Improving Health Care in the United States

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T.A.Stobie_SFO

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I have been asked by the Obama-Biden Transition team to gather comments, concerns and suggestions to improve health care in the U. S.

This is what they sent me within a larger email " Watch the video and sign up today to lead a discussion in your community: " I decided to do it this way.

I had previously sent them my suggestions for health care which can be found at URL: Improving Health Care in the United States. I recommend that you look at them before addiing your own thoughts.

Please keep these thread focused on the topic and not discussing the politicians involved.

I will be inviting the Transition team’s Health Policy Team to view this board and join in.

I hope and pray that they will listen to what we have to say and they we can help improve health care in the U. S.
 
I have a GREAT idea on how to improve the US Healthcare system. GET GOVERNMENT OUT!

When government becomes involved, it quickly goes downhill. Before government got involved, people could afford health care coverage and only had insurance for major things… NOT routine checkups or preventative care…

Before the government became involved, doctors could afford to do more pro bono work and the poor and elderly always got discounts or free services…
 
Interesting thread–thanks for sharing with us.

My thoughts would be to requiring doctors to not price guage patients. Same with hospitals. Many want to blame the healthcare pains on insurance companies rates, and rules. But, the insurance companies are responding to the rising healthcare costs that doctors could lower, if they wished to. I believe that doctors should make a good salary, afterall, they have gone through extensive schooling, etc…but, overcharging patients, and often offering inadequate/reactive care, in order to continue making a buck, really needs to change in our country. We need doctors to become more proactive in their patients health, not just grabbing the latest and greatest drug on the market, and being prescription fillers. I also think that the doctors should be ***required ***to show a ***transparent statement of charges ***to patients, before the procedure begins. This gives the patient an oppty to look for another doctor, if this doctor’s fees are too high. I just had surgery done, and I still have no idea what the costs were–that’s not right. I have no idea what I will be charged for either…and that’s not right. I did ask them before it all began last week, and they gave me a ballpark figure. Do we get a ballpark figure when we shop for food, cars, etc? Why are dentists and doctors not required to give exact prices to their patients for their services. I really would like to see that change.

If insurance companies are required to be transparent, so should doctors to their patients. It’s not fair that patients are given a statement when all is said and done, and they have no idea what they were being charged for in the end. I’d like to see reform done on the doctor patient level, and then insurance rates would probably come down, when doctors are held accountable for what they are billing.

Just my two cents…FOR NOW. LOL:D
 
Get rid of restrictions that disallow health plans from being offered in all states. Allow companies to offer coverage a la carte, so people can pay for only what they need. (My 55 year old father and his 60 year old wife are paying for maternity coverage? Why?) Give taxpayers a tax credit for health insurance premiums. And let the market serve the interests of consumers.

AND if people CHOOSE not to have health insurance, allow them the freedom to choose to be that unwise.

Strengthen the HSA option, with more freedom to choose plans and higher allowances for deposit of pre-tax dollars.
 
Thanks for the opportunity to comment. This is a big issue for my family. My dh took disability/early retirement last year. We are covered for a while under COBRA, but that is very expensive. We have 5 adopted children still at home, two of whom have medical special needs. They will be denied coverage due to pre-existing conditions under anything but a group policy. I’m an RN but currently staying at home to give nursing care to my dh every few hours and to care for and homeschool my 4 youngest. If I go back to work when the COBRA runs out, I will essentially have to hire someone to stay at my home and care for dh, thus turning over nearly all of my salary to that person and keeping the group policy for all my efforts. That is simply stupid. I can’t let the two children have no health insurance, though.

I’d like to see options for families like mine, for whom a group policy is impractical. I’d like to see insurance that can be competitively priced and offered across state borders, like car insurance can be. I’d like to be able to choose coverage cafeteria-style–for instance, I don’t need maternity benefits. We don’t want to depend on the government. We’d just like the free market to be opened up to give us a choice so that I can still stay home to care for my disabled husband and my children, and provide health insurance for them at an affordable rate. At our ages, even if the two children with pre-existing conditions could be covered, our insurance company estimates the monthly premium of the family coverage we currently have to be over three thousand a month when COBRA runs out. I don’t know anyone who can afford that. We can’t.

Does anyone have any ideas for our situation?
 
I have no answers, only questions. I worked for near 20 years in telecom, and was RIF’d in May of this year. I have dwarfism, I cannot get insurance except for a group plan.

COBRA was 1200+ per month, we cannot afford that.

I have found a part time job that offers insurance, and essentially all of my wages go to provide insurance for my family.

This has got to change.
 
wamegomom said:
… This is a big issue for my family. My dh took disability/early retirement last year. We are covered for a while under COBRA, but that is very expensive. We have 5 adopted children still at home, two of whom have medical special needs. They will be denied coverage due to pre-existing conditions under anything but a group policy. …
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I understand, I am physically disabled, receiving SSDI since 2003, Medicare (costing me around 150/month) since 2005 but my wife has no issurance and our combined monthly medical expenses run about 600 a month mostly for her. We can not afford dental or optical even though we both need it. Spouses and families of disabled are not treated well under the current system.
 
Automatic maternity coverage for all women, no extra charge … my husband and I have to pay extra for maternity - that’s how bad the contraceptive mentality is!! Aside for the Catholic viewpoint, though, it makes no sense to me that women should have to pay extra for maternity coverage. Isn’t that, like, a major area in which women certainly need to be covered?

Also, more money spent in preventative care!

Plus, more access to “mental health care” - INCLUDING coverage for marriage counseling. Perhaps we could, as a side benefit, bring down divorce rates … and there’s a way to help protect the American family!
 
Must have provisions for people working in the medical field/pharmacist/doctors/nurses/ etc. to opt out of services morally offensive to them without repercussions. Also hospitals must be able to opt out of certain services they find morally offensive without repercussions to the hospital. Theses are all must have things.
 
There are so many facets to change/improve: Make consistent Tort reforme so that physicians aren’t leaving states by the specialties based on the malpractice insurance premiums they must pay (how many cartiologist, obstatricians and neurologists have to go out of business before something is done)? Also, something that needs to be changed, just like with the tobacco industry, NO PUBLIC ADVERTISING by the drug companies. I believe this will also take the pressure off of the doctors.

Take away public funds for things like abortion, and change laws to such where abortions are NOT covered under any insurance plan. As another stated, make doctor’s fees transparent BEFORE visiting them, same goes for hospitals (we should know beforehand how much that Motrin will cost if given by a nurse at the hospital vs. having a friend bring some from the local CVS, Walgreens, etc.). Also promote individual insurance from birth, and do not deny an infant due to a family’s “medical” history. And when purchasing insurance, make what is covered legible by the most common person.

Instead of focusing on making children “feel good” about themselves and having so many “special interest” programs in school, go back to the basics. Why worry about this or that tolerance or this or that guest speaker when a child can’t even do simple math, science, and/or reading? Too many special assemblies take children out of the classroom. They’ll never be successful medical professionals when they don’t even have to be disciplined enough to attend a full-length class each and every day. Guest speakers and/or special programs (including field trips) should be reserved to one per month at the most, not one per week (as what seems to be the case more and more).
 
whatevergirl said:
Interesting thread–thanks for sharing with us.

My thoughts would be to requiring doctors to not price guage patients. Same with hospitals. Many want to blame the healthcare pains on insurance companies rates, and rules. But, the insurance companies are responding to the rising healthcare costs that doctors could lower, if they wished to.
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I disagree. I believe the exorbitant costs are largely related to inadequate reimbursement on behalf of Medicaid and (depending on where in the country you are) Medicare. Reimbursement for many Medicaid services are as low as 33% of cost. The difference has to be made up somewhere.:cool:
 
OP, you have so many WONDERFUL suggestions!
Here are my thoughts/comments:
Problems with the Health Care System
  1. Lack of Consumer Awareness of Medical Pricing - agreed, we need this already but it is crucial if we are to move to a more competitive environment.
  2. Excessive Government Restrictions and Requirements on Health Care - duh for this forum 😉
  3. Lack of General Health Care Coverage Options - This seems to conflict with 3# below
What can the Industry Do

Provided that the government permits free market activity 🙂 yes yes yes! 🙂 in the medical industry, it should:
  1. Develop Health Care Plans that address the specific needs of different groups, including religious affliation and those with limited budgets. Doesn’t this then run the risk of becoming #5 above?
  2. Establish Retirement Health Care Accounts (RHCA) - YES
  3. Establish a common medical information exchange standard YES, it can’t be that hard to secure online can it?!
What can Government Do

Here Government refers to the federal and state governments. The federal government needs to insure that state governments do not violate freedom of conscience rights of medical providers and personnel.
  1. Permit Medical Providers to Choose what Services/Products they Provide. - If you’re talking about birth control abortion, agreed, no one should be penalized for withholding a service, but allowing them to provide whichever they feel like providing is very dangerous…how many doctors already self-refer?
  2. For government provided health care, provide a diverse set of health care options - Revamp medicare, medicaid, and government employee insurance to include a wide diversity of health care plans. including some that encourage consumers to better manage the cost of their health care. I would add that we should include a quality adjustment factor into reimbursement for these programs, and raise reimbursement especially in Medicaid to encourage participation by MDs, this would also help the indigent. We should be encouraging and rewarding quality (like adding a quality adjustment factor into RBRVS the same way there’s a geographic adjustment factor)
  3. Transform Medicaid into two parts, (1) a Tragic Care Umbrella Plan, and (2) a Preventative Health Care Plan - This transformation will permit Preventative Care for poor children and the disabled while covering catastrophic medical problems for those poor not covered by employer plans or who cannot afford their part of their health care coverage. The Tragic Care Umbrella Plan should be resistive in what in covers and where and should only address situation where the life of the person is at severe risk. Medicaid for citizens should have better coverage than Medicaid for resident aliens, which should be much better than Medicaid for alien visitors, which in turn should be far better than that for illegal aliens. I disagree with this on moral grounds. I don’t think anyone should get “better” care than anyone else. That is wrong. The changes you suggest belong to immigration reform, not healthcare reform.
  4. Permit buy-in into State and Federal Health Care Plans - Residents and workers in a state should be able to buy into State health care plans. Likewise, residents and legal workers in the United States should be able to buy into Federal health care plans. Business should be able to buy into state and federal plans where their employees live and work. All federal and state plans should be available to be bought into with possible subsidies for low-income workers. Agreed provided that buy-in is limited. Reimbursement for these programs is low at best, and costs will only continue to rise if the quantity of these patients goes drastically up.
  5. Require Pharmecutical Companies to license at a reasonable fee, patented products to promote competition. - This license should consider the cost of the research in the products, but not the advertising or marketing costs of the products. Yes, drug companies need to be brought under much stricter supervision
  6. Promote the establishment of Retirement Health Care Accounts (RHCA) - a wonderful idea - not sure if this advocates getting rid of Medicare but I will assume (and hope) not, these could be used to cover more expensive treatments medicare excludes.
  7. Permit Full Deductability for all medical expenses - All medical expenses, including dental and optical, should be non taxable. I think this would get expensive for the govt…lets not ask for too much
  8. Establish Heavy Penalties for Fraud - YES and more ways of catching crooks!
What can Employers Do
  • good ideas but I generally don’t think employers belong in this business much. Let’s have people just get paid money. This started in the '50s and really doesn’t make sense to me anymore*
So that was more than 2 cents, sorry, sue me :eek:
 
T.A.Stobie_SFO said:
I have been asked by the Obama-Biden Transition team to gather comments, concerns and suggestions to improve health care in the U. S.

.
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Call me suspicious-* Why* would the Obama-Biden Transition team ask you to do :hmmm:this?
 
OutinChgoburbs said:
Call me suspicious-* Why* would the Obama-Biden Transition team ask you to do :hmmm:this?
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I sent them my recommendations for health care, so they added me (I think) to their health care list and then sent it to everyone on it. How many people got the request, I have no idea.
 
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