On 03/11/2006 09:15 PM, Collins Richey wrote:
On 3/11/06, Net Llama! <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Which just further proves how screwed up the US healthcare system is
when those with the money can receive better healthcare than those without.
That's just a fact of life. Those who have more money have always been
able to get better services of all kinds, not just health care.
Lots of things are a "fact of life". Does that mean that we should just
accept it? I know the texts of our forefathers aren't terribly popular
these days, but I still believe in the whole life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness. Quality health care should not be a privilege of
the wealthy.
That's fine, but I never advocated centralized govt controlled health
care. Collins just assumed that's what I was advocating based on his
misunderstanding of those who don't share his political viewpoints.
OK, my responses were in support of others in the thread, as opposed
to misunderstanding you. So, what's your suggestion for curing the
screwed up situation without centralized controls?
Well, having a govt with a clue would be useful, as that's clearly not
the case right now (nor has it been in quite some time). The Clinton
attempt was little more than political maneuvering. Bush's legislation
to "fix" medicare are quickly proving to be one of the bigger blunders,
in a very long list of dumb things (but I suppose that's an entirely
different thread, that I don't have the patience to hash out again).
While I'm not entirely convinced that govt controlled healthcare is a
bad thing, I think we do need some standardization across the board so
that everyone is entitled to the same basic level of coverage. Evening
the playing field in the health insurance industry would be a good start
so that I'm not paying $5000/yr, while someone else my age & with
similar health status is paying more or less. What a person pays for
healthcare shouldn't be determined by who their employer happens to be
(or not be). Something is seriously broken when I have more control
over what I pay for car, home & life insurance than medical insurance.
In fact taking the life insurance model might be a half-way decent
starting point. At least with life insurance, the payments are based on
somewhat more equitable factors (although even there you get screwed if
you happen to have a genetic pre-disposition to some disease).
My proposal would be that every employer, regardless of size, must
provide basic health insurance to all of their full time employees (and
their dependents) at no cost to the employees. By basic, I mean
emergency care, annual checkups/physicals, vision, dental &
prescriptions. Anything beyond basic care, yet not elective (oncology
treatment, etc) is available at a fixed rate which is a predefined
percentage of the employees annual salary. Anything defined as elective
care (surgery, etc), comes out of the employee's pocket, and isn't
price-controlled in any way. Insurance companies can over coverage in
some form for the out of pocket expenses if people choose, but the
pricing in place for the non-elective care should be reasonable enough
such that its not going to become financially debilitating without the
insurance.
Sure, there's ample latitude in the above definition to royally screw it
up such that care. But, since we're doing pie in the sky, and i'm not
running for office, that's my stab at it. I want a level playing field
so that people aren't being forced to chose between food, shelter or
their health.
--
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L. Friedman [EMAIL PROTECTED]
LlamaLand http://netllama.linux-sxs.org
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