> Dana wrote: > > Dammit Gruss I don't have time for another forever thread, But you > said you agreed with me then restate the same position. I am not > particularly a fan of single payer, but you are, really you are, > arguing as an ideologue here. >
Well maybe we're crossing wires then because I'm still agreeing with you. All I'm saying is that America's problem is exponentially rising health care costs. That's resulted in people getting dropped from coverage just like rising television costs would result in fewer people watching TV. So that's the historic reality. Now let's take your ER example. Sadly, if someone has diabetes w/ vascular complications they might get their symptoms treated in an ER but they won't have their disease treated very likely. Or let's say they need a hip replaced. Probably won't get done in an ER. But your right in that tax payers pay for it (but which ones?? and what does the hospital eat?). And you're also right that broad coverage is a productivity enabler. I agree with all of that. And I agree that doing nothing - keeping the system as it is - doesn't change those trends either. The question for me is: given the system we have now, what is a feasible next step? What's the vision of the future and what's the next step America can reasonably take to get there. And that next step is going to have to do something about the cost trends and at the same time cover more people. And possibly fix medical bankruptcies. Attacking cost trends will be a LOT of IT. But somehow doctors, labs, and pharma are going to have to be paid less and there's only 2 ways to do that: 1.) You cut their pay across the board. E.g., eye surgeons will now make $250k max (not $1m+) That will be brutal. or 2.) You "deregulate" just like the airlines and force doctors to compete and consumers to select. I don't favor anything that doesn't have a plan for lowering bottom line costs. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;207172674;29440083;f Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:296702 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
