i suffer no illusions that this will be an easy process. it will be hard. but i also know that nearly a century after teddy roosevelt first called for reform, the cost of our health care has weighed down our economy and the conscience of our nation long enough. so let there be no doubt: health care reform cannot wait, it must not wait, and it will not wait another year."
the president's american recovery and reinvestment act protects health coverage for 7 million americans who lose their jobs through a 65 percent cobra subsidy to make coverage affordable.
the recovery act also invests $19 billion in computerized medical records that will help to reduce costs and improve quality while ensuring patients' privacy.
$1 billion for prevention and wellness to improve america's health and help to reduce health care costs;
$1.1 billion for research to give doctors tools to make the best treatment decisions for their patients by providing objective information on the relative benefits of treatments; and
$500 million for health workforce to help train the next generation of doctors and nurses.
guiding principles
president obama is committed to working with congress to pass comprehensive health reform in his first year in order to control rising health care costs, guarantee choice of doctor, and assure high-quality, affordable health care for all americans.
comprehensive health care reform can no longer wait. rapidly escalating health care costs are crushing family, business, and government budgets. employer-sponsored health insurance premiums have doubled in the last 9 years, a rate 3 times faster than cumulative wage increases. this forces families to sit around the kitchen table to make impossible choices between paying rent or paying health premiums. given all that we spend on health care, american families should not be presented with that choice. the united states spent approximately $2.2 trillion on health care in 2007, or $7,421 per person - nearly twice the average of other developed nations. americans spend more on health care than on housing or food. if rapid health cost growth persists, the congressional budget office estimates that by 2025, one out of every four dollars in our national economy will be tied up in the health system. this growing burden will limit other investments and priorities that are needed to grow our economy. rising health care costs also affect our economic competitiveness in the global economy, as american companies compete against companies in other countries that have dramatically lower health care costs.
the president has vowed that the health reform process will be different in his administration - an open, inclusive, and transparent process where all ideas are encouraged and all parties work together to find a solution to the health care crisis. working together with members of congress, doctors and hospitals, businesses and unions, and other key health care stakeholders, the president is committed to making sure we finally enact comprehensive health care reform.
the administration believes that comprehensive health reform should:
reduce long-term growth of health care costs for businesses and government
protect families from bankruptcy or debt because of health care costs
guarantee choice of doctors and health plans
invest in prevention and wellness
improve patient safety and quality of care
assure affordable, quality health coverage for all americans
maintain coverage when you change or lose your job
end barriers to coverage for people with pre-existing medical conditions
please visit www.healthreform.gov to learn more about the president's commitment to enacting comprehensive health reform this year.
maybe it's me but the word "reform" sparks more anxiety then it does hope for the future. i suppose only time will tell. though i must say i didn't appreciate that our president only included registered nurses in his estimation as "nurses" on the one video i have attached. perhaps i am just being too easily insulted but i worked to become a nurse as well even if that means i'm not a registered nurse. as well such is life...
Agrripa - I agree with you, the whole "blame it on malpractice" argument is entirely fallacious. You rebutted it so well!!! I worked for a private health care insurer in a previous life, and I am quite sure THEY are a very large part of the problem. Not all of it, but very significant. If the congress and senate lets insurers, along with the other bad actors, write the "reform" law the way big pharma wrote the medicare drug bill, we're sunk. That's what I'm afraid of -- a good pitch and then just more of the same legislating for the benefit of corporate big-money donors instead of for the good of our country as a whole and working, middleclass Americans.
Insurers are bad actors? Pharmacy companies wrote the medicare drug bill? (your proof is where?) Please show me where democrats do anything for the good of the country. When democrats took over Congress in 2006 unemployment was under 5% now since Obama and the Democrats are in charge it is pushing 10%.
Agrripa - I agree with you, the whole "blame it on malpractice" argument is entirely fallacious. You rebutted it so well!!! I worked for a private health care insurer in a previous life, and I am quite sure THEY are a very large part of the problem. Not all of it, but very significant. If the congress and senate lets insurers, along with the other bad actors, write the "reform" law the way big pharma wrote the medicare drug bill, we're sunk. That's what I'm afraid of -- a good pitch and then just more of the same legislating for the benefit of corporate big-money donors instead of for the good of our country as a whole and working, middleclass Americans.
Please remain respectful to one anothers view points wheather they are politically based or not. I didn't post this information so that those on allnurses could down play each other and start a heated political argument. It's one thing to be passionate about a subject and it's another thing to just get mad and say something mean or hurtful. I mean seriously can't you guys come up with something productive to say about the topic instead of bashing on each other political parties as you did below?
Because the trial lawyers are in the back pockets of the Democrats.
Only those who are Republican/Conservative faithfuls actually think in this illogical manner.
So much for being mature adults. let me guess since one person bashed on the others political party or views than the other one of you had to return fire. Right??
I'm not attacking a political party. I am simply presenting factual data.
The Democratic Party has become the Lawyers' Party. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are lawyers. Bill Clinton and Michelle Obama are lawyers. John Edwards, the other former Democrat candidate for president, is a lawyer and so is his wife Elizabeth. Every Democrat nominee since 1984 went to law school (although Gore did not graduate.) Every Democrat vice presidential nominee since 1976, except for Lloyd Bentsen, went to law school. Look at the Democrat Party in Congress: the Majority Leader in each house is a lawyer.
The Republican Party is different. President Bush and Vice President Cheney were not lawyers, but businessmen. The leaders of the Republican Revolution were not lawyers. Newt Gingrich was a history professor; Tom Delay was an exterminator; and Dick Armey was an economist. House Minority Leader Boehner was a plastic manufacturer, not a lawyer. The former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is a heart surgeon.
Who was the last Republican president who was a lawyer? Gerald Ford, who left office thirty-one years ago and who barely won the Republican nomination as a sitting president, running against Ronald Reagan in 1976. The Republican Party is made up of real people doing real work. The Democratic Party is made up of lawyers. Democrats mock and scorn men who create wealth, like Bush and Cheney, or who heal the sick like Frist, or who immerse themselves in history like Gingrich.
The Lawyers' Party sees these sorts of people, who provide goods and services that people want, as the enemies of America. And so we have seen the procession of official enemies in the eyes of the Lawyers' Party grow. Against whom do Hillary and Obama rail? Pharmaceutical companies, oil companies, hospitals, manufacturers, fast food restaurant chains, large retail businesses, bankers and anyone producing anything of value in our nation.
This is the natural consequence of viewing everything through the eyes of lawyers. Lawyers solve problems by successfully representing their clients, in this case the American people. Lawyers seek to have new laws passed, they seek to win lawsuits, they press appellate courts to overturn precedent, and lawyers always porifice language to favor their side.
Confined to the narrow practice of law, that is fine. But it is an awful way to govern a great nation. When politicians as lawyers begin to view some Americans as clients and other Americans as opposing parties, then the role of the legal system in our life becomes all consuming. Some Americans become "adverse parties" of our very government. We are not all litigants in some vast social class action suit. We are citizens of a republic which promises us a great deal of freedom from laws, from courts, and from lawyers.
If you really want to attack health care costs, attack tort reform. If you don't attack the root of the problem, it will only get worse. Common sense here people.
Thank you so, so much for the link to the article in the New Yorker "The Cost Conundrum".
It is THE most interesting article I have ever read about the subject of regional differences in costs in American Health Care.
I think I will read it every night for a week, just to burn that information into my brain
It is such a pleasure to be exposed to the thoughts of a really well educated, smart person, who is not out to make a buck, but rather to thoughtfully examine and report on the "Battle for the Soul of the American Healthcare System", as he so eloquently puts it.
I never heard of some of these theories that he relates to the current economics of health care, such as the:
Anchor Tenant Theory of Economic Development,
or, the
Accountable-Care Organization of Grand Junction, Colorado.
but they make so much sense.
The example he gives, if "instead of paying a contractor to pull a team together, you paid an electrician for every outlet he connected....plumber for every sink...carpenter for every cabinet, would you be surprised if you got a house with 1000 outlets, sinks and cabinets, and the whole thing fell apart in a few years?", is right on the mark.
I live close to El Paso, and sometimes even drive down there and work a shift.
I have to comment on what you said about "illegal immigrants do not qualify for Medicare."
I would assume they don't, I don't know exactly how that law is worded, but I have seen some of them get it, somehow.
My guess would be that they use someone elses SS#, and get other ID documents to match made up in Juarez.
Some 'illegals' also get Medicaid, and get their parents on Medicare. Why should the hospitals making money off them care? If employers legally do not have to do anything more than visually ascertain that a person has the ( "a") necessary SS ID in their possession, then I don't know why a hospital, which stands to make money off the transaction, could be expected to do more.
Believe me, it is more than just a little annoying to a person like myself, with NO health care, except the VA, to drive an hour and work a 13 to 14 hour shift caring for people who seem to get all the health care they want, and many of whom, I know darn well, are NOT citizens of the US.
Lucky for me I can get by in my broken Spanish, because often report is in English and the rest of the shift is in Spanish down in 'Chuco' (Mexican slang for El Paso).
And please don't get me wrong, many of these Mexican Citizens receiving Health Care in the US are lovely people, especially the older, old fashioned, ones. I certainly DO NOT wish any ill fortune on them.
However, Universal Health Care for the world is a topic for a different forum, also, I cannot say that we are helping the country (of Mexico) live up to its obligations to its own citizens by doing their job for them. After all, Mexico is a rich country, when one looks at it's mineral, oil, and agricultural wealth. I am very sorry for what is happening in that once lovely country.
I don't know what the solution will be but BeeSupporter, I agree with you so much when you say;
"if congress and the senate lets insurers ...write the "reform" law the way big Pharm wrote the Medicare drug bill, we're sunk,....a good pitch and then just more of the same...for the benefit of corporate big-money donors instead of for the good of our country as a whole and working, middle class Americans."
I hope America has not sold itself out to such an extent that "working, middle class Americans" will not be taken into any equation in the future. I read a Post on this site (sorry, I don't remember which one), that said something like "if Canadians, Brits, and Australians are supposed to be so unhappy with their health care, like so many of these Radio Talk Shows go on about all the time, why doesn't someone ask THEM their opinion." Well, someone did. The Poll result? Over 75% of the citizens of these countries WERE happy with their health care, as opposed to around 55% of US Citizens. (If any of you know the link I am referring to perhaps you could post it here.)
I would LOVE to see a 'Reform" of the US Health Care system, but a 'Reform' that would lead to something better, NOT just 'Reform' for the sake of "Reform'.
The President emphasized that we will get health care reform done, because Americans need reform to succeed: for the patients, families, businesses, hospitals, doctors and nurses:
America's nurses need us to succeed, not just on behalf of the patients that they sometimes speak for. If we invest in prevention, nurses won't have to treat diseases or complications that could have been avoided. If we modernize health records, we'll streamline the paperwork that can take up more than one-third of the average nurse's day, freeing them to spend more time with their patients. If we make their jobs a little bit easier, we can attract and train the young nurses we need to make up a nursing shortage that's only getting worse. Nurses do their part every time they check another healthy patient out of the hospital. It's now time for us to do our part.
There have been quite a few lawyers in our History that were elected President- Jefferson, Lincoln, FDR, Monroe, Madison, Adams, FDR, Nixon- a total of 25 of our Presidents were Lawyers. For followers of a political party to now spout that electing Lawyers is ruining our country is ridiculous. There were at least 34 out of 55 signers of the Constitution that at least studied law- was this a bad thing?
When the last President was in office, those who disagreed with him were called unpatriotic by many in the media, because all Americans should support their elected leader, now that same media has no problems expressing their disgust with our current President. Or blaming a congress for all of our unemployment woes, when the President could have (and did on many occasions use) vetoed any thing that his party did not like. When will people start thinking for themselves instead of listening to hate mongering from either side of the political spectrum?
Attorneys bashing is a time honored tradition, who will be next? Anyone who went to college and got advanced degrees or good grades? Teachers? Doctors? Nurses? Unions? It wasn't that long ago that a new government was formed by getting rid of anyone with an education, so the real folks could run it. Then there was that other government that was formed because bankers and a certain religious group were ruining their country.
Stop making generalizations about political parties, I think we can all agree we love our country and want to see it do it's best.
If you financially reward certain behavior you will get more of that behavior. It is human nature. Currently the rewards in delivering health care are perversely set up. The more procedures you do the more you make, if you can stabilize a chronic illness you make more money then if you cure or prevent that illness, if you make a mistake and the patient gets sicker you are know treating a sicker patient and you earn more money, the more patients you see in the shortest time the more money you make (and probably miss some important facts); the previous are just a few examples of what needs to be reformed.
Should health care only be for profit? Should health insurance only be for profit? Should care of our fellow humans be important or should it be over ridden by profit?
The dynamic conflict for profit vs non profit health care has been going on for well over a century. Currently, and the recent past, the for profit side has been the more powerful force.
To me health care reform is about putting a balance between these two forces.
When the CBO, a nonpartisan government office let Obama know that his plan will not reduce costs and will not cover all of the uninsured.......why is it still being pushed through Congress?
If this plan is actually going to increase overall costs....why doesn't he stop it??
Wasn't he trying to slow the growth of spending????
BeeSupporter
26 Posts
Agrripa - I agree with you, the whole "blame it on malpractice" argument is entirely fallacious. You rebutted it so well!!! I worked for a private health care insurer in a previous life, and I am quite sure THEY are a very large part of the problem. Not all of it, but very significant. If the congress and senate lets insurers, along with the other bad actors, write the "reform" law the way big pharma wrote the medicare drug bill, we're sunk. That's what I'm afraid of -- a good pitch and then just more of the same legislating for the benefit of corporate big-money donors instead of for the good of our country as a whole and working, middleclass Americans.