Obama asks nation for health-care reform input

[Keona]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28081017

Since this is going to directly affect all of our futures, I think we should come up with something and submit it. I don't know if they will really listen to the ideas, but at least we can say we tried. I think we definitely need some changes to our health care system, and it looks like they want the ideas by Dec. 31st.

 

[LeemerDO]

Let me be the first to suggest that government stop involving themselves in the matters of healthcare in general since it is very obvious that their business model and management thereof are responsible for our current problems. (private insurance essentially model whatever Medicare and Medicaid do in terms of recommendations and reimbursement)

Second, repeal ERISA and make insurance companies equally, if not more liable as the crooks they already are.

Third, forbid FOR PROFIT insurance companies since they are less interested in healthy living and cash in more on sickness and disease and if it cuts into their bottom line, then they will let patients suffer than their profit margin.

Fourth, common sense discretion in terms of malpractice litigation.

Yes I know, it's fantasyland. None of this stuff will happen. However crack pipe dreams of universal health care and insurance to all with the current tort structure and oversight apparatus is equally, if not more dangerous and unfortunately more likely to occur.

 

[Miami_med]

What is wrong with a for-profit insurer? The problem is the system in which regulations prevent direct-competition. By the logic that everyone argues makes for-profit insurance bad, a non-profit should sweep into the market and take over. The reality is that the market is not free and that insurance prices are not high compared to what the system actually costs.

 

[PowerInNumbers]

I'm new to the forum - found you through research related to Obama's request for healthcare reform input. I am chairman of drs4drs but also a full time practicing physician - drs4drs is a national advocacy organization driven by docs for docs (the "AARP for docs"). While we lobby on Medicare issues (such as recent 10.4% fee cuts and the most recent restrictions on in-practice diagnostic testing) and work to temper payer dominance, we offer practicing docs practical services to improve their business/practice health. We have thousands of members nationwide and are actively formulating a response to this request by the president-elect.

We believe medicine is a business in which physicians are ENTITLED after 12 - 17 years of school, to make a profit and not be villainized for it, that physicians valuation has been taken hostage by insurance companies and politics and that control over it must be returned to phsyicians, and that those attempting to reform healthcare are failing to include our voices. Without doctors there IS no healthcare system to reform - by amalgamating and unifying our voice, nothing can be reformed without us.

We will be making our submission to Obama available on our website soon for review prior to the submission date of December 22. Please visit our site and join your voice to ours. The new, more interactive version of our site launches February 1.

POWER IN NUMBERS!

www.drs4drs.com

M.

 

[biogirl215]

What is wrong with a for-profit insurer?

Because funding health care is what costs them money, therefore they have a profit motive to deny care.

 

[Miami_med]

Because funding health care is what costs them money, therefore they have a profit motive to deny care.

Funding healthcare is what costs any third party payer money. Funding healthcare gives the government incentive to deny care (as they often do believe it or not), deny payment, raise taxes, and run deficits. Atleast with a plethora of different payers, there is some competition and one type can't completely run amok in the private sector. The government doesn't need a monopoly to run amok.

 

[LeemerDO]

Funding healthcare is what costs any third party payer money. Funding healthcare gives the government incentive to deny care (as they often do believe it or not), deny payment, raise taxes, and run deficits. Atleast with a plethora of different payers, there is some competition and one type can't completely run amok in the private sector. The government doesn't need a monopoly to run amok.

However, when insurance follows two steps behind everything what the big dog called Medicare does, that's not really competition. That's more of a passive cartel. Usually that's reserved for other professional and state sponsored extortionists such as drugs and oil.

 

[Miami_med]

However, when insurance follows two steps behind everything what the big dog called Medicare does, that's not really competition. That's more of a passive cartel. Usually that's reserved for other professional and state sponsored extortionists such as drugs and oil.

I agree that is the current system. I'm personally very fond of changing the current system, but the problem isn't that there are private insurers.