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Health Care Seen As The Top Priority By Many Americans
Washington (dbTechno) – It appears that many Americans feel that the top priority of our government should be health care reform.
As of right now, there are still over 40 million Americans who are living without health insurance, leaving many to wonder why health care reform took so long to get put under the spotlight.
There are clearly many issues in the United States, with unemployment, the housing market, stock market, etc.
The belief of many though is that by fixing health care in the U.S., it may actually trickle down to help those other areas.
This not only includes just providing health care to all of those uninsured, but also to make health care more affordable to normal Americans so it does not take such a big dent in their wallets.
In the year 2008, health care costs skyrocketed yet again, causing major issues for those trying to afford health insurance.
This puts a strain on individuals, as well as businesses who try and give health insurance programs to employees.
It is going to take time, but health care reform needs to get done, and started this year.
That appears to be the case according to President Barack Obama and others, now we are waiting to see it happen.
Author: Staff
If we were to stop illegal aliens from getting free medical care at OUR expense and clogging up Emergency Rooms, many of which have been shut down over the years for lack of paying clients,,,,,we would not need federal tax help. The costs would be reasonable and anyone would be able to pay them except for catastrophic injuries/health problems…few and far between!!!
You know I keep hearing this issue but no one as of yet has put any refrences where they get the numbers. By saying that they are “uninsured” some how leads to they cannot get health care if they need it and that is a lye. I absolutely refute the entire artcle except one, the cost of health care has increased, as has everything else. The price of stamps is going up again this year, so, what’s new. Who “many americans”? What poll? Who says it is top priority? Just another lame brain liberal (communist) article designed to ruin the best HEALTH CARE in the world. In Canada, the people depend on US for CRITICAL health care. This will not be the savior of our nation. Quite the contrary. It wil be the RUIN of our nation. For anyone who does not have health care, just go to the hospital, that is what most uninsured people do now. What is the problem with that?
Health care and health insurance are two different things. Why are we to the point where we expect health insurance to cover your colds, etc. We pay for our groceries, why not pay for the common health care problems? Or should the government provide all health care, free?
Health care is the interaction between your physician and yourself, the patient.
Health insurance used to be a contract between you and the insurance company whereby the insurance would pay cetain amounts for unexpected medical costs.
Yes, medical insurance costs have excalated, while the doctors and hospitals are paid less. So where are the cost increases going? To the middleman and the CEO’s of insurance companies for their bonuses, 124 million for example to one CEO in 2006.
Many doctors are leaving the practice of medicine, and fewer are replacing them.
Why? Ask one of your doctor friends.
I live in Texas – home of the largest and best funded state medical association (TMA). Nonetheless Texas healthcare ranks near the bottom of all the states. The healthcare of the United States ranks low among the industrial nations.
This pointedly shows that the health care system we have in place is not justifiable particularly when the costs are at all time highs for such a poor comparative showing.
I am a board certified primary care physician assistant with over 30 years of practice and who co-owns a family practice clinic with a physician partner.
The U.S. invests in training physician assistants. The training of a PA is 138 weeks of university level medical center education. The training of an MD or DO is 152 weeks of the same university level medical center education. A Master’s level degree versus a doctorate is only a few weeks and classes are remarkably the same.
Physician assistants follow with one-on-one training in the speciality they wish to pursue. MD and DO join group residency programs for speciality training. There is no speciality of medicine or surgery without physician assistants in practice.
Yet, the health care system as a whole promotes physician only programs despite the clear cost benefits of physician assistants.
Insurance carriers have difficulty tracking the contribution of physician assistants because most billing for medical services is through the physician or clinic.
In addition, the U.S. imports physicians from abroad to fill “shortages” in care. It does so instead of growing the training of domestic, well qualified physician assistants to expand health care access.2009.
Studies have showed that the quality of care rendered by physician assistants often meets or exceeds their physician colleagues and partners in health care.
Our nation must expand the use of the health care providers we currently invest in and train at our university medical centers. We clearly need more primary care providers. Let’s invest more into those health care providers who can meet the needs of ordinary people in search of medical care for themselves and their families.
Health care has no value if you cannot access it.
The United States needs a National Health Service: Universal health care provided by the government. The health care ‘business’ is going to bankrupt us, then kill us through neglect. Socialized medicine is the only viable, and the only acceptable solution. Anything having to do with human health and welfare must be separated from profit: Where a profit may be made though denying care, care will be denied. The health care ‘industry’ demonstrates its willingness to condemn to death anyone that threatens the corporation’s bottom line, or that endangers an executive bonus, on a daily basis.
The executives, and upper management at every insurer where anyone has ever died as a result of denied care, should all be tried for first degree murder (under the felony-conspiracy rule), convicted, and executed. Our nation, and the rest of humanity, will be better off without these parasites.
Come on! Your headline says “Healthcare Seen By Many As The Top Priority For Many Americans” then the “article” does not quote any statistic or even a schmuck off the street to support that contention. Whoever wrote this article is NOT a journalist. Shame.
Yeah, which Americans, liberals following obama blindly, no matter what the jerk says or wants to do to destroy this country. The government needs to keeps its nose out of the business and lives of Americans. Plus, how many of these so called 40 million Americans allegedly without it are US citizens. Isn’t it convenient that this is about the same number of illigal aliens in this country. They are not citizens and should not be entitled to their helath care being paid for by American tax dollars. Plus there are a lot of Americans who could afford their own health care but decide not to purchase it but would rather spend their money on cell phones and other unnecaasary luzuries. If that is more important to them then I don’t care if they get health care or not provide by us. Our taxes are already ridiculous from supporting all of the free loaders in this society and the rest of the world. Get off your butts and pay for it yourself if you want it.
Real Healthcare Reform: Changing the Incentives and the Rules of the Game; Creating an Electronic Health Record for Every Citizen Who Wants One.
If you have the financial resources of Bill Gates or Warren Buffett you needn’t pay money to a health plan each month, since if you get sick or injured – even very seriously – you have more than enough money to pay all your medical bills yourself.
But those of us with significantly less financial resources must find some other means of dealing with the thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars or more of medical expenses that we might incur should a serious illness or injury be our fate.
Enter the concept of “health insurance”.
Large numbers of individuals and/or their employers pay some money each month into one or another big pot called a “health plan”. Those individuals who remain essentially very healthy for many years and then suddenly die or perhaps leave a particular health plan for some other reason – if they have put more money into the pot than was taken out to pay all their medical expenses – wind up helping to pay the medical bills of those members of the health plan who become seriously ill or injured and incur a lot of medical expenses.
Many members of health plans don’t seem to fully understand – or perhaps choose to forget – that if they become seriously ill or injured, for the most part their medical bills will be paid by the members of their health plan who have remained healthy. Some Americans believe that healthcare should become a “right” of every American citizen. If a nationalized single payer health plan were enacted, every American citizen – who for whatever reason became ill or injured and incurred significant medical expenses – would for the most part have his or her medical bills paid by all U.S. taxpayers.
For any health plan to work which has a large number of people pooling their money to essentially pay the medical bills of whichever members of the plan become seriously ill or injured – rules must be established as to when and how much money may be taken out of the pot e.g. “legitimate” doctor bills and hospital bills. Equally important is keeping track of the amount of money that is being put into the pot each month in premiums paid by health plan members or their employers. If too much is being paid out in expenses as compared with the amount being received in premiums, the pot will soon become empty and the health plan will go broke.
As previously mentioned, the monthly premiums paid by individuals or their employers go into a health plan’s big pot from which “covered” healthcare expenses are paid. But also from this pot are paid all the health plan’s administrative expenses including what may be big salaries and golden parachutes for CEO’s and other “healthcare executives” – individuals who may be paid to find technicalities of one sort or another in the health plan’s agreements so the health plan can deny or reduce payments, raise premiums, cancel insurance, or in one way or another minimize or exclude “bad risks” from the health plan. All such questionable “business activities” are done to enable the health plan to make a profit and remain in business.
Currently we are experiencing continual increases in healthcare costs that are unsustainable and which, if unchecked, will soon seriously threaten the future of the entire American economy. Healthcare costs must be controlled, but how? If a healthcare system made up of health plans is going to have a chance of meeting the needs of its health plan members and simultaneously be able to keep costs under control, something very critically important must first occur.
It turns out that a lot of illnesses and many injuries are actually preventable. Although health promotion and disease and injury prevention receive appropriate socially acceptable and fashionable lip service, the fact is that most of the participants in what should be more appropriately called our “sickness and injury care system” actually do not have any significant financial incentive to spend their time and energy in genuinely promoting health and helping to prevent disease and injury.
Much to the contrary. Other than the actual members of a health plan – patients and potential patients – and their employers and perhaps the employees of some health plans, most participants in our sickness and injury care system – because of the way they are paid – have an enormous (if unspoken) incentive to have massive amounts of disease and injury continue to occur in America. For them, strictly from a financial point of view, the more disease and injury that occurs, the better. And if the disease or injury is serious and requires lots of tests and complicated prolonged treatment, so much the better – just as long as those unfortunate individuals who are diseased or injured are “covered” by “good insurance”, i.e. health plans that are good reliable bill payers.
This is not to say that there are not some excellent and very dedicated and hardworking doctors and other health professionals – who although they are generally paid to care for illness and injury on a fee for service basis – nevertheless every day are attempting to essentially work themselves out of a job by very strongly encouraging health promotion and disease and injury prevention with their patients. Also, it should be recognized that some existing health plans – e.g. Kaiser and Group Health – combine insurance, doctors, and hospitals into a single entity in such a way that provides everyone – including all their doctors – a real incentive to spend time and effort with patients on health promotion and disease and injury prevention as well as on early diagnosis and treatment. But unfortunately the two examples cited above do not apply to the majority of our sickness and injury care system in America.
For the most part – because of the way they are compensated – most doctors and other professional providers, most acute care hospitals and long term care facilities, pharmaceutical manufactures and pharmacists, medical and surgical equipment manufacturers, personal injury and malpractice attorneys among others depend mightily on massive amounts of disease and injury occurring in America and would be significantly negatively impacted if a lot of the preventable illnesses and injuries were actually prevented. This must be changed.
Unless the incentives and rules are changed to give as many participants as possible a real stake in prevention, early diagnosis and treatment, and maximizing health and minimizing disease and injury, getting healthcare costs under control in America will be impossible. Making very significant appropriate changes in the incentives and the rules of the game is the real task and challenge of “healthcare reform”.
For example, should individuals receive a financial incentive to be healthy? It is well recognized that engaging in regular exercise, abstaining from tobacco, and eating moderately so as to maintain a reasonably normal body weight are all significant factors in helping to promote an individual’s health and wellness. These healthy behaviors can all be confirmed by simple tests in a doctor’s office. Why shouldn’t those individuals who practice these health promoting behaviors pay significantly less to their health plan than those who don’t?
To really reform healthcare we must figure out ways – through changes in incentives and the rules of the game – to actually prevent a lot of what is preventable, to maximize early diagnosis and treatment, and minimize disease and injury with all their associated costs. Most importantly we must find ways for essentially every participant to be part of our “healthcare system” not just a part of our “sickness and injury care system”. We need to find ways so that everyone has a genuine and significant financial stake in health promotion and disease and injury prevention, for themselves and others, rather than merely giving this lip service while actually earning one’s livelihood solely from the treatment of illnesses and injuries. This is the challenge.
Significant changes in the rules of the game for our legal system – tort reform – is also critically important so that the gaming of the system now being done by personal injury and malpractice attorneys and their clients can be ended and so that the exorbitant costs to physicians and other professionals for malpractice insurance can be dramatically reduced.
Truly transforming our “sickness and injury care system” into a “healthcare system” by making significant changes in the incentives and the rules of the game would seem to be a formidable task and one that has probably never really been done before anywhere in the world. But it is a worthy task and a critically important task for the future of America and its people.
One important first step is developing the capability of creating an electronic health record for every American citizen who wants one. We need a standardized framework that will allow every American citizen to have an individual electronic health record – a computerized medical record – that can be accessed by the doctors who care for them, regardless of wherever the doctors or the patients happen to be on the planet. It would be like having your own personal online banking account that only you have the password to, but which you can share with the doctors who are caring for you, wherever you may be.
I strongly applaud those who are using their energy and expertise to upgrade our deplorable current paper medical records system and bring medical records into the 21st century. Developing a standardized framework for an electronic health record – for every citizen who wants one – created by your doctor with your assistance, which has proper security and safeguards is something that our national government can and should do as a part of healthcare reform.
If done well, electronic health records will be transformational in helping doctors efficiently and effectively care for patients – whenever and wherever they may be – and will save an enormous amount of time and money which is currently wasted on needless and frequently inaccurate duplication. They will also make it easier to evaluate each patient with regard to health promotion and disease and injury prevention. Like the telephone and the computer, someday we will all wonder how we ever got along without them.
Now is the time for all Americans including their leaders and their doctors to step up to the plate and begin to transform our “sickness and injury care system” into an “American Healthcare System” that is worthy of our great country.
Robert Westafer M.D.