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Medicare Drug Plan Ought to Be Model for Health Reform
No matter how often I see it, I can never get over their staggering indifference to the rest of the country.
... keep the heat on!
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Per capita health care spending (2007):
United States: $7290
Switzerland: $4417
France: $3601
United Kingdom: $2992
Average of OECD developed nations: $2964
Italy: $2686
Japan: $2581
-- Bob Somerby
The text of HR676 (Medicare For All) as PDF (30 pages). The FAQ. Compare HR3200 with HR676.
Medicare for All would save $350 billion a year (study in New England Journal of Medicine).
In 2003, a young Illinois state senator named Barack Obama told an AFL-CIO meeting, "I am a proponent of a single-payer universal healthcare program*." -- Bill Moyers.
* Medicare For All.
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And the reason they're "staggering"...
... is because they're losing their footing. Our job is to help them along with that ;-)
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Jesus, it’s like the new Gold Rush or something...
"reform” seems to be the new code word for “HUGE opportunity for health insurance companies to make staggering profits.” I mean, there doesn’t seem to be any interest in actual health CARE, just how the existing insurance companies can reduce their costs – do you hear any of them talking about how excited they are at the possibility of improving health CARE? Well, um, NO, you don’t. Because that’s not what excites them – so I ask myself all the time what the hell good it would do to have everyone covered by private insurance if it’s just going to be the same crappy coverage, ever-increasing premiums, and constant fighting for coverage?
Isn’t Medicare Part D the one with the huge doughnut hole? The hole that insurance companies flocked to because they could sell more coverage? Isn’t Medicare Part D the one the government was forbidden to negotiate drug prices for?
I try not to think about how hard so many of our elected representatives are fighting to preserve the stranglehold the insurance and drug industries have on us – how is it possible that they still do not understand that “insurance” does not equal “care?” That computerized records do not equal “care?” Why are they talking about insurance as if it is the Holy Grail – do they really not understand that it is doctors and nurses and hospitals and labs and imaging centers that provide and deliver the actual care, and that insurance companies act as a barrier between the individual and the provider? Do they not understand that if the insurance company does not approve a particular procedure or test or treatment, and you bite the bullet and pay for it yourself, that they will cover nothing that is in any way related to it?
No, I don’t think they do. But then, it doesn’t appear that there is much interest among the powers-that-be about what I think – or want.
Physician Culture is also part of the problem
I found this link over at The Left Coaster under the topic "Abandoning the AMA".
If the members of the AMA keep thinking of themselves as mini profit centers rather than care givers then I think we have a tough road to hoe. The linked article was pretty eye-opening to me!
"The Hippocritic Oath" has replaced "The Hippocratic Oath"
For the public, the Canadian National Healthcare System (NHS) is untouchable . Yet, this doesn't prevent some physicians from promoting increased private care, always claiming that it is in the patient's best interest. The Canadian Medical Association, the physician's professional body, has had a succession of pro-privatization presidents. It's a constant tug of war that the physicians will never win as Canadians watch and protect their healthcare system like hawks.
Currently, there is a shortage of dermatologists as many of them have left to join the more lucrative cosmetic industry to participate in the ugly business of beauty. Botox, anyone?
God help us
if that's what they use as a model. It's a breathtakingly insane system.