SMGBobbyScott wrote:Dude, I don't know who you've been talking to but everyone who works in healthcare is not in it to take care of people...they are in it for the money. That is why healthcare costs are going up on an average of 8-17% per year for the last several years (yes, even before Clinton, Bush, AND Obama). Tort reform would help, but only a little. Drug pricing would definitely help, but again only a little. Price fixing or competition of specialists would help...you get the trend here? The idea is that the whole system is broken. The system was bleeding money out of every pore and it needed a tourniquet solution...Other countries have this problem figured out...why not learn from them??? Is it soo bad to just admit that someone might have a better idea than we do? It worked in Massachusetts, Germany, France, Japan and just about every other industrialized nation...why can't it work here?
Man, I started laughing so hard that I was going to thank you, but then I realized you were serious.
Obamacare isn't going to fix drug pricing. How could it? The same corporations will make the pills and sell them in the same quantities.
The price of specialists won't matter, because a single-payer system will not cover these expenses in full. Maybe Obamacare is trying to achieve this, but go to Canada or anywhere in Europe. Their socialized insurance programs do not cover specialists. Unless you consider being "covered" as meaning having to wait over a year for hip replacement. Or 9 months for a good Heart guy.
And then you finish with the laugh of the day, when you imply that the best way to SAVE money and improve efficiency is to hire the US Federal governement to do the job!!! Holy crap that's even funnier when I read it again!!!
And by the way, as a resident of Massachusetts and a partner in a manufacturing business, let me tell you: It isn't really "working" here. The costs are higher than any other state, and most people still want private plans and HMO's because they are vastly superior.
It isn't woking in Canada, where the residents drive down to Boston or some other US hospital to have surgury performed.
It doesn't work in England, where my neighbor just lost her father because their system was so slow and cumbersome that by the time they found the cancer it was too late. This was a guy who was very diligent about doctors visits and his health. Over the course of 9 months he was repeatedly told that his inability to breathe was simply residual fluids from a bout with pneumonia. And no he can't have those other tests performed because they're not covered.
My neighbors laugh out loud when they hear the system used in England floated out there as an example. They are MUCH happier with our "broken" system than what they left behind.
Bottom line: If you want something done better and more effecient, then the US federal Governement is the LAST place you should consider. They know only two things: More expensive and Slower. Sometimes they combine the two. Which feature are you shooting for with our health insurance?