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Getbig Main Boards => Politics and Political Issues Board => Topic started by: Benny B on May 11, 2009, 02:47:28 PM
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May 11, 2009
The President The White House Washington, D.C. 20500
Dear Mr. President:
We believe that all Americans should have access to affordable, high quality health care services. Thus, we applaud your strong commitment to reforming our nation’s health care system. The times demand and the nation expects that we, as health care leaders, work with you to reform the health care system.
The annual growth in national health expenditures—including public and private spending—is projected by government actuaries to average 6.2% through the next decade. At that rate, the percent of gross domestic product spent on health care would increase from 17.6% this year to 20.3% in 2018—higher than any other country in the world.
We are determined to work together to provide quality, affordable coverage and access for every American. It is critical, however, that health reform also enhance quality, improve the overall health of the population, and reduce cost growth. We believe that the proper approach to achieve and sustain reduced cost growth is one that will: improve the population's health; continuously improve quality; encourage the advancement of medical treatments, approaches, and science; streamline administration; and encourage efficient care delivery based on evidence and best practice.
To achieve all of these goals, we have joined together in an unprecedented effort, as private sector stakeholders—physicians, hospitals, other health care workers, payors, suppliers, manufacturers, and organized labor—to offer concrete initiatives that will transform the health care system. As restructuring takes hold and the population's health improves over the coming decade, we will do our part to achieve your Administration’s goal of decreasing by 1.5 percentage points the annual health care spending growth rate—saving $2 trillion or more. This represents more than a 20% reduction in the projected rate of growth. We believe this approach can be highly successful and can help the nation to achieve the reform goals we all share.
To respond to this challenge, we are developing consensus proposals to reduce the rate of increase in future health and insurance costs through changes made in all sectors of the health care system. We are committed to taking action in public-private partnership to create a more stable and sustainable health care system that will achieve billions in savings through:
• Implementing proposals in all sectors of the health care system, focusing on administrative simplification, standardization, and transparency that supports effective markets;
•Reducing over-use and under-use of health care by aligning quality and efficiency incentives among providers across the continuum of care so that physicians, hospitals, and other health care providers are encouraged and enabled to work together towards the highest standards of quality and efficiency;
•Encouraging coordinated care, both in the public and private sectors, and adherence to evidence-based best practices and therapies that reduce hospitalization, manage chronic disease more efficiently and effectively, and implement proven clinical prevention strategies; and,
•Reducing the cost of doing business by addressing cost drivers in each sector and through common sense improvements in care delivery models, health information technology, workforce deployment and development, and regulatory reforms.
These and other reforms will make our health care system stronger and more sustainable. However, there are many important factors driving health care costs that are beyond the control of the delivery system alone. Billions in savings can be achieved through a large-scale national effort of health promotion and disease prevention to reduce the prevalence of chronic disease and poor health status, which leads to unnecessary sickness and higher health costs. Reform should include a specific focus on obesity prevention commensurate with the scale of the problem. These initiatives are crucial to transform health care in America and to achieve our goal of reducing the rate of growth in health costs.
We, as stakeholder representatives, are committed to doing our part to make reform a reality in order to make the system more affordable and effective for patients and purchasers. We stand ready to work with you to accomplish this goal.
Sincerely,
Stephen J. Ubl President and CEO Advanced Medical Technology Association
J. James Rohack, MD President-elect American Medical Association
Karen Ignagni Billy Tauzin President and CEO President and CEO America’s Health Insurance Plans
Rich Umbdenstock President & CEO, American Hospital Association (AHA)
Dennis Rivera President and CEO Chair, SEIU Healthcare
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May 11, 2009
Today the President hosted a meeting that marked one of the most promising signs for health reform to date, and not only because the topic was saving more than $2 trillion on health care costs. Representatives from hospitals, the insurance industry, medical device and pharmaceutical companies, labor and physicians came to the White House to discuss major steps being taken to lower health care costs across the board. The President explained the significance of having so many diverse stakeholders at the table:
And that's what makes today's meeting so remarkable -- because it's a meeting that might not have been held just a few years ago. The groups who are here today represent different constituencies with different sets of interests. They've not always seen eye to eye with each other or with our government on what needs to be done to reform health care in this country. In fact, some of these groups were among the strongest critics of past plans for comprehensive reform.
But what's brought us all together today is a recognition that we can't continue down the same dangerous road we've been traveling for so many years; that costs are out of control; and that reform is not a luxury that can be postponed, but a necessity that cannot wait. It's a recognition that the fictional television couple, Harry and Louise, who became the iconic faces of those who opposed health care reform in the '90s, desperately need health care reform in 2009. And so does America.
In short, the coalition has agreed to reduce the annual health care spending growth rate by 1.5 percentage points for the next 10 years, a change that could result in savings of roughly $2,500 for American families. Some of the changes the coalition is working on, explained fully in the fact sheet, include:
· Improving Care after Hospitalizations and Reduce Hospital Readmission Rates.
· Reducing Medicare Overpayments to Private Insurers through Competitive Payments.
· Reducing Drug Prices.
· Improving Medicare and Medicaid Payment Accuracy.
· Expanding the Hospital Quality Improvement Program.
The President closed his remarks making clear that this was just the beginning, and certainly no stopgap measure: "So the steps that are being announced today are significant. But the only way these steps will have an enduring impact is if they are taken not in isolation, but as part of a broader effort to reform our entire health care system." And while so much debate over politics and policy can get lost in the mire of facts and figured, the President made clear that his focus is squarely on one thing:
Ultimately, the debate about reducing costs -- and the larger debate about health care reform itself -- is not just about numbers; it's not just about forms or systems; it's about our own lives and the lives of our loved ones. And I understand that. As I've mentioned before during the course of the campaign, my mother passed away from ovarian cancer a little over a decade ago. And in the last weeks of her life, when she was coming to grips with her own mortality and showing extraordinary courage just to get through each day, she was spending too much time worrying about whether her health insurance would cover her bills. So I know what it's like to see a loved one who is suffering, but also having to deal with a broken health care system. I know that pain is shared by millions of Americans all across this country.
Today is a hopeful day.
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Yeah I missed where this is in the Constitution. End of thread.
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The President gives remarks after hosting what was a remarkable health reform meeting, both for the $2 trillion in national savings that was discussed, and for the stakeholders in attendance. May 11, 2009
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Coming Together to Bring Down the Cost of Health Care
Fact Sheet
RISING HEALTH CARE COSTS ARE BURDENING FAMILIES, BUSINESSES, GOVERNMENTS, AND THE ECONOMY: For years, rising health care costs have been a burden on families, businesses, and the entire economy. Since 2000, health insurance premiums have almost doubled and health care premiums have grown three times faster than wages. These rising costs have eroded the financial stability of all Americans as families have had to pay more for insurance coverage; have been exposed to a greater risk of personal bankruptcy as deductibles and co-payments increase; and have seen their actual benefits decrease as employers search for ways to rein in escalating health care costs. As families and businesses have struggled with these rising costs, states have also been forced to cut back on investments in areas that are critical to long-term prosperity such as higher education and infrastructure. Overall, health care is consuming an ever-increasing amount of our nation’s resources: at the current rate, health care will eat up more than 20 percent of GDP in 2018. Reforming health care is the key to restoring financial stability for American families and businesses and for securing our fiscal future.
THE TIME TO ACT IS NOW: For too long, politics and point-scoring have prevented our country from tackling this growing crisis. As we work our way out of an economic and financial crisis of historic proportions, the American people are eager to put the old Washington ways behind them and put us on a steady path toward a patient-centered health care system that reduces costs, preserves an individual’s choice of doctor and plan and assures quality, affordable health care for every American.
HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY LEADERS ARE NOW PLEDGING TO MAKE A MAJOR REDUCTION IN COST GROWTH AS PART OF COMPREHENSIVE HEALTH REFORM: Today, we are seeing the beginning of a change for the future as a wide array of leaders in the health care field – insurance companies, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, medical device manufacturers, and providers – have come forward with a proposal that could save the country $2 trillion over the next 10 years. They are proposing to take aggressive steps to cut health care costs that, if done in the context of comprehensive health reform, will reduce the annual health care spending growth rate by 1.5 percentage points for the next 10 years. As they take the steps they have outlined and as we work with Congress on health reform legislation, our Administration will continue its commitment to reducing costs so we can achieve similar savings. Working together, these initial steps, combined with enactment of comprehensive health reform, could result in savings of roughly $2,500 for American families – savings consistent with the President’s statements on the campaign trail. These are savings every American family will see - and that will benefit our country for years to come. These are important steps toward comprehensive health care reform both for the savings identified and the improvements these efforts will make to health care delivery in our country. Moreover, if groups as disparate as – AHIP, AMA, AHA, PhRMA, SEIU, and AdvaMed – can come together around the cause of cost-cutting and greater affordability, the possibility for fundamental reform in the weeks ahead is great.
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HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY LEADERS ARE JOINING WITH THE ADMINISTRATION TO IMPROVE EFFICIENCY AND QUALITY. Controlling spending is about more than just saving money, it must be about ensuring that we provide the best patient-centered health care system that promotes health and prevents illness. As we do this, we need to reform our payment system to promote efficiency and accountability while we eliminate waste and cost shifting; align incentives toward quality care and healthy outcomes; encourage shared responsibility; reduce fraud and abuse; build the base of information to undertake future program modernization; address the underlying causes of unnecessary health care spending; and encourage care coordination, prevention, and other services that are found to promote high quality, efficient health care.
THE ADMINISTRATION WILL BUILD UPON ITS BUDGET PROPOSALS TO ACHIEVE SAVINGS IN MEDICARE AND MEDICAID. In the President’s FY 2010 Budget and the Recovery Act, there are policy proposals that will improve the efficiency and quality of the Medicare and Medicaid programs while reducing average annual spending growth and extending the life of the Medicare Trust Fund. The Budget proposals aim to align incentives toward quality, promote efficiency and accountability, and encourage shared responsibility. These proposals include:
• Improving Care after Hospitalizations and Reduce Hospital Readmission Rates. Nearly 18 percent of hospitalizations of Medicare beneficiaries are the result of the readmission of patients who had been discharged from the hospital within the previous 30 days. Sometimes the readmission could not have been prevented, but many of these readmissions are avoidable with better discharge planning and follow-up care. To improve this situation, hospitals will receive bundled payments that cover not just the hospitalization, but care for the 30 days after the hospitalization. Hospitals with high rates of readmission will be paid less if patients are re-admitted to the hospital within the same 30-day period. This combination of incentives and penalties should lead to better care after a hospital stay and result in fewer readmissions – saving roughly $25 billion of wasted money over 10 years.
• Reducing Medicare Overpayments to Private Insurers through Competitive Payments. Under current law, Medicare overpays Medicare Advantage plans by 14 percent more on average than what Medicare spends for beneficiaries enrolled in the traditional fee-for-service program. The Budget proposes to replace the current mechanism to establish payments with a competitive system in which payments would be based upon an average of plans’ bids submitted to Medicare. This would allow the market, not Medicare, to set the reimbursement limits, and save taxpayers more than $177 billion over 10 years, as well as reduce Part B premiums.
• Reducing Drug Prices. The Administration proposed accelerating access to make affordable biologic drugs available through the establishment of a regulatory, scientific, and legal pathway for FDA approval of generic versions of biologic drugs. The Budget also proposed bringing down the drug costs of Medicaid by increasing the Medicaid drug rebate for brand-name drugs from 15.1 percent to 22.1 percent of the Average Manufacturer Price, applying the additional rebate to new drug formulations, and allowing States to collect rebates on drugs provided through Medicaid managed care organizations.
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• Improving Medicare and Medicaid Payment Accuracy. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has labeled Medicare as “high risk” due to billions of dollars lost to overpayments and fraud each year. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will address vulnerabilities presented by Medicare and Medicaid, including Medicare Advantage and the prescription drug benefit (Part D). CMS will be able to respond more rapidly to emerging program integrity vulnerabilities across these programs through an increased capacity to identify excessive payments and new processes for identifying and correcting problems.
• Expanding the Hospital Quality Improvement Program. The health care system tends to pay for quantity of services not quality. Experts have recommended that hospitals and doctors be paid based on delivering high quality care, or what is called “pay for performance.” The President’s Budget will link a portion of Medicare payments for acute in-patient hospital services to hospitals’ performance on specific quality measures. This program will improve the quality of care delivered to Medicare beneficiaries, and save over $12 billion over 10 years.
THE ADMINISTRATION LOOKS FORWARD TO HEARING UPDATES ON THE GROUPS’ PROGRESS
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(http://www.whitehouse.gov/assets/images/Health_Expenditures_Final2_Blog.jpg)
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BUMP for healthcare!
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Attacking Health Care Costs from All Angles
Yesterday, the President held a landmark meeting with a wide array of leaders in the health care field – insurance companies, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, medical device manufacturers, and providers –who pledged to work together to control costs in health care to the tune of $2 trillion in savings over the next ten years. Today, the President held another meeting with five employers, a state health department, and a union to discuss innovative ideas that are being implemented in the workplace to improve the health of workers and reduce the rising rate of health care spending.
(http://www.whitehouse.gov/assets/images/healthbestpractices_PS-0144_blog.jpg)
(President Barack Obama listens to Safeway President and Chief Executive Officer Steve Burd during a meeting with business leaders in the Roosevelt Room of the White House to discuss employer health care costs, May 12, 2009. Official White House Photo by Pete Souza.)
The President directed the Office of Personnel Management to work with the Office of Health Reform, the National Economic Council, the Department of Labor, and the Office of Management and Budget to examine successful employer wellness and prevention practices that lower health care costs and improve employees’ health, and to explore possibilities of developing a plan for federal employees and their workplaces.
More generally, the discussion was designed to expand on the theme that the health care system in America needs comprehensive reform, including a much greater focus on wellness and prevention. As the President stated in his remarks afterwards, "what we've done here today is to gather together some of these stories and best practices to make sure that they are going to be informing the health care reform discussions that take place here in Washington." If these companies have been able to implement proven measures in the private sector, "there’s no reason why we can’t do that for the country as a whole." The White House fact sheet details the attendees and the kinds of practices they have been implementing:
* H.E.R.E.I.U. Welfare Fund (Dr. Jerry Reeves, Chief Medical Officer): The Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union (H.E.R.E.I.U.) Welfare Fund offers multi-employer health insurance coverage for 90,000 eligible employees and their family members. It redesigned its health benefits and health plan administration and implemented wellness and chronic disease management programs to generate millions of dollars in overall savings. The H.E.R.E.I.U. Welfare Fund has also aligned incentives with desired behaviors by informing patients which physicians were high-performing, providing performance bonuses to high-performing doctors, and giving pregnant patients incentives to receive prenatal care. These initiatives have effectively engaged workers to improve their health through widespread use of employee risk assessments, risk-based interventions, and behavior change programs. The H.E.RE.I.U. Welfare Fund also has worksite pharmacies that give out free generic drugs for chronic conditions and provide special care centers for workers and family members who have high cost and complex chronic conditions.
* Johnson & Johnson (Bill Weldon, Chairman of the Board and CEO): Johnson & Johnson has one of the longest-running workplace health programs in the United States. The company has a sophisticated set of disease management and prevention interventions, risk-based incentives, pedometers/exercise goals, treadmills available for offices, and other health related programs. According to its recent employee health scorecard for United States employees, at the end of 2007, Johnson & Johnson continued to make health improvement progress and its health initiatives avoided an estimated $15.9 million in health care costs in 2007. As well, from the late 1990s to 2006 in the United States, smoking declined from 12 percent of its workforce to four percent, high blood pressure dropped from 14 percent to six percent, and high cholesterol went from 19 percent to six percent. A 2002 Rand study found that Johnson & Johnson’s initiatives had improved employee health and employees had saved an average of $225 per year because of a reduced need for doctor visits.
* Microsoft (Cecily Hall, Director of US Benefits): Microsoft creates personalized health goals and has a staff of doctors that makes house calls to avoid emergency room visits. Its obesity program assigns employees to a primary care doctor, behavior health specialist, and nutritionist, and Microsoft provides free meals consistent with diet recommendations to eat on site or to take home. The result of its initiatives has been very low premium growth and a healthier workforce than other companies with workers of similar age. Microsoft has been continually recognized as one of Fortune’s 100 Best Places to Work.
* Ohio Department of Health (Dr. Alvin Jackson, Director of Ohio Department of Health): The State of Ohio created a "Take Charge! Live Well!" program to reduce health risk factors for state workers, with more than 50 percent of eligible workers participating. Until 2005, health care programs for state employees in Ohio focused on disease management and improving the health of high-risk groups. After reviewing data, the state discovered that while 27 percent of total health care costs were related to high-risk employees, 44 percent of costs were associated with preventable conditions. Ohio’s "Take Charge! Live Well!" comprehensive health management program includes online and telephone health assessments, health coaching, online health improvement program, on-site employee health screenings (offered at about 40 locations), preventive care, chronic condition management, and monetary incentives of up to $100 in incentive payments, or $200 when spouses are enrolled, if employees complete a health assessment and participate in a health improvement program.
* Pitney Bowes (Murray Martin, Chairman of the Board, President, and CEO): Pitney Bowes offers onsite comprehensive health clinics and fitness centers, redesigned food merchandizing and prices in their cafeterias, incentives management for the health of their employees, and low cost drugs for chronic diseases. The company has also adopted infection control practices and offers low-cost or no-cost
preventive screenings and immunizations on-site and off-site. The company’s initiatives and its commitment to increase employee participation in managing their own health have resulted in $40 million in savings over the last nine years.
* REI (Sally Jewell, President and CEO): REI offers health benefits to all of its full and part-time workers and has been continually recognized as one of Fortune’s 100 Best Places to Work. The company offers employees support for outdoor activities ranging from outdoor gear and apparel discounts, free rentals, and outdoor challenge grants. REI employees can earn extra healthy lifestyle dollars to put toward the cost of coverage by engaging in specific "good behaviors," such as getting regular aerobic exercise. REI also supports personal health goals and provides equipment support, discounts, and time off so employees can achieve their goals.
* Safeway (Steve Burd, President and CEO): Safeway has innovated in benefit design to reward employees’ healthy behaviors and improve adherence to recommended treatments for chronic diseases. Over 74 percent of Safeway’s 30,000 nonunion workers have signed up for its "Healthy Measures" program. Under this program, participants undergo screening tests (including cholesterol, blood pressure, and weight control), and employees who score well pay lower health premiums. Safeway has saved millions by making employees accountable for their weight, smoking, cholesterol, and blood pressure. The company also has a free fitness center at its headquarters, offers gym membership discounts, and provides a 24-hour nurse health hotline. In 2006, Safeway’s efforts reduced their total health care spending by 13 percent, and employees who signed up have saved more than 20 percent on their premiums.
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Of all the people in that picture, Luger, Zero, Pelosi, et al, none of them has ever created a job, a product, a service, a good, a patent, am idea, anything.
What makes them qualified to know what will work???
What is their expertise in these matters???
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Of all the people in that picture, Luger, Zero, Pelosi, et al, none of them has ever created a job, a product, a service, a good, a patent, am idea, anything.
What makes them qualified to know what will work???
What is their expertise in these matters???
uh, thats just not true.
Republican Senator Lugar manages his family's 604 acre (2.4 km²) Marion County corn, soybean and tree farm. Before entering public life, he helped his brother Tom manage the family's food machinery manufacturing business in Indianapolis.
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uh, thats just not true.
Republican Senator Lugar manages his family's 604 acre (2.4 km²) Marion County corn, soybean and tree farm. Before entering public life, he helped his brother Tom manage the family's food machinery manufacturing business in Indianapolis.
333386 speaks more out of emotion than fact.
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333386 speaks more out of emotion than fact.
Ok, he is one person, how about Pelosi, Rangle, Obama, Hoyer, et all who actually run the show now????
Name one job any of them have ever created.
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333386 speaks more out of emotion than fact.
Ha ha. Look at the jobs report today.
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Yeah I missed where this is in the Constitution. End of thread.
Since when do you care about the Constitution? Our illegal wars and occupations aren't in it either, but that doesn't seem to phase you.
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Watching closely to see where this goes. I'm all for improvements but don't want the gov to run healthcare.
"Healthcare for everyone" sounds good and makes for a popular slogan, but its going to be incredibly complicated and expensive. Not to mention the biggest issue they are not talking much about...rationing of care. There will be limited funds in the system and care would have to be rationed.
Why don't they force insurance company competition across state lines, I have yet to hear an arguement against this.
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:)
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Sure thing..... ::)
Congressional Democrats will soon put forward their legislative proposals for reforming health care. Should they succeed, tens of millions of Americans will potentially be joining a new public insurance program and the federal government will increasingly be involved in treatment decisions.
Not long ago, I would have applauded this type of government expansion. Born and raised in Canada, I once believed that government health care is compassionate and equitable. It is neither.
My views changed in medical school. Yes, everyone in Canada is covered by a "single payer" -- the government. But Canadians wait for practically any procedure or diagnostic test or specialist consultation in the public system.
Martin Kozlowski
The problems were brought home when a relative had difficulty walking. He was in chronic pain. His doctor suggested a referral to a neurologist; an MRI would need to be done, then possibly a referral to another specialist. The wait would have stretched to roughly a year. If surgery was needed, the wait would be months more. Not wanting to stay confined to his house, he had the surgery done in the U.S., at the Mayo Clinic, and paid for it himself.
Such stories are common. For example, Sylvia de Vries, an Ontario woman, had a 40-pound fluid-filled tumor removed from her abdomen by an American surgeon in 2006. Her Michigan doctor estimated that she was within weeks of dying, but she was still on a wait list for a Canadian specialist.
Indeed, Canada's provincial governments themselves rely on American medicine. Between 2006 and 2008, Ontario sent more than 160 patients to New York and Michigan for emergency neurosurgery -- described by the Globe and Mail newspaper as "broken necks, burst aneurysms and other types of bleeding in or around the brain."
Only half of ER patients are treated in a timely manner by national and international standards, according to a government study. The physician shortage is so severe that some towns hold lotteries, with the winners gaining access to the local doc.
Overall, according to a study published in Lancet Oncology last year, five-year cancer survival rates are higher in the U.S. than those in Canada. Based on data from the Joint Canada/U.S. Survey of Health (done by Statistics Canada and the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics), Americans have greater access to preventive screening tests and have higher treatment rates for chronic illnesses. No wonder: To limit the growth in health spending, governments restrict the supply of health care by rationing it through waiting. The same survey data show, as June and Paul O'Neill note in a paper published in 2007 in the Forum for Health Economics & Policy, that the poor under socialized medicine seem to be less healthy relative to the nonpoor than their American counterparts.
Ironically, as the U.S. is on the verge of rushing toward government health care, Canada is reforming its system in the opposite direction. In 2005, Canada's supreme court struck down key laws in Quebec that established a government monopoly of health services. Claude Castonguay, who headed the Quebec government commission that recommended the creation of its public health-care system in the 1960s, also has second thoughts. Last year, after completing another review, he declared the system in "crisis" and suggested a massive expansion of private services -- even advocating that public hospitals rent facilities to physicians in off-hours.
And the medical establishment? Dr. Brian Day, an orthopedic surgeon, grew increasingly frustrated by government cutbacks that reduced his access to an operating room and increased the number of patients on his hospital waiting list. He built a private hospital in Vancouver in the 1990s. Last year, he completed a term as the president of the Canadian Medical Association and was succeeded by a Quebec radiologist who owns several private clinics.
In Canada, private-sector health care is growing. Dr. Day estimates that 50,000 people are seen at private clinics every year in British Columbia. According to the New York Times, a private clinic opens at a rate of about one a week across the country. Public-private partnerships, once a taboo topic, are embraced by provincial governments.
In the United Kingdom, where socialized medicine was established after World War II through the National Health Service, the present Labour government has introduced a choice in surgeries by allowing patients to choose among facilities, often including private ones. Even in Sweden, the government has turned over services to the private sector.
Americans need to ask a basic question: Why are they rushing into a system of government-dominated health care when the very countries that have experienced it for so long are backing away?
Dr. Gratzer, a physician, is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute
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How are we supposed to pay for all of this? I mean, if 95% of all Americans are going to be getting a "tax cut" one would figure that making ends meet concerning health care "reform" may be a little tough.
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How are we supposed to pay for all of this? I mean, if 95% of all Americans are going to be getting a "tax cut" one would figure that making ends meet concerning health care "reform" may be a little tough.
The Fed will print fifteen, 1 trillion dollar bills and everything will be ok.
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The Fed will print fifteen, 1 trillion dollar bills and everything will be ok.
Oh, phew, good thing that's taken care of then.
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I am at a loss, how can anyone support this? Show me one government program that hasn't balooned into a red tape filled buracratic mess, just one!
It has become all to apparent that the gene pool needs to clorox
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I think they should send out an envelope to every American citizen and those who feel the burning desire to pay for everyone elses health care can contribute money. He's trying to push this agenda now but bottom line, people don't want to pay their taxes for this, cap and trade, etc.
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I think they should send out an envelope to every American citizen and those who feel the burning desire to pay for everyone elses health care can contribute money. He's trying to push this agenda now but bottom line, people don't want to pay their taxes for this, cap and trade, etc.
People don't want high taxes but the majority will blindly vote for whoever promises the most and then never pays for it through taxation. Hence our giant deficit and 70 trillion dollars in unfunded liabilities.
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lol, is this 333386?
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Why shouldn't healthcare be treated just like any other commodity?
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People don't want high taxes but the majority will blindly vote for whoever promises the most and then never pays for it through taxation. Hence our giant deficit and 70 trillion dollars in unfunded liabilities.
No doubt. Someone said it another thread, poor people complain about the quality of their communities but don't pay taxes to fund programs to keep it nice. The same is true about everything else in this country. Someone has to pay for it but there eventually comes a breaking point and people will revolt. Sadly the American public are too stupid to realize that Barry's plan is not going to do anything but drive up taxes and debt without actually solving anything.
Why shouldn't healthcare be treated just like any other commodity?
Bingo. I hope hospitals start shutting down emergency rooms so illegals can't suck money out of hospitals.
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I don't understand socialized healthcare works in the majority of the other first world countries so why wouldn't it work in the US?
It seems to me there is a lot of propaganda out there and few facts.
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The govt. can't manage itself and can't properly fund/run medicare, how is it going to manage universal healthcare?
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The govt. can't manage itself and can't properly fund/run medicare, how is it going to manage universal healthcare?
So it's an american incompetence thing then ::)
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So it's an american incompetence thing then ::)
Basically.
Also, there isn't money enough for it. We just can't grow the economy enough to make it affordable without a massive wealth redistribution or making it impossible for small businesses to operate.
Simple example(s): TricCare (military HMO) has been as far as two years behind paying claims. How can someone possibly afford to provide care to patients without being paid for two years? One of my friends had to admit a patient because TriCare wouldn't approve an ultrasound in time.
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Yeah well maybe they should be looking to other countries where universal healthcare works and then re-organize accordingly.
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I don't understand socialized healthcare works in the majority of the other first world countries so why wouldn't it work in the US?
It seems to me there is a lot of propaganda out there and few facts.
Socialized medicine doesn't work the way people think, which is why we have Canadians coming here for medical services.
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Yeah well maybe they should be looking to other countries where universal healthcare works and then re-organize accordingly.
Maybe the government should just stay out of it. This all just more ways to gain power and control.
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Maybe the government should just stay out of it. This all just more ways to gain power and control.
The government did stay out of it and it doesn't work - so what do you do?
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The government did stay out of it and it doesn't work - so what do you do?
Who says it doesn't work? The government, big surprise.
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lol, is this 333386?
hahaha, It could be him??
ROFL
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Yeah well maybe they should be looking to other countries where universal healthcare works and then re-organize accordingly.
Any comparison between those countries and the US is pointless because they don't resemble each other in any significant manner. People bringing up Canada forget it's a socialist country, taxes up the wazoo, and has a two tiered system that allows its wealthier citizens more access.
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hahaha, It could be him??
ROFL
No that is not me. I have a shaved head and am much bigger than that guy. I have a Bronx Nu Yawk accent and dont post videos.
Good try though.
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The government did stay out of it and it doesn't work - so what do you do?
That's pure nonsense, the govt is 100% already involved in health care.
The govt and the states issue insurance regs that mandate that companies cant sell policies across state lines. Additionally, the govt mandates that certain procedures be covered under ALL PLANS, which drives up the premiums.
Medicaire, Medicaid, SS, VA, etc are all examples of govt run health care and guess what - THEY ARE ALL BROKE AND DISFUNCTIONAL.
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hahaha, It could be him??
ROFL
That sounds like a Brooklyn/Queens or Long Island accent, not a Bronx accent.
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Obama Green Bay Town Hall June 11 2009
President Obama at Green Bay Town Hall 6/11/2009 Obama explains why single payer health plan IS NOT SOCIALIZED MEDICINE.
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President Obama: Health Care Reform, the Key to Our Fiscal Future! Weekly Address
June 13, 2009 White House
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His eyes look bloodshot. I guess he's doing coke again.
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Or maybe he's not getting enough rest. He's probably up all night trying to beat his chief of staff in their reading contest.
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Or maybe he's not getting enough rest. He's probably up all night trying to beat his chief of staff in their reading contest.
Dont think so. Dear leader knows all, sees all, hears all, and does not need to read.
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Dont think so. Dear leader knows all, sees all, hears all, and does not need to read.
It's funny. So many conservatives seem to hold sentiments like this. It makes me wonder why you guys question him so much.
For the record, he's just a dude. I don't think he's omnipotent.
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It's funny. So many conservatives seem to hold sentiments like this. It makes me wonder why you guys question him so much.
For the record, he's just a dude. I don't think he's omnipotent.
It was a joke. And by the way, many in the media and in the Dem party do think he is omnipotent. Remember Evan Thomas calling him "God"????
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A plan to boost America’s fiscal health
By Peter Orszag
Published: June 15 2009 19:26
As the healthcare debate picks up in the US, there has been much discussion about how to pay for it. Coinciding with this debate are vocal concerns about the country’s underlying fiscal position – which some have suggested as a reason to delay healthcare reform.
What this argument ignores is that healthcare is central to the long-term fiscal and economic prospects of the US. If costs per enrollee in Medicare and Medicaid grow at the same rate over the next four decades as they have over the past four, those two programmes will increase from 5 per cent of gross domestic product today to 20 per cent by 2050.
Healthcare cost growth dwarfs any of the other long-term fiscal challenges the US faces. Nothing else we do on the fiscal front will matter much if we fail to address rapidly rising healthcare costs.
The US spends almost 50 per cent more per person on healthcare than the next most costly nation, but our health outcomes lag those of most industrialised countries. For families, after adjusting for inflation, health insurance premiums have increased 58 per cent while wages have risen only 3 per cent since 2000. For states, rising healthcare costs are squeezing their budgets, leading to cuts in essential services and tax rises. And for the economy as a whole, if healthcare costs grow at the rate they are now, healthcare will consume one-fifth of GDP by 2017.
That is why Barack Obama is committed to undertaking healthcare reform this year. Based on estimates by Dartmouth College and others, the US spends about $700bn (£428bn, €505bn) a year on healthcare that does nothing to improve Americans’ health outcomes.
Reducing the number of tests, procedures and other medical costs that do not improve health presents an enormous opportunity. Our fiscal future is so dominated by healthcare that if the US can slow the rate of cost growth by just 15 basis points a year (0.15 percentage points), the savings for Medicare and Medicaid would equal the impact from eliminating Social Security’s entire 75-year shortfall. If we slow the rate of healthcare cost growth by 1.5 percentage points per year, by 2030 we could reduce the federal budget deficit by 2.5 per cent of GDP, which is about $350bn relative to today’s economy.
So what must be done? As he made clear in his speech to the American Medical Association on Monday, Mr Obama is firmly committed to making healthcare reform deficit neutral over the next decade, using real savings or revenue proposals that can be scored by the Congressional Budget Office. The offsets are not theoretical; they are specific proposals determined by outside, impartial arbiters such as the CBO to cut spending or raise revenue.
In particular, Mr Obama has put forward in his budget proposals to generate $635bn for healthcare reform with roughly half coming from Medicare and Medicaid efficiencies (such as reducing Medicare overpayments to private insurers) and half from tax provisions limiting the itemised deduction rate for the wealthiest Americans to what it was when Ronald Reagan was president. On Saturday, Mr Obama also proposed an extra $313bn in Medicare and Medicaid savings proposals including a proposal that will generate about $106bn in savings over 10 years by reducing payments that help hospitals with the cost of treating patients without insurance because as we expand coverage, the need for such payments is reduced. Taken together, these “pay-fors” total about $950bn over 10 years, an amount that puts us in a good position to fully fund health reform in a deficit neutral way.
We must also address the forces making the healthcare system unaffordable and inefficient. The system creates incentives for doctors and hospitals to provide more care, not the best care. A lack of information on what works leads to huge variations in the quality of care and its cost. As Atul Gawande has described in the New Yorker, there are cities such as McAllen, Texas, that spend close to twice the national average on healthcare and do not get better results than lower cost, high-quality cities even in their own state or region.
The US must move towards a higher-quality, lower-cost system in which best practices are universal – rather than concentrated only in some parts of the country. The administration has therefore put forward initiatives such as health IT, research into what works, prevention and wellness, and changes in provider incentives. We must also change the process of policymaking so that policy can keep pace with a dynamic health market, for example by expanding the role of bodies such as the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission.
It is partially because of the unnecessarily high costs of our system that too many Americans lack insurance and are exposed to big financial and health risks. Mr Obama has said that healthcare reform must reduce costs and expand coverage since doing the latter without the former is fiscally unsustainable.
This is not the end of our commitment to fiscal responsibility. Once healthcare reform is in place, the US can then focus on other aspects of fiscal sustainability, including Social Security reform. But the bottom line is that healthcare reform is a necessity both for millions of American families and the long-term fiscal and economic health of the nation.
The writer is director of the White House Office of Management and Budget
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A plan to boost America’s fiscal health
By Peter Orszag
Published: June 15 2009 19:26
As the healthcare debate picks up in the US, there has been much discussion about how to pay for it. Coinciding with this debate are vocal concerns about the country’s underlying fiscal position – which some have suggested as a reason to delay healthcare reform.
What this argument ignores is that healthcare is central to the long-term fiscal and economic prospects of the US. If costs per enrollee in Medicare and Medicaid grow at the same rate over the next four decades as they have over the past four, those two programmes will increase from 5 per cent of gross domestic product today to 20 per cent by 2050.
Healthcare cost growth dwarfs any of the other long-term fiscal challenges the US faces. Nothing else we do on the fiscal front will matter much if we fail to address rapidly rising healthcare costs.
The US spends almost 50 per cent more per person on healthcare than the next most costly nation, but our health outcomes lag those of most industrialised countries. For families, after adjusting for inflation, health insurance premiums have increased 58 per cent while wages have risen only 3 per cent since 2000. For states, rising healthcare costs are squeezing their budgets, leading to cuts in essential services and tax rises. And for the economy as a whole, if healthcare costs grow at the rate they are now, healthcare will consume one-fifth of GDP by 2017.
That is why Barack Obama is committed to undertaking healthcare reform this year. Based on estimates by Dartmouth College and others, the US spends about $700bn (£428bn, €505bn) a year on healthcare that does nothing to improve Americans’ health outcomes.
Reducing the number of tests, procedures and other medical costs that do not improve health presents an enormous opportunity. Our fiscal future is so dominated by healthcare that if the US can slow the rate of cost growth by just 15 basis points a year (0.15 percentage points), the savings for Medicare and Medicaid would equal the impact from eliminating Social Security’s entire 75-year shortfall. If we slow the rate of healthcare cost growth by 1.5 percentage points per year, by 2030 we could reduce the federal budget deficit by 2.5 per cent of GDP, which is about $350bn relative to today’s economy.
So what must be done? As he made clear in his speech to the American Medical Association on Monday, Mr Obama is firmly committed to making healthcare reform deficit neutral over the next decade, using real savings or revenue proposals that can be scored by the Congressional Budget Office. The offsets are not theoretical; they are specific proposals determined by outside, impartial arbiters such as the CBO to cut spending or raise revenue.
In particular, Mr Obama has put forward in his budget proposals to generate $635bn for healthcare reform with roughly half coming from Medicare and Medicaid efficiencies (such as reducing Medicare overpayments to private insurers) and half from tax provisions limiting the itemised deduction rate for the wealthiest Americans to what it was when Ronald Reagan was president. On Saturday, Mr Obama also proposed an extra $313bn in Medicare and Medicaid savings proposals including a proposal that will generate about $106bn in savings over 10 years by reducing payments that help hospitals with the cost of treating patients without insurance because as we expand coverage, the need for such payments is reduced. Taken together, these “pay-fors” total about $950bn over 10 years, an amount that puts us in a good position to fully fund health reform in a deficit neutral way.
We must also address the forces making the healthcare system unaffordable and inefficient. The system creates incentives for doctors and hospitals to provide more care, not the best care. A lack of information on what works leads to huge variations in the quality of care and its cost. As Atul Gawande has described in the New Yorker, there are cities such as McAllen, Texas, that spend close to twice the national average on healthcare and do not get better results than lower cost, high-quality cities even in their own state or region.
The US must move towards a higher-quality, lower-cost system in which best practices are universal – rather than concentrated only in some parts of the country. The administration has therefore put forward initiatives such as health IT, research into what works, prevention and wellness, and changes in provider incentives. We must also change the process of policymaking so that policy can keep pace with a dynamic health market, for example by expanding the role of bodies such as the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission.
It is partially because of the unnecessarily high costs of our system that too many Americans lack insurance and are exposed to big financial and health risks. Mr Obama has said that healthcare reform must reduce costs and expand coverage since doing the latter without the former is fiscally unsustainable.
This is not the end of our commitment to fiscal responsibility. Once healthcare reform is in place, the US can then focus on other aspects of fiscal sustainability, including Social Security reform. But the bottom line is that healthcare reform is a necessity both for millions of American families and the long-term fiscal and economic health of the nation.
The writer is director of the White House Office of Management and Budget
We are supposed to follow this guy when he estimated both the UE % wrong and the effect of the stimulus???
This is the same guy who the CBO says' numbers dont add up????
This is the guy who said the economy would grow 4-5% this year as his budget projection????
Good laugh to start my day Benny.
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And how will our govt. "reform" Social Security when it has spent all its money on short term ineffective stimulus, shot all of its tax bullets, and issued so much debt that the interest payments take up an even bigger % of the budget?
And 3386 is right, the CBO has already given its recomendations and numbers on these issues. They aren't as bright and rainbow colored as this White House stooges.
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Health CEOs for Health Reform
Recently, the Health CEOs for Health Reform (HC4HR) came together to discuss transformative, patient-centered reforms, explain how bold incentives can make health care affordable and how their own experience proves a sustainable, value-based system is achievable.
Meaningful health care reform must make our health delivery system sustainable for families, employers, providers, and governments. The mission of Health CEOs for Health Reform is to demonstrate to the policy community and the American people that health industry leaders are willing to be proactive leaders in calling for transformative reforms of our health system.
The white paper from the event, Realigning U.S. Health Care Incentives to Better Serve Patients and Taxpayers, further details the HC4HR vision and outlines more specific proposals for reform. http://www.newamerica.net/publication...
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Faces of Health Care Reform: Russell Axelson
Like millions of Americans, Russ lost his health insurance when he was laid off from his job. Russ turned to his church to help pay for his medications while he was out of work.
Organizing for America has collected hundreds of thousands of personal health care stories. The grassroots effort is building support in communities across the country for a plan that adheres to President Obamas three principles for reform: lowering costs, preserving patient choice and increasing access to quality care.
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June 22, 2009
Obama Reverts to Campaign Motto for Health Care Agenda
By Jeff Zeleny
President Obama dusted off a campaign slogan on Monday, sharply dismissing those who have expressed skepticism that the nation’s health care system will be overhauled by Congress this year.
“Yes we can,” Mr. Obama said. “We are going to get this done.”
In an appearance in the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House, Mr. Obama praised an agreement reached last week by drug companies to help close a cap in Medicare’s prescription drug coverage. He said the pharmaceutical industry’s pledge to spend $80 billion over the next decade to reduce the cost of drugs would pay for a portion of his health care plan.
“This is a significant breakthrough on the road to health care reform,” Mr. Obama said, “one that will make a difference in the lives of many older Americans.”
The president said the move will help solve the “doughnut hole,” the gap in coverage that requires people to pay the full cost of prescriptions after they surpass $2,700 before the catastrophic coverage of $6,100 kicks in.
“It’s a reform that will make prescription drugs more affordable for millions of seniors and restore a measure of fairness,” Mr. Obama said.
The brief remarks by the president were intended to highlight that AARP, a politically important group of 40 million Americans, endorsed the plan. Before the president spoke, Barry Rand, the chief executive of AARP, vowed to support the health care overhaul moving through Congress.
“This is an early win for reform. It’s a major step forward,” Mr. Rand said. “It is a signal that the process is working and will work.”
The 10-minute ceremony at the White House, which was awash in optimism, opened another critical week as the administration attempts to build consensus in Congress to overhaul the health care system. The key Democratic senators on the issues, Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut and Max Baucus of Montana, were at the president’s side on Monday.
“Today marks a major step forward, but it will only be meaningful if we complete the journey,” Mr. Obama said, renewing his call for Congress to reach agreement on a health care plan this year.
He closed by addressing critics – not by name – who have suggested that the health care deal won’t be reached this year.
“For those here in Washington who have grown accustomed to sky-is-falling prognosis and the certainties that we cannot get this done,” Mr. Obama said, “I have to repeat – you know, revive – an old saying we had from the campaign: Yes we can. We are going to get this done.”
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New York Times/CBS Poll Says 72% Of Americans Support Health Care Reform
Americans overwhelmingly support substantial changes to the health care system and are strongly behind [72%] one of the most contentious proposals Congress is considering, a government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.
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New York Times/CBS Poll Says 72% Of Americans Support Health Care Reform
Americans overwhelmingly support substantial changes to the health care system and are strongly behind [72%] one of the most contentious proposals Congress is considering, a government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.
Look at the weighting of the poll you fool.
This is going down like the titanic and you know it.
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68% of those polled...........VOTED FOR OBAMA. Silly NYT just pack it in already.
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Faces of Health Care Reform: Cathy
Cathy lives in Apple Valley, MN. A single mother of two, Cathy went back to school to earn her teachers license and has worked for the past three years as a special education and early childhood education teacher. Then, when her school system was hit with budget cuts earlier this month, Cathy lost her job, along with her health insurance.
Organizing for America has collected hundreds of thousands of personal health care stories. The grassroots effort is building support in communities across the country for a plan that adheres to President Obamas three principles for reform: lowering costs, preserving patient choice and increasing access to quality care.
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Cry me a river.
We can help people who need help without spending another 1.6 trillion of waste fraud and abuse and further destroying the economy.
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They majority of people favor healthcare reform, true...that includes me, but the majority of those people probably do not favor nationalized healthcare.
People need to be aware of the cost and limitations of nationalized health care in this country...and the problems with a private + federal system. Both bad ideas IMO. The gov could do a lot to help change the industry before considering a takeover.
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They majority of people favor healthcare reform, true...that includes me, but the majority of those people probably do not favor nationalized healthcare.
People need to be aware of the cost and limitations of nationalized health care in this country...and the problems with a private + federal system. Both bad ideas IMO. The gov could do a lot to help change the industry before considering a takeover.
100% correct!
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They majority of people favor healthcare reform, true...that includes me, but the majority of those people probably do not favor nationalized healthcare.
People need to be aware of the cost and limitations of nationalized health care in this country...and the problems with a private + federal system. Both bad ideas IMO. The gov could do a lot to help change the industry before considering a takeover.
Al Gore could have also voted "yes" on tort reform. :)
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We cannot have lawsuits that reward lawyers for seeking astronomical judgements. Insurance companies pass that cost onto health care consumers and the docs and hospitals through malpractice.
Tort reform is important...the only ones against it are lawyers because it decreases the amount of $ they can make for taking the cases. Having a short judicial case review (like a case screening) prior to any medical lawsuit could be used to throw out frivelous lawsuits. Then the simple court costs would be assigned to the plaintiff as penalty for wasting the court's time with a bullshit suit that hurts everyone.
We need to save these cases and court time for people who are really harmed medically.
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The President meets with governors who helped host the White House's regional health care forums during the spring as reform heads into yet another pivotal period in Congress. June 24, 2009.
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President Obama Holds Online Town Hall on Health Reform
President Obama takes questions submitted through YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter at a town hall in Virginia. July 1, 2009.
After days of taking video questions online, and with massive online discussions unfolding during the event, the President took questions on health reform directly from the public in an online town hall.
For a taste, here's the transcript of the first question:
MS. JARRETT: I'm going to be in charge. Thank you very much, Mr. President.
So in my opening remarks, Mr. President, I mentioned that when you released your YouTube video over the weekend, we received literally hundreds of video questions from all across the country. Your staff looked through all those questions and have selected a cross-section that represents a broad cross-section of the kinds of questions that came up.
I want to emphasize that the President has not seen the questions ahead of time. (Laughter.) Absolutely not.
And so we're going to begin with a video question, Mr. President, if you look at the screen.
THE PRESIDENT: All right.
VIDEO Q Hi, my name is Steve White. I'm in Spring Valley, New York. And my question for the President is: Why are we considering a health care plan which maintains the private insurance companies with their high overhead costs, instead of a single-payer plan, which would eliminate the high overhead costs, saving the American taxpayer hundreds of billions of dollars, while covering everyone in our country? Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: Sure. Well, it's a terrific question. I'm not sure if everybody could hear it, but the gist of the question is, why have we not been looking at a single-payer plan as the way to go?
As many of you know, in many countries, most industrialized advanced countries, they have some version of what's called a single-payer plan. And what that means is essentially that the government is the insurer. The government may not necessarily hire the doctors or the hospitals -- a lot of those may still be privately operated -- but the government is the insurer for everybody. And Medicare is actually a single-payer plan that we have in place, but we only have it in place for our older Americans.
Now, in a lot of those countries, a single-payer plan works pretty well and you eliminate, as Scott, I think it was, said, you eliminate private insurers, you don't have the administrative costs and the bureaucracy and so forth.
Here's the problem, is that the way our health care system evolved in the United States, it evolved based on employers providing health insurance to their employees through private insurers. And so that's still the way that the vast majority of you get your insurance. And for us to transition completely from an employer-based system of private insurance to a single-payer system could be hugely disruptive. And my attitude has been that we should be able to find a way to create a uniquely American solution to this problem that controls costs but preserves the innovation that is introduced in part with a free market system.
I think that we can regulate the insurance companies effectively; make sure that they're not playing games with people because of preexisting conditions; that they're not charging wildly different rates to people based on where they live or what their age is; that they're not dropping people for coverage unnecessarily; that we have a public option that's available to provide competition and choice to the American people, and to keep the insurers honest; and that we can provide a system in which we are, over the long term, driving down administrative costs, and making sure that people are getting the best possible care at a lower price.
But I recognize that there are lot of people who are passionate -- they look at France or some of these other systems and they say, well, why can't we just do that? Well, the answer is, is that this is one-sixth of our economy, and we're not suddenly just going to completely upend the system. We want to build on what works about the system and fix what's broken about the system. And that's what I think Congress is committed to doing, and I'm committed to working with them to make it happen. Okay?
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Has Obama started taking random questions from the audience? Is he still pre selectiing the questions?
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Health Care Day of Service - June 27, 2009
On June 27th, tens of thousands of volunteers from across the country took part in thousands of events designed to raise visibility for health care reform in their communities. These health care service projects gave volunteers a chance to make an impact in their own communities and improve the lives of their neighbors in the short term -- and they are just one step forward in the larger fight for long term, comprehensive health care reform.
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Benny, your liar was exposed as a fraud even by Helen Thomas on this issue in his phoney town hall meeting.
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I heard Obama specifically say he was not in favor of tort reform. Not surprising, he's a lawyer and the American Bar Association backed him. Tort reform would help significantly, another simple law that could be passed that would help control costs...and he ignores it for the purpose of serving his agenda.
As far as tort reform, some people had a problem with capping damages at $250,000. So, instead of voting it down, they should have worked toward some compromise...like capping the lawyer's pay for a medical malpractice case or raising the cap on damages to $500,000. These multi-million dollar lawsuits are costing every one of us money (trickle-down) and raises healthcare costs from multiple angles.
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I heard Obama specifically say he was not in favor of tort reform. Not surprising, he's a lawyer and the American Bar Association backed him. Tort reform would help significantly, another simple law that could be passed that would help control costs...and he ignores it for the purpose of serving his agenda.
As far as tort reform, some people had a problem with capping damages at $250,000. So, instead of voting it down, they should have worked toward some compromise...like capping the lawyer's pay for a medical malpractice case or raising the cap on damages to $500,000. These multi-million dollar lawsuits are costing every one of us money (trickle-down) and raises healthcare costs from multiple angles.
Shoot, i dont do med mal, I do construction litigation and claims mostly, but I believe for med mal, there should be an interim mediation or non-binding arbitration process where a person would have to go through before being allowed to sue. this way, they can get a good idea of their chances at litigation and lawyers would not be as willing to file blindly hoping for a settlement, even of a weak claim.
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Exactly, I mentioned that in one of my previous posts too. These cases need to be pre-screened by an independent arbitrator or judge. Even with that, I still think there should be a cap on the amount the lawyer should be able to make. If there's a 3 million dollar case, they lawyer makes 1 million? Lawyers want big suits because they make a %. 30% or 1/3 is fairly common from what I have heard. When the case is over a certain amount, there should be a cap to discourage excessive damages awards that cost us all.
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Exactly, I mentioned that in one of my previous posts too. These cases need to be pre-screened by an independent arbitrator or judge. Even with that, I still think there should be a cap on the amount the lawyer should be able to make. If there's a 3 million dollar case, they lawyer makes 1 million? Lawyers want big suits because they make a %. 30% or 1/3 is fairly common from what I have heard. When the case is over a certain amount, there should be a cap to discourage excessive damages awards that cost us all.
There are horrible med mal cases where the docs screw up. In those cases, I have a hard time telling someone what they should get or not get. im thinking of the wrongly amputated limb, the missed cancer diagnosies resulting in death, etc.
However, I think the bulk of the problems exist in the marginal cases that get decided by a jury not really familiar with the subject matter and get settled for huge money just because the insurance company is afraid of an obscene verdict.
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Understood, but we still have to have some kind of cap on damages because of the effect it has on us all. Insurance just passes that cost to the consumer. I agree that if a person is a victim of a physician or hospital mistake, they should be compensated accordingly and sometimes no amount of money can make up for their loss...but the awards can't be so big that it has a major trickle down effect.
I agree with you that most of the problem is coming from marginal cases (or practices associated with preventing any kind of lawsuit)...many of which are settled out of court to avoid legal fees and drawn out cases and many of these cases would be thrown out by an arbitrator, as you said.
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Understood, but we still have to have some kind of cap on damages because of the effect it has on us all. Insurance just passes that cost to the consumer. I agree that if a person is a victim of a physician or hospital mistake, they should be compensated accordingly and sometimes no amount of money can make up for their loss...but the awards can't be so big that it has a major trickle down effect.
I agree with you that most of the problem is coming from marginal cases (or practices associated with preventing any kind of lawsuit)...many of which are settled out of court to avoid legal fees and drawn out cases and many of these cases would be thrown out by an arbitrator, as you said.
I am not part of the plaintiff's bar becaise I dont like what they do. The med mal bar will never agree to arbitration like we discussed and if you look at the biggest states, run by Dems, nothing is ever going to change.
I dont see how the F$%^ you c an have universal health care without tort reform.
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Kristen and Adam live in Minneapolis, MN. Kristin has polycystic kidneys, a genetic disease she shares with her father. Because Kristen knew she was predisposed to the illness, she got tested early and took preventative measures like quitting caffeine and decreasing her salt intake to keep her kidneys healthy and mitigate the long term effects of her illness.
At the time of her diagnosis, Kristen had health insurance through her employer. But when she won a prestigious play writing fellowship (which necessitated a move to Minneapolis) it meant she had to give up her insurance. Kristen and Adam tried to buy insurance on the open market, but were rejected because of Kristen's pre-existing condition. "This is never anything Ive had treatment for, never anything I was recommended to have treatment for," she says. Eventually Kristen and Adam applied for insurance through Minnesotas high risk pool, but now they pay $215 each quarter for a plan with a $10,000 deductible. I dont have access to the health care system -- this is only to keep myself and my mother from going bankrupt should anything ever happen to me, Kristen says. Its not health insurance - its a hedge against catastrophe.
Organizing for America has collected hundreds of thousands of personal health care stories. The grassroots effort is building support in communities across the country for a plan that adheres to President Obama's three principles for reform: lowering costs, preserving patient choice and increasing access to quality care.
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The Vice President announces an agreement with hospitals to save $150 billion in health care costs. July 7, 2009.
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This is concerning. Hospitals will not accept a loss. They will either cut staff, services, bill more, or pass the loss onto the consumer or other insurance companies.
I don't believe the actual cost of care will decrease by $150 billion. I believe much of these cuts are from accepting less Medicare reimbursement, at least I heard that being discussed on the news.
Some liberals forget that the money for these expansive good willed programs will have to come from somewhere.
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This is concerning. Hospitals will not accept a loss. They will either cut staff, services, bill more, or pass the loss onto the consumer or other insurance companies.
I don't believe the actual cost of care will decrease by $150 billion. I believe much of these cuts are from accepting less Medicare reimbursement, at least I heard that being discussed on the news.
Some liberals forget that the money for these expansive good willed programs will have to come from somewhere.
Yup.
It pisses me off when me or mine end up in the hospital for something legit, and see the ER packed wall to wall with illegals there for the sniffles or some other stupid bullshit. Every one of those little bastards being there means my bill just went up a few bucks because 98% of them won't pay a damn thing.
Socialised healthcare just means you're going to be paying for the rest of latin american's cold cream and bandaids too.
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:)
Nurses Join President Obama on Health Care Reform
President Obama is joined by members of the American Nurses Association as he speaks about the urgent need for health care reform. He praises the progress in the Congress, and says inaction is not an option. July 15, 2009
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Inaction is not an option. hmm now where have a heard that before?
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President Obama on Health Reform: We are Going to Get this Done
President Obama gives remarks at the White House on the urgent need for health care reform, declaring that it will get done this year. He also discusses ways to pay for the reforms, and reduce long-term costs. July 17, 2009.
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Ok drive by assmonkey. I bet u didn't even make it through basic, ur so pissed.
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Kristen and Adam live in Minneapolis, MN. Kristin has polycystic kidneys, a genetic disease she shares with her father. Because Kristen knew she was predisposed to the illness, she got tested early and took preventative measures like quitting caffeine and decreasing her salt intake to keep her kidneys healthy and mitigate the long term effects of her illness.
At the time of her diagnosis, Kristen had health insurance through her employer. But when she won a prestigious play writing fellowship (which necessitated a move to Minneapolis) it meant she had to give up her insurance. Kristen and Adam tried to buy insurance on the open market, but were rejected because of Kristen's pre-existing condition. "This is never anything Ive had treatment for, never anything I was recommended to have treatment for," she says. Eventually Kristen and Adam applied for insurance through Minnesotas high risk pool, but now they pay $215 each quarter for a plan with a $10,000 deductible. I dont have access to the health care system -- this is only to keep myself and my mother from going bankrupt should anything ever happen to me, Kristen says. Its not health insurance - its a hedge against catastrophe.
Organizing for America has collected hundreds of thousands of personal health care stories. The grassroots effort is building support in communities across the country for a plan that adheres to President Obama's three principles for reform: lowering costs, preserving patient choice and increasing access to quality care.
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214 for 3 months of coverage !!! (71 a month)
She could get a lower duductable plan through the state insurance pool, , but it would cost her 100 a month more , but she chose not to, instead she would rather spend that 100 a month on something else.
A person who complains that $ 200 is too much, and doesn't purchase a health plan, but then spends 20 a month for internet, 50 a month cable TV , 50 a month on cigarettes, 50 a month on Beer, 20 a month at the video store, 100 a month eating out, 50 a month on supplements, 50 a month to get their yard mowed, etc....... and then once they get, sick, goes into the hospital and has the surgery, , doesn't pay the bill, files bankruptcy, and then blames it on the Insurance company for being too expensive, and demands we we get Universal health care !
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The CBO said this will add to the deficit and national debt. That is enough for me to decide that this is a disaster considering the already massive debt and deficit.
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333386 speaks more out of emotion than fact.
Care to correct your kneepadding fool?
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Didnt work out quite so well now did it Benny?