Health Reform is the Most Important Domestic Policy Issue

pickledpepperRN · Jul 14, 2007

Upgrading To National Health Insurance (Medicare 2.0)The Case For Eliminating Obsolete Private Health Insurance

Private health insurance was an idea that worked during part of the last century; it will not succeed through the 21st Century. With jobs increasingly service-based and short-term, the large employment-based risk pools that made this insurance system possible no longer exist. Medical care has become more effective and more essential to the ordinary person, but also more costly and capital-intensive. The multiple private insurance carriers that emerged during the last century can no longer provide a sound basis for financing our modern health care system.

Alone among the nations of the world, the U.S. has relied upon private insurance to cover the majority of its population. In the mid-20th Century, when medical care accounted for barely 1% of our gross national product, medical technology was limited, and jobs lasted for a lifetime, health care could be financed through such employment-based, premium-financed health insurance. But the time for private insurance has passed.

Health care has now become a major part of our national expenditures. The premium for an individual now averages more than $4,000 per year, while a good family policy averages more than $10,000 per year, comparable to the minimum wage and nearly one-fourth of the median family income. As a consequence, though the US spends far more on health care than any other nation, we leave millions of our people without any coverage at all. And those who do have coverage increasingly find that their plans are inadequate, exposing them to financial hardship and even bankruptcy when illness strikes....

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/07/13/2498/

pickledpepperRN · Jul 18, 2007

After Years of Labor Gains, Autoworkers Face Losses

Larry Boynton is slowly coming to a realization that would have been unthinkable for an American autoworker just a decade ago: that he will have to accept deep cuts in medical benefits or risk one day losing his job.

"We are almost understood that we are going to give up something, especially with health care," said Boynton, 56, a Chrysler worker from Detroit. "It's like they are slowing pulling the cover off you, and you got to be happy you got a little bit on."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/16/AR2007071601559.html

pickledpepperRN · Aug 10, 2007

Union member Steve Skvara who spoke about losing his health care and part of his pension when questioning John Edwards at the Democratic debate talks to Chris Matthews about those issues. Matthews doesn't seem to know when someone qualifies for Medicare.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5SSyS5n6U4&NR=1

PHC · Aug 11, 2007

I think your real problem is with anyone criticizing the US system. And your method of pointing-the-finger serves to distract from the real issues. "Well it can't be true, because he/she said it and he/she is a bad person" a la Carl Rove MO.
The facts are that we don't have universal health care and we pay way more than other countries for the same meds because of the overwhelming lobbying power of the health insurance and pharmaceutical companies. That is why I don't think things will change until we adjust the balance of power eg public funding of political campaigns. What was all that about government by the people for the people -right now it seems that it is government by the corporations for the corporations.

Right on! I totally agree with you!

pickledpepperRN · Aug 21, 2007

Remember Universal Health Care?

Ads In Iowa Target Democratic Front-Runners On Health Insurance

http://nationaljournal.com/adspotlight/

pickledpepperRN · Sep 21, 2007

Americans Want Leaders to Address Coverage for Uninsured, Poll Shows

A new poll shows providing health-insurance coverage for more Americans is a top priority for U.S. adults and a majority believe it is the government's duty to ensure all Americans have adequate coverage.

The Wall Street Journal Online/Harris Interactive health-care poll, conducted Sept. 10-12, asked how much Americans trust policy makers to come up with good policies for improving and reforming U.S. health care.

Overall, the Democrats are more trusted than the Republicans (39% vs. 26%), the poll shows, but both parties as well as all of the leading 2008 presidential candidates included in the survey have seen a decline in the public's trust since February 2007....

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119014251792831362.html

lamazeteacher · Sep 27, 2007

WE HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY ;)TO BECOME BETTER INFORMED ABOUT THIS CRITICAL ISSUE, TOMORROW, THURS., SEPT. 27, 2007 WHEN MICHAEL MOORE WILL APPEAR ON OPRAH'S SHOW, WITH A HEALTHCARE INSURANCE LOBBYIST AND TELEPHONE INTERVIEWS WITH CEO'S OF THOSE COMPANIES WILL BE AIRED. LET'S GIVE OUR OPINIONS AFTER THE PROGRAM TO OPRAH AT HER WEBSITE. HERE IS AN OPPORTUNITY FOR ACTIVISM OF NURSES TO BECOME KNOWN. WE ARE STRONG, ON THE FRONT LINES OF THE CONTROVERSY.

HEAR US ROAR!!!!!! :idea:

The worst idea I've heard, is the one for everyone to bankroll their own healthcare with their savings. All tax protected savings at this time, are taxed later (and higher), when we're retired - if still alive!! The banks benefit most from that plan! I know I certainly can't save the amount of money at present prices, for a catastrophic illness/accident. In the future those prices will be in line with inflation, and even less affordable!

There is no free ride, so the comment from someone about that, is doomed to failure, too.

I do think money witheld from our paychecks for our healthcare, needs to be utilized without employer or insurance company input. They are the conduits, not the drivers of a good healthcare program. When jobs are lost due to illness (and there has been no legislation against that), the cost of COBRA is prohibitive.

Employers discharge employees over 55 due to high extra insurance company premiums charged, and they won't allow Medicare to be the primary insurer of those over 65! Seniors are disserved by those companies more than employees whose spouses have healthcare coverage for them.

The only qualified people to dictate healthcare, is providers of it, no matter what party affiliation they have!! This country's practise of voter proclamation of party affiliation, in order to choose candidates, has outlived its purpose, as has the collegial system.

Americans Want Leaders to Address Coverage for Uninsured, Poll Shows
A new poll shows providing health-insurance coverage for more Americans is a top priority for U.S. adults and a majority believe it is the government's duty to ensure all Americans have adequate coverage.
The Wall Street Journal Online/Harris Interactive health-care poll, conducted Sept. 10-12, asked how much Americans trust policy makers to come up with good policies for improving and reforming U.S. health care.
Overall, the Democrats are more trusted than the Republicans (39% vs. 26%), the poll shows, but both parties as well as all of the leading 2008 presidential candidates included in the survey have seen a decline in the public's trust since February 2007....
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119014251792831362.html

lamazeteacher · Sep 27, 2007

Canada started their healthcare programs province by province. I happened to be in Windsor, Ontario, Canada when the first one was created by 7 physicians. Starting smaller is better than taking on a whole country of millions at the beginning. Contrasting plans for care would allow innovation and evaluation

Decentralization also allows peculiarities (such as hurricane Katrina) to dictate the budget for healthcare for all. We also need to care about others, rather than resent our tax dollars being used for those far away (such as in Iraq). National funds need to be available for veterans' healthcare, no matter where it's provided. When few soldiers were injured and dying, expensive facilities decayed. We need to maintain those facilities for everyone's use, and provide specialized care within reasonable distances, not in the hospital next door.

I do feel that replication of expensive machinery is a waste, and favor regional purchases of diagnostic devices, so that each hospital doesn't vie for them.

Hospitals claim to be non profit, when everyone knows they distribute their profits according to the administrators of those facilities' wishes (and greed).

Upgrading To National Health Insurance (Medicare 2.0)The Case For Eliminating Obsolete Private Health Insurance
Private health insurance was an idea that worked during part of the last century; it will not succeed through the 21st Century. With jobs increasingly service-based and short-term, the large employment-based risk pools that made this insurance system possible no longer exist. Medical care has become more effective and more essential to the ordinary person, but also more costly and capital-intensive. The multiple private insurance carriers that emerged during the last century can no longer provide a sound basis for financing our modern health care system.
Alone among the nations of the world, the U.S. has relied upon private insurance to cover the majority of its population. In the mid-20th Century, when medical care accounted for barely 1% of our gross national product, medical technology was limited, and jobs lasted for a lifetime, health care could be financed through such employment-based, premium-financed health insurance. But the time for private insurance has passed.
Health care has now become a major part of our national expenditures. The premium for an individual now averages more than $4,000 per year, while a good family policy averages more than $10,000 per year, comparable to the minimum wage and nearly one-fourth of the median family income. As a consequence, though the US spends far more on health care than any other nation, we leave millions of our people without any coverage at all. And those who do have coverage increasingly find that their plans are inadequate, exposing them to financial hardship and even bankruptcy when illness strikes....
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/07/13/2498/

pickledpepperRN · Nov 20, 2007

A gap in GOP candidates' healthcare proposals

Giuliani, McCain and Thompson are offering plans to help the uninsured -- but their aversion to regulations would mean that many of their fellow cancer survivors would be left out.

By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

November 20, 2007

WASHINGTON -- When Rudolph W. Giuliani was diagnosed with prostate cancer in the spring of 2000, one thing he did not have to worry about was a lack of medical insurance.

Today, the former New York mayor joins two other cancer survivors in seeking the Republican presidential nomination: Arizona Sen. John McCain has been treated for melanoma, the most serious type of skin malignancy, and former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson had lymphoma, a cancer of the immune system.

All three have offered proposals with the stated aim of helping the 47 million people in the U.S. who have no health insurance, including those with preexisting medical conditions.

But under the plans all three have put forward, cancer survivors such as themselves could not be sure of getting coverage -- especially if they were not already covered by a government or job-related plan and had to seek insurance as individuals....

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-gophealth20nov20,0,747551.story?coll=la-home-center

pickledpepperRN · Nov 21, 2007

I do NOT like the idea of tax money going to insurance companies.

Health-Care Plans Aid Industry
November 19, 2007; Page A8
WASHINGTON -- Democratic presidential candidates like to beat up on insurance companies, but there is a lot for the industry to like in their health-care plans -- starting with plenty of new business.
"Here's the potential for a whole new pool of lives for them to cover, with payment behind it," said Benjamin Isgur, assistant director of PricewaterhouseCoopers' Health Research Institute, which examined the presidential health plans' impact on industry. The study, a comprehensive look at health-care plans offered by candidates in both parties, also concludes that doctors, hospitals and other health-care providers would likely benefit since more patients with insurance suggest more would seek care and be able to pay their bills.
...Further, all the Democrats' plans would hasten the day when government pays the biggest share of the nation's $2 trillion health-care bill. Already, government pays 47%. Increased spending of $100 billion a year could bring that to 50% by 2011, six years earlier than maintaining the current course....
...Democrats are promising to get tough with insurers, principally by requiring them to cover all who apply and preventing them from charging those who are sick more.
Those proposals are anathema to the industry, but less so when they are coupled with a mandate that everyone buy insurance in the first place. Without that mandate, insurers fear that sick people will disproportionately seek insurance, without healthy people in the pool to balance them out financially. With a mandate, that's less of a problem.
The early signals from the insurance industry, which played a major roll in killing health-care reform in 1994, are positive...
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB119543898597597588-a70dSEa6MsGxU7gfPBhlR_548ws_20081118.html?mod=rss_free

pickledpepperRN · Jan 15, 2008

Obama-Clinton health debate ignores real issue

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

THE DEBATE BETWEEN Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama on health care probably looks like a small nuance in two proposals that are remarkably similar. But the issue at the center of their dispute reflects a lot about our present health-care system and how to achieve genuine reform.

What's generating the heat is a concept called "individual mandate"-using the power of government to force uninsured individuals to buy health insurance.

Senator Clinton claims that the only way to achieve "universal" coverage is to require everyone to have insurance.

Senator Obama says people don't have insurance not because they don't want it, but because they can't afford it. Both are skipping the main problem.

It's true that no plan can be called "universal" unless everybody is in....

http://www.projo.com/opinion/contributors/content/CT_nurses15_01-15-08_O288N5Q_v29.2b0ee8e.html

lamazeteacher · Jan 17, 2008

There's a cost factor largely ignored in the debates about health care, and that is the amount of money deducted from income tax by persons whose health care costs are above 7.5% of their incomes.

Those deductions would no longer happen, when all costs are borne by "single payer", leaving greater income for the government to use on health care and other programs benefiting us.