Sunday, June 10, 2007

More on solutions

A while back I posted about some solutions to Americas problems. The first dealt with politicians and our political system. Now I'd like to take a wack at health care.
When Ron (the slasher) took office in the early eighties he deregulated and privatized the health care industries. Something that should not have been done. Prior to his mighty pen strokes insurance companies and hospitals were non profit. Medical care was still pricey but within reach of most Americans. A trip to the emergency room was not going to bankrupt you and the poor got service even in private hospitals. We now have a system that provides service only to those that can afford it even with insurance coverage. See if this sounds familiar, you have insurance but you can't afford to use it. (Been there done that.) What does this mean? It means that your income is below the average for your area (city or state) your deductible (the amount you must pay before the insurance kicks in) is so high it would destroy your budget, so in essence you have no insurance. There used to be programs to help financially if you were poor or even lower middle class. Those days are long gone. The coffers for grants or assistance have been eliminated or are dry.

Some ideas
1. Re-regulate the insurance companies make them non profit.
2. Make at least one hospital in a city non profit.
3. Eliminate the layers of administration.
4. Insurance companies should not dictate medical procedures. If they have questions on a medicine or treatment it should be decided by a board of doctors not some bean counters.
5. Small neighborhood clinics should be federally subsidized to prevent larger medical emergencies.
6. Eliminate separate malpractice insurance. Make one fund covering all doctors nationwide. There should be enough in that fund to cover any situation and substantially lower the premiums for all doctors.
7. Drugs - Why is it that you can buy the exact same drugs made here in the U.S. in Canada or Mexico for less than what they're sold for here? It used to be that drug companies added a mark up on their common drugs to pay for research and development and orphan drugs. Eliminate drug advertising. Most people don't need the pills advertised and there are usually generics that will do just as well.
8. Exercise - From K to 12 schools should have phys ed twice per week and encourage sports. I've never seen so many heart attacks in high schools and colleges. Maybe a tax on junk food is in order.
9. Roll back the tax cuts for the wealthy. Most CEOs make four to five hundred times what workers make.
10. Set up a healthcare plan exactly like the one congress has. I'd say that's fair. Why should they have a good system when 47 million have no medical.

1 comment:

pygalgia said...

Nice post, very well thought out. But it's not going to happen. The lobbyists would kill this plan before it even got debated. They didn't buy all those congress-critters for nothing.