Health Care: The Ticking Time Bomb

I enboldened words that I'd like to address in this reply. Your concern about the children's money is well intentioned, but not applicable to health care costs. When health insurance is tied to one's employment, that affects your salary (employers tack their costs for your premiums for health insurance to your salary, when setting that). So the amount your "insurance" will cost is already taken from you, and will come from the additional 5% taxed those who earn more than $250,000/year. In the "universal" plan, the enormous profits made by the health insurance companies whose many CEOs make obscene amounts, aren't added. The reason the employer hospitals, etc. like things this way, is because they can deduct your insurance premiums as a "business costs", from their profit. They also deduct bonuses for their administrators in the same way. You don't get to deduct anything! (Unless your medical costs exceed 7.5% of your income.) Most younger employees haven't high costs like that.

President Obama is "tackling this problem" because his mother became a victim of the current system before she died, and he realized that overblown profits of doctors, hospitals (even when they say they're non profit) and pharmaceutical and DME products are not in accord with what the founders of our country intended for its citizens and residents. He worked in South Chicago and observed the health needs of its people that went unheeded. We are paying much more for the health care of those who can't get early preventive care, and wind up being hospitalized and needing procedures that might have been avoided.

Think patients with DM who lose their lower extremities, due to avoidable infections turned gangrenous, procedures now done that aren't really necessary (I was scheduled for a knee replacement by a retiring orthopedic surgeon, when a knee band has stopped my knee pain for 10 years). The number of CABGs was ridiculous when surgeons competed to see how many vessels they could bypass, in little time, until the government agency stepped in and stopped that.

I certainly don't regard him as "the messiah", because he is working as hard as anyone else in his government, to make things happen that will benefit all of us. He wrote his own books while in school and shortly afterward, without any suggestion of having us regard him as anyone but a human being with goals other than lining his own bank account and pockets. I see him as trying to live with his family in the midst of a maelstrom of media, oppositional factions, and disbelievers.

Government has been and will continue to be close to your health care, (especially as we age). It required that you have immunizations before attending school. It demanded fair housing and employment practises, unemployment insurance, and retirement programs to keep you sheltered, fed and clothed when your own resources ran out. Past leaders of our country allowed inroads by fraudulent companies and health practitioners to rob the money set aside for older people's healthcare. Now the armed forces have soldiers whose job it is to make sure that contractors don't receive government contracts to repay favors (I met one young woman who gets competitive bids for those now, at the July 4 picnic to which I went).

President Kennedy said, "Think not of what your country can do for you.....". President Obama is thinking of what your country hears and sees that you need and deserve, to be healthy because you're part of it! Just because all of the things that are wrong with it haven't been corrected in his forst 6 months in office, is not a reason to think it won't happen. Patience is a virtue. Trust goes both ways.

Also, Kennedy and Obama are worlds apart. Kennedy would be a Republican in today's political climate.

I think a public plan would be a way to keep the for-profit and not-for-profit hospitals/corporations/insurers honest. I also think it is only one part of the problem with healthcare, especially hospitalizations. Hospitals used to be structured to supply care. Now, it seems, it is for profit and that has led to other health problems. This article by Paul Oneil is spot on.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/06/op...html?th&emc=th

my 1.3 cents worth

I have the hope that President Obama will take positive steps to reform health care. As for how much it will cost to reform health care. It will cost less in national treasure than this war in Iraq cost that the previous administration put this country in.

You are right it does not guarantee us any such right in the constitution. But then it also does not give anyone the right of and education but the vast majority of us believe that every child is entitled to an education which we support with our taxes as we should. Not too long ago in our countries history women and african americans were not allowed to vote. We as a country corrected that wrong just as I pray we as a nation will correct the wrong of our health care system.

Kennedy and Obama are worlds apart? I think not. John Kennedy in his 1000 days in office increased the minimum wage, created the Peace Corps, obtained better Social Security benefits, passed an urban renewal package, fought for civil rights and used diplomacy before war.
John Kennedy knew the importance of dialogue with our adversaries. Sure looks like the same things we Democrats including President Obama still support.

I am not even the tiniest bit confident that government can provide fair and balanced healthcare if it's mandated........on the other hand I am neither a pessimist or an optimist.....I am a realist. Always willing to listen and consider any plan they put out there before making a decision.

I hear people say this all the time, and it simply isn't true. Hospital EDs are required, by federal law, to stabilize emergency conditions. That's it. They are not required to treat anything that isn't an emergency. Until recently, most hospital EDs have treated everyone just to protect against making a "wrong call" and ending up in court later, but more and more hospitals are starting to balk at this and turn people away, refer them to urgent care clinics, etc. for non-emergencies.

And they are certainly not required to treat even emergencies for free. Hospitals routinely turn bills over to collection agencies and take people to court to get paid, if there is any money or assets to be taken. This is how even middle-class families who (mistakenly) thought they had good insurance (just because they'd paid all those premiums all those years, HAHA) wind up in bankruptcy court over catastrophic medical bills every day in this country.

ACU.....I am totally against 'feeding on the government', mostly because the government is us. On the other hand, if we could trust the captains of capitalism, then we wouldn't need government regulation at all. The greedier, more corrupt the are, the more we need government regulation. In economic models the government is the regulator and protector of the worker, otherwise the producers would continue to lower wages, force us to buy all our products from them and lobby for increased taxes for their subsidies. Are you familiar with Adam Smith, John Galbreath, W. Edwards Demings?

Yes, I would support a public health care option, for those who could not afford the cost of coverage on their own. My wife and I would not qualify for such a program because we have excellent health care and insurance where we work now (we both work for a hospital) but we both believe that no one should be shut out of the healthcare system because they lack money. I'm willing to see more of my tax dollar go to this - I have no problem with it.

Concerning that little poll with the three choices: I put down yes, I support it, but that doesn't mean I don't care how it's set up - of course I do - all of us do. Having the the third choice "depends on how it's structured, etc." appears to be an attempt to "water down" the "yesses" somewhat - maybe that wasn't the intent, buttt ....... I am going to count response #3's as a "yes"....