Today's KNS has an article with "local reaction" on health care reform. It's one of the biggest steaming piles of bullshit I've read in the paper in a while. It has every anti-reform Republican talking point in one short article.
We hear from hospital and insurance mega-corporations and a local AMA flack, but we don't hear from consumers who filed a claim and had it denied or had their coverage dropped because they forgot to mention a mole they had removed twenty years ago or missing a period when they were 19. We don't hear from guys like Dr. Kim and Remote Area Medical running free clinics for people left out of the broken system run by those same mega-corporate suits who put profits before patients and only issue policies for healthy people.
I also love how every mainstream media and cable talking head report starts out with "health care reform is going to cost ONE TRILLION DOLLARS! over ten years OH MY GOD!"
Which is absurd. We already spend more than TWO TRILLION DOLLARS! PER YEAR! on health care for those who can get it. A mandatory single payer system based on Medicare would cover everyone. Probably for less.
They also tell us a "public option" won't work. Fine. Stop accepting Medicare patients. What's that? You'd go broke? Hmm. Imagine that.
Anyway, the fact that this KNS article appeared in the business section tells you all you need to know about the health care reform "debate."
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These people win because
These people win because they wear us out. Will insurance companies, hospitals, etc. eventually fail, like the car companies, because they keep resisting change?
On talk radio
I like the "discussion" they have regarding health care reform on talk radio. Callers phone in expressing their fears that this is a back door effort to withhold care and eventually kill off Republicans. Hosts agree.
No calls whatsoever from people who are being screwed today by the system.
Fair and balanced.
Brian A.
I'd rather be cycling.
The Republican argument
The Republican argument seems to be that we just need to let the free market take care of the problems in health care. Private enterprise has had decades to develop a functional system and has failed miserably. Government has done nothing but try to cushion that gross failure. So, conservatives, why has your beloved free market been such a colossal failure in this instance? How is claiming that it's the cure anything but insanity?
Its working
Its working for the profiteers just fine.
What would be the cost?
I'm not sure what you expected from the Sentinel. Can you imagine how much work it would be to go out and track down people who have been denied coverage, etc., etc.?
Less than the trillion over ten years, or less than the two trillion per year?
That two trillion per year that you mention, what is that? Are you saying that that's the total amount of money in the system? Services delivered, hospital costs, private insurance, public insurance, the whole thing?
I'm not questioning you personally, but these numbers are always so suspect. All of them. The trillion in ten in Harrington's piece has the fragrance of a figure freshly plucked out of someone's booty. The two trillion annually is so staggering it's just hard to believe.
I'm mostly not a fan of government intervention in private enterprise, but the insurance industry is so heavily intervened-in and on-behalf-of that it hardly qualifies as private anymore. However, I fear that the government could totally screw up the healthcare system by implementing a single-payer system, or by any other such intervention. The VA fiasco is a prime example of where that fear is located. Theoretically, I'd be much more comfortable with an approach that forces decency on the part of insurors since they've set themselves up to profit from standing between doctors and patients, but otoh could their function of pooling resources simply be done away with? Sure, insurance companies ration care, but would a government-based replacement actually be an improvement?
But I'm still way in the weeds on this one. Articles like the one you link to are entirely unhelpful. Everyone seems to agree that they'd like to see universal, or greatly expanded, access to healthcare. It may be a magical wish, but I'd like to see someone make a really cogent case for reform that gets us there without removing incentives for medical and pharmaceutical innovation. Is anyone making a case like that?
I'd like to see someone make
I'd like to see someone make a really cogent case for reform that gets us there without removing incentives for medical and pharmaceutical innovation
Which reforms reduce these incentives? Cures and improved treatments will always be rewarded, and most medical research is motivated as much by altruism and ego as by financial incentive. Admittedly, the currently distorted system does seem to favor boner medicine ahead of cancer drugs, and who can argue with the markets?
Do you really think having medical care available to more Americans will make innovation less rewarding?
Pharmaceutical companies are
Pharmaceutical companies are not US companies. They are some of the largest multinational corporations in the world. So that part of the argument is nonsense. The other part has the implicit claim that medical equipment and surgical techniques are the product of private R&D, solely, again on a global scale. Are they?
True happiness is knowing you are a hypocrite. -- Ivor Cutler
Seppuku is in a way the ultimate awful libertarian act -- Frank Popper
I'm not arguing with you here.
I'm not sure. It concerns me, though. I can't prove it, but I suspect that a lot of innovation is driven by the desire to make money. I think that's fine. I could imagine scenarios in which payor priorities could slash monetary rewards for certain kinds of innovation, but I don't know enough about the issue to know if my fears are real or if they're just silliness.
Depends entirely on how you define things like "medical care" and "available." I think.
In President Obama's recent
In President Obama's recent address to the AMA he talked about fast tracking recommendations from the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission. They seem to have some good ideas that sit around for awhile. I like the accountable care organization ideas in chapter 2 of their June report.
The Commonwealth Fund's website has a whole tab dedicated to innovations
A friend of mine "in the business" recently thanked me for posting a New Yorker article, "The Cost Conundrum: What a Texas town can teach us about health care" by Atul Gawande. He said Gawande "nailed it" and forwarded it to all of his industry peers. Much more helpful than the KNS article. Maybe they'll do better next time. They have commented here that their feelings are hurt at being called out on this one.
No trouble at all...
I'm right here. In fact, I was denied coverage for so long that I got so sick that I actually became disabled...at which point I qualified for Medicare. Go figure.
I didn't earn enough to pay for insurance that would cover my pre-existing conditions, but I earned too much to get on Tenncare or Medicaid. So I got diddly, until I nearly died. By then I was so sick I could no longer work to support myself or pay for anything, much less health care or insurance.
There are thousands of Tennesseans just like me, all you have to do is look around. You could probably go out on any street in Knoxville and throw a stone and it would hit someone that has a similar story to mine.
The way the healthcare industry and the insurance industry is run today is pure and simple STUPID.
_________________________________________________

"You can't fix stupid..." ~ Ron White"
"I never said I wasn't a brat..." ~ Talidapali
I was being facetious.
I wish the Sentinel would do a better job of digging on this one, is what I was suggesting. Your story should be in their story.
That two trillion per year
That two trillion per year that you mention, what is that? Are you saying that that's the total amount of money in the system? Services delivered, hospital costs, private insurance, public insurance, the whole thing?
HHS figures for 2007:
http://www.cms.hhs.gov/NationalHealthExpendData/02_NationalHealthAccount...
Thank you.
Things that make you say, "Dayum."
But this does not seem to factor in the cost of insurance, nor any value added to or subtracted from the system by it. So a more complete picture would look worse than this, no?
Anyway, that's very helpful. Thanks.
I think the explanation for
I think the explanation for these numbers said they include the net cost of insurance (net presumably = premiums - claims?).
The state of health care in
The state of health care in Tennessee:
http://www.healthreform.gov/reports/statehealthreform/tennessee.html
Since 2000 alone, average
Ouch!
@bobboylife
Referencing the VA system with "fiasco" is so inaccurate it's parody. The VA system serves millions of current and retired vets and their families by providing them routine primary care and specialized surgeries. The VA system services were consolidated and upgraded under Clinton's Director of Veteran's health affairs. He pioneered electronic medical records, improved broad outreach services, and increased incentives for physicians. You can visit the Johnson City Center if you want to make a more informed judgment.
Your reference to "fiacso" may be referring to the actual fiasco that was reported by Dana Priest in the WaPo at Walter Reed Medical Center where thousands of disabled vets were ignored or refused treatment for months and years and who lived in rat infested barracks. Walter Reed is not under the VA system. Those services were outsourced and PRIVATIZED under Bush's appointed director, who was faced with an influx of seriously wounded soldiers that a) they were not prepared for, and b) have extremely expensive, complicated and lifelong injuries that cut into the corporate bottom line. Therefore, to save money, services were cut to a bare minimum and the staff was underpaid and untrained.
Too many of us have lived through the private health care, managed care, TN care fiasco to take arguments in favor of maintaining it with a grain of salt.
jcg
Fiasco.
Fiascos like this.
I'm not arguing a laissez faire approach. I advocate one that will actually solve the problem of increasing access without destroying the best aspects of a system that works quite well in many respects.
Another bill/effort that won't pass the Congress...
especially because the White House won't guarantee that current health benefits won't be taxed.
You can't create a new tax or raise existing taxes.You just can't as it will help the repubs make a comeback and we can't allow that to happen...
I would prefer health reform fail than for it to squeek through and the repubs use new taxes created for it to make a comeback..
I want the repub party out of power for the forseeable future.
"I would prefer health
"I would prefer health reform fail than for it to squeek through and the repubs use new taxes created for it to make a comeback.."
Atta girl, ANGRYWOLF. It always amuses me to see how easily liberals will sell out their own beliefs and values.
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