And let’s not forget the biggest cost waster in health care in this country.,...
FIFTY FIEFDOMS ACROSS THE FRUITED PLAINS....where they play around with state health care depending on who supports who in the election. California requires health insurance to cover this and that, Oklahoma something else. THAT system is the biggest waste of funds.
Here’s my challenge....I dare the political elite to take me up on it....here’s the challenge...
Gather, with political affiliation or idealology not a factor in the choice, about fifty of the best of the best this country has to offer.
Come on....this is AMERICA! We got the world beat by half....do we really have to settle for this awful morass created by a bunch of politicians with no brains whatsoever? It’s not like THEY have to live with it.
Get fifty people....oh I dunno, a head of a major health insurer, a director of a hospital....get a general all around thorough view of health care.....lawyers...yeah.
Tell them they are charged with creating a health care system for America....with all of her resources. Most important, there is to be NO preconceived notions. In other words, NO laws, nothing. Pretend that you just walked into America and they have no healthcare system yet.
Of course they would eliminate these state fiefdoms. Things the population has control over....like getting pregnant....yeah maybe getting too fat....smoking....all would come with penalties.
I think the group could come up with a pretty perfect health care system that would eliminate waste, create democracy in medical decisions....on and on. With the technology available today?
It’s gotten so, people, that it is cheaper to have a team of four medicos come to your house, set up a sterile tent, and mind us there than it is to stay at a hospital. My husband’s bill for a 30 day stay...admittedly a long one...was over one hundred thousand dollars. Mostly he had to heal from a stomach operation to unclog his leg arteries.
He could not be released as he was unable to eat. They never release anyone who can’t eat...so I was told.
Did the man really receive 100K worth of care? Think about it. First of all, that’s line number one in the hospital billing system, what the average joe pays. Insurances get reductions and Medicare, of course, pays what it says. Shrewd individuals beat this price down.
But a lot of those charges to husband were for the Ecuadorans down in the ER with four kids with fevers and runny noses. A lot pay for the drug addict who was his roommate.
Health care is one tangled mess and come on guys....we are to expect this awful mess to make it better?
But we do have a choice.
I'd rather have 317,000,000 million Americans making their own decisions than fifty of the "best and brightest" making decisions for the rest of us. The best and brightest designed Obamacare, which is going to move most metrics of affordability and quality in exactly the wrong direction.
According to the CIA World Factbook, the US ranks 51st worldwide in life expectancy. The US also spends a greater % of GDP and more $ on health care than any place on the planet. Like most, I think my health insurance is okay, and like most people, I try not to use it too much (same thing for my car insurance and homeowner's insurance).
Employer-sponsored health insurance plans dramatically expanded as a direct result of wage controls imposed by the federal government during World War II. Then, in 1943, the Internal Revenue Service ruled that employer-based health care should be tax free. This mess has taken 70 years to create. I am skeptical that it can be fixed during my lifetime.