Premise: Quality healthcare should be at least as much of a right as owning a gun in this country. The quality of healthcare in this country is the best in the world, if you can afford it, but it's pretty bad if you can't. So my goal is to keep the quality but make it more affordable, without unfair taxation. Let's see of you like these ideas. And, please add thoughts and ideas.
1)Reform the hell out of malpractice law. Start by actually defining what malpractice is, it shouldn't be hard to do. Just because you die in the care of the doc doesn't mean it was the doc's fault. But if the doc sews his gloves into you liver and kills you, it's the doc's fault. At the same time eliminate malpractice insurance. A doc will have nothing to worry about as long as they are good docs. We've already eliminated unnecessary costs.
2)Allow foreign drug makers to sell in the US. The only reason they can't is because the drug company lobby doesn't want the competition. (I guess we'll need lobby and crony reform too, but that's another issue.)
3)Raise taxes on tobacco and carcinogen producing pollution. Funnel all those monies toward the program described later. Outlaw public smoking like many states. Make Physical education, Health Education, and Sexual Education Mandatory for all schools.
3 b) I'm personally for legalizing marijuana, taxing and regulating the hell out of it and funneling all those resources too. But I don't think enough people would agree to that.
3 c) Perhaps a creative sales tax could work. For instance a 'Nickel tax' for all purchases. All purchases would be rounded up to the nearest nickel. So the most you'd ever pay is 4 cents, and perhaps you would never pay it. That way we eliminate the penny and stop producing it. Pass on the savings and the tax to fund the program.
4)Create an *Optional Federal Healthcare Program that acts like an insurance policy. It would be cheap and subsidized by various programs, but paid for largely by those who use it. Just put it on the W4 and unemployment claims. Leave the private insurance industry alone but force them to compete with this new program. The Federal Program would allow you to pick your own doctor and ALL doctors must accept it. Of course children and those enrolled in higher education receive this program free of charge. If you opt out of Public Healthcare, you pay nothing from your payroll tax. If you take Public Healthcare, you pay it in similar way off your paycheck now. Us
Users would pay copays and have prescription drugs coveres and everything just like private insurance!
4 a) The Federal Healthcare Program subsidizes ALL chronic care situations keeping them off the insurance companies tabs and yours.
5)Eliminate or reform the FDA so its focused on this program, prevention, and safety of the Healthcare system and drugs. AND oversee the fair reimbursement of doctors. Just because you're a doctor doesn't mean you should be rich, but good doctors should be paid well and have lots of patients. Bad doctors should go out of business.
What do you think? I think it's a fairly good mix of conservative and liberal ideas.
globalwarmingisrael- unfortunately my senators, Hillary and Chuck have their own ideas...
wow, some good thoughtful points. on YA none the less.
Some of my points are to reduce the NEED for healthcare. Smoking is a big one, not in CA I know.
Keeping Medicaid is a good comprimise, as long as children are free. But if medicare medicaid is eliminated the 'premium' for federal health comes out of the unemployment or social security check.
I'm not suggesting all docs are rich, but a major contention is that docs might lose on something like this. I don't want that to happen.
I agree that whatever the govt touches turns to poo. It shouldn't be that way. Obviously we need a lot more reform, starting with crony, pork, and lobby reform, cutting the fat etc.
I think that with good malpractice reform, we could, in effect, antiquate malpractice insurance and that cost. That's what I should've said.
Bob J
You have no right to someone else's labor. That is called slavery.
iceman
You got my vote.
Sweetpea
The government allows me to own a gun. It does not buy it for me though. I glanced at some of your ideas and some are spot on. Take #1 for example. malpractice insurance is driving some doctors out of business. Malpractice insurance is why our ER's are performing every test in the world on you to avoid a lawsuit. If you talk to a doctor they will tell you that Malpractice Insurance, too many procedures to protect themselves, and the end of life care are three of the major contributors to the rise in healthcare.
globalwarmingisreal
Pretty good ideas there.
Send it to your Senator and Representative.
Nattering Nabob
Even a convicted felon has the right to health care but doesn't have the right to a gun. In any event, people who want guns have to buy them. for health care....heck just go to the emergency room. The have to treat you even when they know full well you aren't going to pay. Just look at the deadbeats and drug seekers in the ER of any big hospital.
OK... I know there are lots of legitimately sick people there. But ask any ER doc or nurse and they'll tell you that it is full of people recieving medical care, needed or not, scott free.
Karma
As for the general points of reform, I agree with most. However, there are a few that I don't exactly agree with.
- Doctors and nurses have to have malpractice insurance. It's not because they are bad practitioners, it's because of the litigation hungry society. People who sue over silly things also sue for a lot of money. It's a get-rich-quick scheme for some people, and despite popular belief, most doctors and nurses are not in the top 15% of the US wage-earners.
- I'll have to disagree with the federal subsidized insurance for unemployment claims. We already have Medicaid for the poor. It's not the rich or the poor who are suffering from health care cost issues, it's the working middle class. Those who fall into the cracks of making too much to be on Medicaid but do not make enough to afford insurance for the family. We should attack this issue directly and lower health care costs. Once health care costs are lower, insurance companies won't have to pay as much and will lower as well.
- It's bad enough we have insurance bean counters in charge of our chronic care. Having federal bean counters deciding on the course of treatment for an ongoing illness would be a nightmare. Chronic care should fall back into the hands of medical professionals, period.
-Being "rich" is subjective. As a person with an education, I don't see doctors being rich. It's a popular misconception. Like I said above, they don't even fall into the top 15% of wage-earners. They have more student loans to pay off than what your house probably costs. As a skilled professional with a higher education, of course they should be paid more than someone working at a factory.
Anyway, I'm really happy to see someone talking reform and not a universal government takeover. It's also refreshing to see someone come up with the "how" ideas for reform rather than just painting the "we need universal health care" brush over everything. I enjoyed your ideas.
mr doodles
you lost my vote when you said the government needs to get involved. one of the contributing factors of the cost of health care is all the government regs that have been put on the health care system. i agree with one point of yours and than is malpractice insurance. i can't see how you can do away with it or tone it down when practically most of the congress and senators are laywers. what needs to change is the fact that our er's are being used like they are doctors offices because you will be seen without having to wait for an appointment. i would like to point out one thing and that is hmo's they sold this country a bill of goods and most people bought into their ideas without doing research. hmo is short for health maintancence organizations. in other words they reward you for not getting sick , maintaining yourself in the best healthy condition you can. as to your question about making it illegal to smoke in public. do you honesty think that a tax on this would help. i live ca and the news says only 1 in 10 smoke now so how would that tax help if the stats are correct. you do everything but blame the government for your misgivings about your health care. you would put your faith in the government when everything they regulate makes it worse not better. if you want to protest the governments involvment in this i am behind you but if you want the government to be the the conservitor of health care them i am against you.
Orignal From: Tips: Healthcare?
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