EM & American Politics

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tegs15

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I know there are other forums for this, but as I hope to pursue EM I'm looking for opinions from seasoned EM physicians and residents who have had to deal with our current system.

Healthcare reform keeps floating to the top in the current presidential race and I'd like to know your opinions. Do you think any of the candidate's proposed plans are likely to;

1-Improve patient's morbidity, mortality and/or compliance?

2-Decrease the percentage of the GDP spent on healthcare in the US?

3-Improve a physican's treatment options for his/her patients?

4-Stop the progressive yearly decline of physician salaries when compared with inflation?

Please expound on any of these questions or on how you see healthcare changes effecting EM practice, patient care or reimbursement in the future.:)

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60 highly educated individuals from all parts of the country and nobody has a constructive POLITICAL answer to share?


I understand, if I wasn't studying for the cardio final I would be kicking back too. (I forget its Friday, doesn't seem to mean much anymore.)
 
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60 highly educated individuals from all parts of the country and nobody has a constructive POLITICAL answer to share?

Oh, you wanted a CONSTRUCTIVE answer?

Sorry, no help there.

If you want a smart-assed answer, though, you've come to the right place. That's sort of this forum's speciality (and you thought it was EM).

Take care,
Jeff
 
I see limiting the impact of lawyers as a great start. Combine that with insurance reform (esp allowing non-profit insurance companies) we could be headed in the right direction. Yet, I haven't heard any politicians proposing these types of reforms. Any other ideas?

A current candidate has suggested that instead of Medical/healthCARE reform the nation needs to look at health reform. Health reform, as in personal-health responsibility, would be manifest through "carrots" & "sticks" for both patients who stayed/became healthier and health professionals that promoted/showed positive health trends in their patients.

Thinking about the patients you see in the ED, do you think this idea could help. Would patients really change their habits if they knew that "their next visit was free" because of the life style changes they had made (stop smoking, control DM or documented exercise)?
 
MY PLAN -
1. Dissolve all federal govt. forms of healthcare (medicare, congressional health plan and prescription RX plan), except the VA.

2. Lower federal taxes commensurate to decrease in federal healthcare cost.

3. Thereby allowing states to individually decide what type of healthcare system their citizens want and are willing to pay for. Wiser decisions are sometimes made at the local level.
 
1. Dissolve all federal govt. forms of healthcare (medicare, congressional health plan and prescription RX plan), except the VA.

So, breaking my promise to avoid constructive replies, why would you single out the VA to keep?

If you're gonna jump ship and say we want to treat everyone the same (state by state), then jump whole hog. Get rid of all federal care, including the VA.

Our vets have earned health care/insurance. Why not give them the same care/insurace the rest of the country has instead of sending off to the VA, something not always exactly top-notch.

While you're at it, why not just do away with all forms of national and state insurance? Do away with tax breaks for employer provided insurance at the same time (although continuing to allow pre-tax purchase of insurance). Add a Mass.-style mandate that everyone purchase individual plans. This would create a huge market for individual plans.

Take all the money you've saved and put it in individual accounts for the purchase of insurance on a sliding scale based on income. Those who can't afford to buy a plan would have enough money put in their account to cover basic plans.

Take care,
Jeff
 
Thinking about the patients you see in the ED, do you think this idea could help. Would patients really change their habits if they knew that "their next visit was free" because of the life style changes they had made (stop smoking, control DM or documented exercise)?

Not necessarily. The ED is not the best place to track lifestyle changes, which are difficult to track in the first place (who documents excercise?). And even if you could do that, the next visit "free" would only be interesting if everyone had private insurance. Can you imagine the alcoholic down the street implementing any lifestyle changes for a free ER visit? ;) You see what I'm getting at....
 
MY PLAN -
1. Dissolve all federal govt. forms of healthcare (medicare, congressional health plan and prescription RX plan), except the VA.

2. Lower federal taxes commensurate to decrease in federal healthcare cost.

3. Thereby allowing states to individually decide what type of healthcare system their citizens want and are willing to pay for. Wiser decisions are sometimes made at the local level.

This one sounds good to me.

To the other resident, the military is a federal enterprise, and the VA takes care of military veterans. Some people, myself included, believe that the military is the major role of the federal government, which does single them out. I'm about the only person who believes that federal government healthcare is a clear violation of the 10th amendment, but I'm not the only one who thinks that doing it at the state level as the 10th amendment would imply is a good idea.
 
All I can say is the possible changes are scary to me. When graduating with 200k+ in loans, I want to be able to pay them off, and not paying payments my whole life either. I want to be able to pay them off and then actually earn some money. Don't know exactly how to make sure this could happen...
 
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