hospital who has headed Brockton's second-largest employer since 1990, earned $950,780 in compensation and benefits and had a $26,000 expense account, according to records filed in 2007, the most recent year available.
--more--"
Yup, YOUR HEALTH CARE DOLLARS at WORK, 'murka!!!!
And the Globe MAKES IT CLEAR: NO CHOICE!!!!
"single-payer system with no choices.... country will be left with a single-payer system and consumers would be left without choices."
We DON'T HAVE THEM NOW!!!!!!
"Health debate shifting to public vs. private" by Lisa Wangsness, Globe Staff | June 21, 2009
WASHINGTON - The major stumbling block for the weeks ahead will be whether to create a new public insurance option to compete with private insurers.
Underscoring the delicate politics involved, after working for the better part of a year to find a compromise, the Democratic leaders of both Senate committees in charge of healthcare were still scrambling last week to determine whether enough support existed to create a public option....
F*** your "public option" rip-off.
As the American Medical Association made abundantly clear to Obama last week, doctors and hospitals would fight such a plan because they believe they would be underpaid. Insurers argue they could not possibly survive competition with such a powerful competitor, especially since doctors and hospitals would presumably try to compensate by charging private insurers more. (“Cost-shifting,’’ most health policy gurus agree, is already happening - Medicare and Medicaid underpay, so providers overcharge private plans, which drives up their premiums.)
Republicans, and many moderate Democrats, say a strong public option would let the hand of government reach too far into yet another industry. They fear that if the private insurance industry collapses, the country will be left with a single-payer system and consumers would be left without choices.
“A government-run plan would dismantle employer-based coverage, add additional liabilities to the federal budget, and turn back the clock on efforts to improve the quality and safety of patient care,’’ said Robert Zirkelbach, a spokesman for America’s Health Insurance Plans, the health insurance lobby, in a statement Friday after House Democrats unveiled their plan.
In a struggle to find a compromise, a parade of alternatives is emerging. One is a so-called weak public option.... Organized at the state level, a weak public option would operate much like self-insured state employee plans: It could still take advantage of its size to negotiate for lower rates, and, unlike most private insurers, it would not have to earn a profit.
Related: Boston Globe Omissions: Hiding Health Care Failure
Another version of a weak public option might mirror the Massachusetts Commonwealth Care program, where a government entity chooses private insurers through a bidding process to offer insurance products for the uninsured to buy through a state or national exchange.
No, you don't want what we have, AmeriKa:
Why the Nation Doesn't Need Massachusetts Health Care
Related: The Boston Globe Shuts Off Its Spotlight
But moderate Republicans do not want the government to be involved at all. So North Dakota Democrat Kent Conrad has stepped forward with another alternative to a public option. His proposal, which the Senate Finance Committee is on the verge of embracing, would allow for government-chartered but privately run nonprofit insurance cooperatives.
The basic idea would be to have the federal government provide start-up money but then let community governing boards take over, designing insurance products and negotiating with providers. The boards would also assume the risk, like any other insurance company....
--more--"I'm getting tired of the ignorance, censorship, insults, and lies on EVERY ISSUE, aren't you? It is IMPACTING my HEALTH!!!
"Weighing an ounce of healthcare prevention" by Terry L. Schraeder | July 6, 2009
IN ALL the ways the Obama administration and others are proposing to cut healthcare costs, including a single-payer option, limiting malpractice claims, and increased use and uniformity of electronic medical records, there is one that everyone - patients and doctors both - can utilize immediately: preventative health.
Ummm, duh! You smart guys just finding that out?
Related: Doctor's Note
I am not suggesting that if we just took better care of ourselves we would eliminate the need for a medical profession, but preventing illness has always been less expensive and more effective than trying to treat it. And the biggest threats to our health are largely preventable....
Obesity is wearing out our joints and our pancreases. Smoking is weakening our hearts and our lungs. Overconsumption of fat, salt, alcohol, caffeine, sugar, and processed foods and underconsumption of fruits, vegetables, and healthy meats and grains are wreaking havoc with our human physiology.
Related: State Screams Fatso at Massachusetts Kids
The medical system can no longer afford us the luxury of plopping down in front of our doctors and just saying “fix me.’’ Every day we consume twice as many calories as we need. We expect the dollars and the drugs will always be available to help us.
Next thing you know they will be telling us food stamps make you fat.
Even this allegedly sympathetic opinion is couching and pushing the globalist agenda. Time to get rid of you useless eaters, huh?
As individuals and as a society, why are we such numbskulls when it comes to applying our world-class medical knowledge (as well as our dwindling wealth) to simply repairing the damage from our lifestyle choices? We need to put our resources toward public health research, healthcare delivery, environmental studies, and research to combat other, less preventable diseases - all the while taking better care of ourselves.
We would save money if doctors wrote more prescriptions for healthy lifestyles and fewer prescriptions for drugs to try to just “clean up the mess.’’
I TOTALLY AGREE!!!
This preventative approach is also true for our society at large with respect to community gardens, safe areas to walk and bike, and limiting environmental hazards.
How about ENDING the WARS? Wouldn't that also help?
Here’s a start - instead of a bag of chips, grab a banana or an apple. Cut your portion size and your processed food intake in half and eat slower.
Tell it to the elites, will ya? Oh, you are one of them.
Walk to lunch or coordinate an exercise program at work. Take the family out for a jog or bike ride after dinner. Find the stairs instead of the elevator. Limit the double espresso lattes. And save $4,000 this year (as well as your heart and lungs) by quitting the cigarettes. Your next visit to the doctor could be a well-checkup instead of another bottle of pills or a trip to the operating room.
Maybe an ounce of prevention will really be worth a pound or (billions of dollars) of cure.
Dr. Terry L. Schraeder is an internist and clinical assistant professor at Warren Alpert School of Medicine at Brown University.
Another "radical."
--more--"Oh, I'm sure prevention is a great idea (except in cases of aggressive war); nevertheless, the self-serving, agenda-pushing Globe thinks it is a stoopid-idea for health:
"Healthy examples; Plenty of countries get healthcare right" by Jonathan Cohn | July 5, 2009
Healthcare in America will start to look like healthcare overseas. Yes, maybe everybody will have insurance. But people will have to wait in long lines. And when they are done waiting in line, the care won’t be very good.
Isn't it nice that the "liberal" Boston Globe's idea sounds exactly like what those icky Repuglicans are saying? The HYPOCRITICAL STENCH of CHUTZPAH is GAGGING!!!!
Typically the people making these arguments are basing their analysis on one of two countries, Canada and England, where such descriptions hold at least some truth.
Did you WATCH Sicko, readers?
What a -- sorry, blogger's tourettes -- FUCKING LIE, shit!!!!!!!!!
Although the people in both countries receive pretty good healthcare - their citizens do better than Americans in many important respects - they are also subjected to longer waits for specialty care and tighter limits on some advanced treatments.
I give up, readers. You know what you are reading. Can't you smell it?
But no serious politician is talking about recreating either the British or the Canadian system here.
And THAT is why the APPROVAL RATINGS are CAVING!!
Of course, WE ALREADY DESPISED the BUTT-PROPPING CONGRESS!!!!
The British have truly “socialized medicine,” in which the government directly employs most doctors. The Canadians have one of the world’s most centralized “single-payer” systems, in which the government insures everybody directly and private insurance has virtually no role.
Yeah, that's why they want to keep coverage when they come down here.
A better understanding for how universal healthcare might work in America would come from other countries - countries whose insurance architecture and medical cultures more closely resemble the framework we’d likely create here. Last year, I had the opportunity to spend time researching two of these countries: France and the Netherlands. Neither country gets the attention that Canada and England do....
If this s***ter lies about France I'm gonna hit the roof!
They don’t fit the negative stereotypes of life in countries where government is more directly involved in medical care. Over the course of a month, I spoke to just about everybody I could find who might know something about these healthcare systems: Elected officials, industry leaders, scholars - plus, of course, doctors and patients. And sure enough, I heard some complaints.
I'm done with this scum, folks. I'm so tired of garbage propaganda passing itself of as "news" in "New England's largest newspaper!"
Dutch doctors, for example, thought they had too much paperwork. French public health experts thought patients with chronic disease weren’t getting the kind of sustained, coordinated medical care that they needed. But in the course of a few dozen lengthy interviews, not once did I encounter an interview subject who wanted to trade places with an American.
And THAT just about SAYS IT ALL!!!!
And it was easy enough to see why. People in these countries were getting precisely what most Americans say they want: Timely, quality care. Physicians felt free to practice medicine the way they wanted; companies got to concentrate on their lines of business, rather than develop expertise in managing health benefits.
Tired of the agenda-pushing bullshit yet?
But, in contrast with the US, everybody had insurance. The papers weren’t filled with stories of people going bankrupt or skipping medical care because they couldn’t afford to pay their bills. And they did all this while paying substantially less, overall, than we do.
But it is NOT FOR US, says the SHILL!!!
You could be forgiven for assuming that so much government control leads to Soviet-style rationing, with people waiting in long lines and clawing their way through mind-numbing bureaucracies every time they have a sore throat.
Just wondering WHY this SHIT-HEAD (damn tourettes again) started off this piece with EXACTLY THAT TONE then?!
YOU owe US an APOLOGY, fathead, for the AGENDA-PUSHING BS that made us "assume!!!!"
But, in general, both the Dutch and French appear to have easy access to basic medical care - easier access, in fact, than is the American norm. If you need the sort of attention available only at a formal medical facility, you can get that, too - without the long waits typical in US emergency rooms.
Readers?
None of this is to say that either the Dutch or French systems are perfect. Far from it.
Sigh. They are just hurting me now with the insults.
Any wonder they are tanking and I don't like reading them anymore?
In both countries, healthcare costs are rising faster than either the public - or the country’s business interests - would like....
Yeah, THAT is who is REALLY IMPORTANT -- not YOU, s***-chomping 'murkn!!!!!
The French have started to introduce some of the managed care techniques familiar to Americans, like charging patients extra if they see specialists without a referral....
And THERE GOES their system!!!
"That’s funny, congress didn’t balk at giving ten trillion dollars for a war based on lies and another ten trillion to the banks who promptly absconded with it
and
"The bill contains loopholes.... it allows lawmakers to renew most of former President George W. Bush’s tax cuts"
But cost is the one area in which France and the Netherlands are a lot like Canada and England: They all devote significantly less of their economy to healthcare than we do. The French spend around 11 percent of their gross domestic product on healthcare, the Dutch around 10. In the US, we spend around 16 percent. And, unlike in the US, the burden for paying this is distributed across society - to both individuals and businesses - in an even, predictable way.
Of course, reforming health insurance in the US isn’t going to turn this country into France or the Netherlands overnight, any more than it would turn the US into Britain and Canada. The truth is that the changes now under consideration in Washington are relatively modest, by international standards.
That is WHY the American people are SO UNHAPPY with the new man!
But insofar as countries abroad give us an idea of what could happen, eventually, if we change our health insurance arrangements, the experience of people in Amsterdam and Paris surely matters as much as - if not more than - those in Montreal and London. In those countries, government intervention has created a health system in which people seem to have the best of all worlds: convenience, quality, and affordability. There’s no reason to think the same thing couldn’t happen here.
Then WHY DID you TRASH 'em, weasel?
I guess this as close as we are going to get to an "alternative," America.
"Senators seek coverage for alternative therapies" by Michael Kranish, Globe Staff | July 24, 2009
WASHINGTON - Naturopathic doctors, herbal healers, mind-body specialists, and acupuncturists often have been scorned by the US medical establishment, but growing numbers of Americans are seeking such care, and now an influential group of US senators at the forefront of the effort to win insurance coverage for such providers as part of national healthcare legislation believes the time has come to embrace an array of alternative therapies.
I'm already a believer.
Backers of the amendment say it could save tens of billions of dollars in the long run by providing less expensive and better alternatives to drugs and surgery in a variety of cases. The amendment was adopted by a Senate committee writing health legislation, but details are still being negotiated.
With hundreds of disciplines falling under the general category of alternative medicine, and with a variety of sometimes-conflicting studies about their effectiveness, there is much disagreement about the value of including such providers in a national health insurance program. State by state, there is a wide disparity of coverage of alternative medicine....
Certain kinds of alternative medicine are considered mainstream in sectors of the Massachusetts medical field, where they are increasingly called “integrative’’ to emphasize that they are done in concert with traditional medicine, not as an alternative. At the Zakim Center for Integrative Therapies at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, traditional treatment is complemented by acupuncture and massage therapy as well as counseling on mind-body techniques to reduce stress. For example, acupuncture has proved beneficial to reduce nausea from chemotherapy, according to the center’s co-clinical director, Dr. David Rosenthal.
Yeah, and you CAN'T SMOKE POT for it, either!!!
“We have a tendency to treat drug symptoms with another drug. We are looking at trying to find nonpharmalogical approaches,’’ Rosenthal said....
Yeah, sure they are. Tell it to Big Pharma and the biotech looters!
Whatever the fate of the amendment, merely the fact that it is pushed by a number of senators has been greeted as a breakthrough by supporters of alternative medicine.
Yeah, failing = success in today's AmeriKan MSM.
Shiva Barton of Winchester, one of 50 naturopathic doctors who practice in Massachusetts said that naturopaths and other practitioners of alternative medicine are discriminated against by a system that is dominated by well-financed lobbies for medical doctors who don’t want competition.
Yes, we have KNOWN THAT for years!
Acupuncturists are also hoping for relief. Harvey Kaltsas, president emeritus of the American Association of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine, said the country could save billions of dollars by shifting care for a number of conditions away from pharmaceutical treatment and toward acupuncture....
Yup.
Proponents of alternative medicine say they cannot match the lobbying power of conventional-medicine groups, but they have been making inroads....
Dr. Herbert Benson, the Boston-based author of the popular book The Relaxation Response, said in an interview that Congress should revise the healthcare legislation to incorporate his stress-reduction techniques. Educating the public about the techniques, and hiring more trainers to implement them, would save billions of dollars, said Benson, director emeritus of the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital.
How? Outlaying money for what we all know?
He emphasized that he supports using drugs and surgery when necessary, but he said it is time to adopt national policies that focus on the need for stress reduction.
Of course, he'd make a buck off it, but.....
How about ENDING the WARS for starters?
That would REDUCE a WHOLE LOT of STRESS!!!
For more in my new series of posts on the national health care "debate" please see the most recent posts in my Health file.
Also see: Obama Cuts Defense Budget Less Than One Percent
THERE is WHERE you can GET the $$$$ for HEALTH CARE, America!!!!
