Think our health care is best, watch this
High cost, poor results. Time for a change
Saturday, July 18, 2009
More evidence that our health care system is failing us
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
A political blog from Dartmouth, Massachusetts. I encourage debate of the issues facing our town on this blog.
Pages
Hitching Post Links
- Dartmouth Weekly Meeting schedule
- Dartmouth Meeting Agendas and Minutes
- Dartmouth Town Hall website
- DCTV Channel 18 schedule listing
- Dartmouth Schools website
- Dartmouth Finance committee
- Dartmouth Public Library website
- UMass Dartmouth events listing
- Fall River Herald News website
- New Bedford Standard Times website
- Eschaton
- Blue Mass Group
- Dartmouth Town Charter
- Dartmouth General Bylaws
- Dartmouth Personnel Bylaws
- Dartmouth Zoning Bylaws
- Mass General Laws
Blog Archive
-
▼
2009
(594)
-
▼
Jul
(31)
- Congressman Frank coming to Dartmouth
- Bob Dylan on Friday, If you gotta go, go now- 1965
- Police Department organization and appointments
- Your health care dollars at work
- Local option taxes
- Dartmouth Heritage Trust Annual Meeting July 29
- Former insurance executive on our health care system
- Dr. Howard Dean on health care reform
- Governor and legislature have more work to do.
- More evidence that our health care system is faili...
- Support grows for health reform
- Mirror, Mirror report
- Liliy, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts-Dylan
- Senator Bernie Saunders of Vermont gets it right
- Governor proposes expansion of charter schools
- Robert Reich on the House health care plan
- Physicians for National Health Program
- US House leaders agree on health care bill
- Chamber of Commerce study ranks our state tops in ...
- Police department retirements and promotions
- More recycling is needed
- How should we pay for state government?
- Report on ballon photo simulation
- School enrollment and required spending
- Town receives federal stimulus grant
- Myth versus Reality about health care
- Balloon simulation test scheduled for tomorrow
- Too foggy for balloons
- Wind turbine ballons fly tomorrow July 7
- Executive Administrator search update
- Latest MOB file
-
▼
Jul
(31)
Posts
Recent Comments
Labels
- Budget (274)
- Public info (209)
- leadership (173)
- State politics (104)
- schools (96)
- You Tube music (92)
- National politics (77)
- Election (59)
- Commonwealth (56)
- Health care reform (55)
- Town Meeting (54)
- wind power (51)
- override (47)
- Bob Dylan (37)
- CPR (36)
- Capital projects (32)
- development (32)
- infrastructure (32)
- Executive Administrator search (31)
- police department (27)
- Curmudgeonly musings (24)
- town charter (23)
- Economy (21)
- E government (20)
- Library services (18)
- Municipal Partnership Act (18)
- FinComm (15)
- Technology (14)
- Dartmouth Hitching Post (12)
- Fun stuff (12)
- MOB file (12)
- UMass Dartmouth (12)
- Contracts (11)
- CPC (9)
- Budget Director search (7)
- SEMAP (7)
- Financial bailout (5)
- Akin house (4)
- Media (4)
- Reed Road 40R (4)
- COA (3)
- Gambling (3)
- Parks (3)
- collective bargaining (3)
- sheriff (3)
- AP grant (2)
- DPW (2)
- Government secrecy (2)
- bylaw review (2)
- Bullard Wellness Center (1)
- Flu (1)
- Tax classification (1)
- Voke suit (1)
- employee pay/bene (1)
- recycling (1)
32 comments:
Thanks for the great clip! Our system is sick and we need help!
bill. perhaps after health insurance the government can take over supermarkets. Those damn PRIVATE supermarkets live to make a profit. I am sure we can do better with government run stores. Government run health insurance, stores, gas stations and news papers that is what we need. Then we can be just like the Russians we defeated in the cold war!!!!!
Or we could be like France, who does have universal health care coverage, a single payer system, and the highest ranked health care outcomes in the world.
If you are happy with your current health care insurance, you can keep it.
I have intentionally stayed away from anecdotal evidence in making arguments for reform but here is some examples from my own family.
My brother was covered under his wife's insurance and has diabetes. Sadly, his wife passed away. He lost his insurance as a result and cannot get insured AT ANY COST due to his preexisting condition, diabetes.
My sister in law moved out of state to be near her grandchildren. Between the time that she quit her job with insurance here and took another job, she was diagnosed with cancer. She has been treated, is in remission, and has a job. She can't get health insurance AT ANY COST because of her preexisting condition, cancer.
There are hundreds of thousands of cases like this across the country. What do you say to people in this situation?
Bill, I just posted on the Dartmouth Democratic Town Committee blog(DDTC) avideo of a GOP Representative. who ADMITS insurance companies control YOUR HEALTH CARE and CONTROL the MARKET..check it out
Ray, go away!
Ok, I will say it again,this is the same group of people who will fight tooth and nail to prevent taxes from going up in our little town to provide basic services but have no problem with the huge expansion of government going on which will ultimately have us pay the bill thru higher taxes. My head is spinning.
ultimately our taxes will go up, but not at the same rate our premiums go up. Also the net savings you acquire from a national health plan by not having to pay a premiums far out weigh the cost of your taxes. Average family pays over 10,0000 job provided healthcare..I dont think taxes will jump 10 grand
Bill, I think you are a communist! Do you honestly believe that the government should run our health-care business? Do you think our founding fathers would advocate that?
Universal Health Care is not a NEW issue..Elanor Roosevelt was the first to speak in favor of it
Labels are a lazy way to deal with issues. Call it anything you like. Who knows what our founding fathers would do. Since they are not here to speak to the issue, people will attribute whatever they want to them.
Our health care system is not working for the providers or for the patients. The only people who benefit from the status quo are insurance and pharmaceutical companies.
Our government already runs the largest health insurance program in the country, Medicare. Will you sign up for Medicare when you retire or will you continue to pay for private insurance?
I'll ask again. Can someone explain to me why most industrial countries deliver universal health care to their citizens at half the cost of our system? I don't care if you know someone in Winnipeg or Munich or Leeds who is unhappy with their system. How do they get what I believe are better (at least for the sake of argument,comparable results) while spending much less? I think the answer is that they have a single payer system. Show us how that is not the answer.
Bill, other countries deliver care for less than the United States. BUT the United States is the LEADER in developing new medications and new medical procedures.
IF we get government run health care we will be locked into 2009 health care forever. There will be no new medicines, no new procedures, no new ANYTHING!! Is that what you want?
I am happy to pay a little more KNOWING that the very procedure that might save my life in 25 yrs is being worked on now.
France is the model you like to comment about, tell me several medical breakthroughs France has made since socializing their health care. I can list thousands made in the U.S. during the same time.
What do you say to the millions of people that will not have the new medicines and new procedures that will die BECAUSE we instituted government run health care?
No system is perfect, and I feel for those who are not able to get insurance. That being said it is much easier to force insurance companies to insure high risk people than to revamp and hamper medicine forever.
The medical profession isnt going to change...just the payer is going to change. Rather than BC?BS paying a portion it will be the national health insurance plan
My largest cocern isn't adults that are working, it is children and the elderly. There are millions of kids without insurance because their parents can not afford family coverage, they can only afford single coverage. that is my largest concern. If we start anywhere it should be to make sure every single American child has full coverage
anon 3:54 Excuse me but people are dying in this country every day because they don't have health insurance. Oh that's right. Those people don't matter because if they can't afford health insurance, they are worthless anyway. And what about the people who are refused coverage? Are their deaths a trade off so the drug companies can continue their research? Same old song. I have mine so screw everyone else.
Those people don't matter because if they can't afford health insurance, they are worthless anyway
I did NOT say that. I said let the Government MANDATE that all persons be insured, but to put the lives of 300,000,000 millions of Americans on the line for the 10 million that cannot afford insurance is absurd.
Locking us into medical care at the 2009 level is a huge mistake and WILL happen with government health insurance. Just look at France, Canada, and a host of European Nations. New advances in health care do not happen under socialized medicine.
In the future, please do not put words in my mouth. I have done hundreds of hours of research on the subject and am not shooting from "the hip".
Sometimes in life, people fall through the cracks for the greater good. I wish that was not the case, but it is and will always be.
The government can mandate that all Americans will be covered by insurance, which is much better than revamping out entire system and eliminating all the good that comes from American research and development.
The "greater good" sounds like collateral damage.
Please. "greater good"??? That excuse is always used when people are being thrown by the wayside. As for mandated health insurance. You mean like Mass.? You can mandate it all you want. If people can't afford it, they can't afford it. Telling them they have to have it, is not going to change anything. By the way, are you the person on here who is complaining about the government controlling the people? Mandating health insurance sure seems like controlling to me.
The "greater good" sounds like collateral damage.
Yes it is, and that is the way it has always been on this planet. Young men and women fight in wars for the "greater good".
Motor vehicles kill more people every year than we can count yet we continue to allow motor vehicles for the "greater good".
Some drugs have side effects which lead do death, but for the "greater good" of helping many times more people the drugs are approved for us.
"greater good" has always been a reason to act on planet earth.
Retarding advancement of heath care research and development for 100% of the world in an effort to MAYBE help 3.7 percent of Americans is WRONG!
All the promise of stem cell research and new vaccines to prevent a global pandemic with MILLIONS of dead will disappear with Government run health care.
So yes, "greater good" has some collateral damage which can be legislated to reduce the real damage.
It's time for people to treat health care as a requirement. I am tired of seeing people who always have a new car and nails done at the salon complaining they cannot afford health insurance as they are scratching lottery tickets by the dozen.
I was wondering if the people who are against single payer Healthcare would be against a law that would not allow insurance companies do DENY coverage or limit coverage. either on pre existing conditions or future conditions. If a customer pays a premium he/she should NEVER be denied service. Insurance companies mkae more profit by NOT providing the service they were hired to do..i dont know about you, but if I hired a contractor to build my house and I paid all the money upfront I would expect a house built in return for the money invested..if the contractor never did anything and just left with the money, he would be sued...but the insurance companies get away with that type of thing EVERYDAY
I don't think that insurance companies are funding new and innovative research into treatments. The insurance industry is concerned with generating profits, not healthier subscribers. Could you please cite some information on research funded by health insurance companies that has lead to new treatments?
As far as the pharmaceutical companies go, they spend an order of magnitude more on ADVERTISING than they do on research. How many Viagra commercials do you see in a week?
Our fearless leader, Obama, has finally admitted he did not realize his health care plan would not allow people to switch from one private insurer to another. If one wanted to change plans the current legislation requires you to sign onto the government plan.
When presented with this problem and Obama's assertions that one could switch between private plans at will his response was that he could not be conversant in every nuance of the plan. Comforting huh?
As far as the assertion that only drug companies and insurers benefit from the current system I disagree and my wife's quality of living is proof that private medical insurance benefits her at the very least.
Finally, on NPR this morning (of all places) they discussed Canada's program. In Canada, of those unfortunate enough to get prostate cancer some 42% will die specifically because they must wait to be diagnosed and ultimatley be treated. In America that statistic is roughly 30% mortality. What are those 12% worth?
bill, Insurance companies are not funding new research but Government health care would stifle innovation. I'll explain below.
Federal and state funding plays a major role in medical research as well; no one can seriously argue otherwise. However, the issue that determines whether that research occurs at all is whether patients will pay for the treatments. If government, in full cost-saving mode, decides that paying for the more expensive new therapies doesn’t meet its “comparative effectiveness” criteria, then the absence of other payers in a market will mean that the technology never gets developed at all. Investors will not sink cash into such research without a market ready to adopt the end product, and government — with its focus on saving costs and paying for an entire nation’s health care — won’t have the cash to plow into experimentation any longer.
This will mean a great loss not just for the US but also for the rest of the world. Our medical research produces innovations like no other nation can, and without it, we will freeze the art of medicine in place at 2009.
In your argument "patients" pay for treatments. That is not typically the case. Insurance companies pay for treatments. So let's take your argument and substitute insurance companies for government. Then we get
"If insurance companies, in full cost-saving mode, decide that paying for the more expensive new therapies doesn’t meet its “comparative effectiveness” criteria, then the absence of other payers in a market will mean that the technology never gets developed at all"
Please explain how those statements are not equivalent.
The only difference that I see is the insurance company "full cost saving mode" is directed at increasing profits which gives them an additional reason beyond comparative effectiveness not to buy new treatments. As I am writing I thought of another difference, people can influence the government to include the new treatment and they cannot influence the insurance companies.
Think of it this way..If every single person in America, Rich poor, old, young, politically connected, lobbyist or politcian was on the same health care plan, those people of power and influence would make absolutely sure they receive the best care the can get and in effect help everyone else at the same time
Ray, I think that is the first thing I have ever heard from you that has a thread of common sense. However, that isn't necessarily how it would go. People with the money will always find the best care because they can afford it. They will get it wherever they can whether it is in this country or some other. Doctors are already contracting themselves out to selected patients. You pay a fee of 30+k a year and the doctor agrees to have a limited number of patients which insures that you get the care you want from the doctor you choose. There will never be equality where health care is concerned or anywhere else for that matter.
The problem, Ray is that our leaders have not htemselves committed to participating in Obama's health care plan. If its good enough for me why is it not good enough for our politicians?
not only shouod they sign up for the same plan ..BUT if they actually got Soc.Sec. rather than their special compensation plan SOC. SEC would be better off..whats good for the goose is good for the gander
to the poor thinker who asks whether the government should take over supermarkets.
yes
when private enterprise starves the populace the government has the duty to take over food availability.
The health industry has taken healthcare availability away from the people, mr anonymous is not too bright
James, 3.7% are uninsured, they can STILL get health care at any hospital and cannot be turned away. To call that taking away availability is absurd, I made my point without calling you names or making comments about your intelligence. Who is smarter now Jimmy!!
James - A small fraction of our population does not have health insurance and yet they still get medical treatment when needed do they not? Simple me knows this because on a recent emergency room visit I got to wait behind three (yes 3) people in front of me explain to the front desk their symptoms and you guessed it they had no insurance. Did they get asked to leave? Did I get service prior to them even with my health insurance coverage? The answer to both questions is no.
If this is as much of a crisis as the big 'O' and others claim why did none of the stimulus money find its way to help solve this problem? It would have been a drop in the bucket to the billions thrown out to bank, car companies and the like. It's undeniable that even a fraction of the money lost in the debacle called 'the stimulus program' would have gone a long way to address this 'crisis'. But no it did'nt happen that way did it?
Post a Comment