Health Care Reform - Seen Through The Eyes Of The Typical American Citizen
The health care we receive here in the U. S. is bar none, among the best in the world. So why do we insist on calling this recent government go at takeover of our health care system a " Health Care Reform ". In fact what is reform? Well, most dictionary definitions are as follows: " To change to a better state, profile, etc.; to improve by alteration, substitution, abolition, etc. "
Health care here in the United States, as we just stated, is without issue among the best in the world, and this is tender identifiable smartly be examining how many people from countries where there is government controlled health care, dodge to the United States to receive better, more comprehensive. and more expeditious health care or treatments than they offbeat have access to in their home countries. These cover Canada and European countries, where socialized medicine is the criterion.
So, while the talk may be about health care reform, we propose that what the debate should be about is health care cost reform. Additionally, to insinuate that insurance companies are solely at blunder for the rising health care costs is just absurd. Insurance is precious for health care costs have spiraled out of control. Insurance companies make the payments, and in many cases they get the discounts, as of their pooled purchasing aptitude.
Consequently, if we are to focus our discussions on healthcare costs, where the discussion should rightfully be focused, then we should fully examine and conceive why the costs are constantly increasing, and doing so at a swiftness that exceeds upsurge or income success.
One major actuation for these ever increasing healthcare costs is the preposterous prices doctors must pay for their required malpractice insurance. Many want to blame the insurance companies for the high prices. However, before we persist in this line of thinking, we would do well to consider the law, and the frequency with which doctors are sued in arbiter with nonsensical and or frivolous lawsuits. Most importantly, with these frivilous lawsuits comes a high price tag for their defense.
Defense costs for lawsuits are borne by the insurance companies providing medical malpractice insurance. Many people are believers in the need for legal or tort reform, so too does the author of this article swear by in this need. Many people truly credit this tort reform would significantly reduce medical malpractice insurance costs, as well as overall medical costs.
Let us open up legal alacrity against any lawyer who brings to bare a frivolous case and then let us see the real and legitimate claims which are made in courts, while frivilous suits and claims are opem to counter claims and counter suits. Were this the case, then the number of cases would likely drop significantly and the cost of malpractice insurance would likely vault, as would health care costs, were these frivilous suits reduced.
For a minute, let us take a glom at but one example of how this comes into play. Not long ago a man had an deed. While coming down to remove a stick from near his lawn mower he vanished two finger to the blade. He plain many ( halfway 30 ) calls from legal professionals advising him to sue the doctors for the loss of his fingers. The silly thing is, the doctors and hospital did their best to save his fingers from his own irrationality. Yet even after re - enjoyment they were unable to help or to save the fingers. Still, even if the case is completely frivolous, legal professionals were counselling him to sue the doctors and hospital for not saving his fingers. It was naturally cuckoo, I know, the man was my father in law.
When suits analogous this are initiated the insurance companies have to hire or pay their lawyers to defend the doctors in these law suits, and the never ending circle of legal chicanery continues in perpituity. The lawyers have us all stirred in a no win station. They sue doctors and file frivolous suits, then they demand that people have rights to file these suits in order to protect themselves. Certainly no one would ventilate that people have like rights, in reality they do and should, but only in real cases. Not cases initiated smartly to acquire money, and argued with a paid expert, paid witnesses, paid examining physicians, and sometimes plaintiffs who are cleverly lying.
Filing so many frivolous suits and so frequently, the legal profession has become a major contributing point to the exceptionally high malpractice insurance fees that doctors have to pay. Thirty years ago if I wanted to see my doctor, he would show up at my home and charge me a fair price to see me. Now I cannot see him or her without first having insurance. I is absurd.
So we remark, let ' s start this medical cost reform with a healthy dose of tort reform. Let ' s have desire on attorneys who file frivolous suits, let ' s have tort reform where doctors can sue attorneys for any suit they file which the attorney loses and where the doctor was fashion to have committed no wrongdoing or malpractice. Certainly if the initiated suit discredits the doctor or puts them through expendable legal vim, then the initiating attorney should be held responsible. Let ' s start there and see how dramatically these frivolous suits drop off.
As for the next aspect of rising health care costs, the issue comes when the public and / or certain organizations that assist the public, abuse the system. You may ask; How does this happen? Let ' s take a surveillance at real life example of this. Sleep Apnea is a sleep disorder characterized by pauses in live during sleep. Each episode, called an apnea, lasts long enough so that one or more breaths are hidden, and allying episodes arise usually throughout sleep. The standard definition of any apneic event includes a minimum 10 second interval between breaths, with either a neurological arousal ( a 3 - second or greater shift in EEG frequency ), a blood oxygen desaturation of 3 - 4 % or greater, or both arousal and desaturation. Sleep apnea is diagnosed with an overnight sleep inspection called a polysomnogram, or a " sleep study ". This affirmation can lead to high blood pressure, heart problems and conditions, and in severe cases even death.
Treatments interpolate wearing a shroud conencted to a machine ( Called a CPAP machine ) which blows air through the nose or nose and mouth thereby maintaining an open airway and eliminating the apnea ' s. The CPAP machine, keep secret, and accessories can cost from a few hundred dollars to a couple thousand dollars. When one is diagnosed with sleep apnea and a CPAP prescribed, one ' s insurance may cover the cost of the machine and accessories. However, in many instances the insurance companies are forced to significanlty overpay for these devices for their insured individuals. The basis is that many of the suppliers also sell this equipment to medicare or medicaid patients. In doing so, they charge them the maximum allowed for a machine by those programs. Still, the program rules are that if they sell to medicare or medicaid patients at a specific price, then they are not allowed to sell at a lower price to others, extended they risk losing their ability to equip to medicare or medicaid patients.
This author has sleep apnea and initiate a machine from a supplier for a price of $400. But the insurance company would only pay for the prescribed machine if it were delivered through a home health care company. Through the home health care company also provided to medicare and medicaid patients, they could not sell the machine to me or my insurance company at a fair price, they delivered the machine to me, but at a cost to my insurance company of $1200, the same as they charge their medicare or medicaid patients. Wherefore my insurance company, over of regulations, laws, and government incursion into private healthcare, was forced to pay 200 % more for my CPAP machine, than it could have or should have unalike paid. This is abuse of the system by companies that ready services to medicare and medicaid, it is not high insurance cost, it is not high medical cost, and it is not the blunder of phenomenon other than abuse of the system and government assailment into private healthcare. It is waste, it is cheating, and it harms us all in the formation of higher medical and insurance costs. The abuse, cheating, and waste is the hitch that needs to be addressed, not the insurance or the care.
Next, let ' s examine and know medical insurance in general. Insurance is not meant to pay all medical bills all the time. If we can all permit on this then we can at cardinal drive to realize this portion of the obstacle. Insurance, affected and used correctly, is for catastrophic disorder or medical mishaps, not for every little medical belief that arises. Just same auto insurance is for when you have a car incident, not to pay for your gas, oil changes, brake repair, inopportune light, bandanna problems, etc...
So too is health insurance for issues consonant cancer, heart attacks, applause, hopeless bones, sever diseases, emergencies, surgeries, etc... it is in essence the alike as auto insurance or home owners insurance. It is meant to be there when you have a major medical issues. It is not meant to cover every office visit, cold, cut, scrape, shot, vaccine, medication, or hangnail you may encounter in life. If you ice everything then you better expect it to cost a lot. So why pay the extra $75 per month in premiums for an extra $1000 in office visit coverage. Why pay the extra $500 per year to reduce the co - pay on perscriptions from $25 down to $10 or $15. Just pay the $75 or $100 office visit charge and just take the prescription play past offered and pay for your own prescriptions at a kindly overlook ( often 50 % or more ). Chances are you will not be in the doctors office 10 times or more per year anyway and chances are the assessment of prescription medication you will need will not make up for the $500 amassed you pay for the coverage. If you have issues and are in the doctors office 10 or more times per year or if you have lots of expensive prescriptions, then you likely have other more major issues that your insurance will cover. Just protect the major things, after all, these are what insurance was originally designed for and to ensure against.
Finally, we should all understand that healthcare insurance or the care itself is not a right, it is a privilege of those who work hard and accomplish health care or healthcare insurance for themselves and their families. Just since you work tough, educate yourself, get a great paying job or run your own business, and you can yield to strike a Corvette, does not mean that someone fresh should have or be accustomed a corvette by the government or any car for that causation at the rate of greater person ( ex. the taxpaying public ).
The alike is true of health care. A corvette is not a right, nowhere in our habit does it state that we have the right to life range and a Corvette. Nor does it state we have the right to life carte blanche and government provided healthcare or government healthcare insurance. These are privileges we conclude through hard work.
We can casual all check to contribute for or help those who cannot care for themselves, for example those who are physically or mentally handicapped or poles apart game and who neatly cannot arrange for themselves, we may even clinch as a society to bring for those who defend our freedoms and fight for us in battle ( ex. Military veterans ), or even maybe our senior herd to a certain extent. Certainly, on a smaller scale states or local communities can decide to utensil programs for these individuals or situations, but we do not all comply that healthcare is a right to be afforded to everyone and that should forcibly be funded at the federal level by those who work insoluble.
In addition we do not all yes that those who work oppressive or earn more should give to everyone spare through a government run and MANDATED programs. This is wittily absurd and not what America is all about, nor is it what made America great. In truth it is taking or taxing those who work insolvable or earn more to ready for others who may not is theft. It is akin to Robin Hood, theft from the loaded to give to the flat. It ' s if justified by creating crises or playing on peoples emotions or pain points.
Frankly, many people do not believe that government involvement in health care would be beneficial for individuals, health care professionals, the relationships between them, or the quality and amount of timely care that patients would receive. The fact remains, there is absolutely no program that the government is running, or has ever run, that has been on budget, reduces costs, and which impels us to faith the government to run or manage same a huge portion of our economy and private lives as health care.
Many, if not most Americans deem that government has no business in our health care. Many Americans place that government offensive will lead to rationing or procedures and care, higher taxes, potentially no cost savings, all the while leading us down a path towards socialism. Without dispute it will lead to larger and larger government which is exactly what our founding fathers wanted to prevent.
In conclusion, this health care debacle is annihilation more than a direct usurpation of freedoms by an ever expanding and growing government. That in itself is dangerous. The blessing would love to hand down their seats in the congress to their children and have restricted privileges, major insurance and medical care, and force " we the people " into dependency on government from cradle to grave, and into government run programs. We urge you, don ' t concede it folks. This is exactly what our founding fathers feared with a vast and growing government. It is the ground the United States of America fought for its independence to overthrow the oppressive rule of England, the high taxation without representation, and the insane policies of King George at the time of succession.
We are now approaching the duplicate type of locality that we faced when the United States recognized its independence from the King of England. The Obama administration and basic leftist politicians are about to really incite the humankind here in the United States. Beware! You are about to awaken the sleeping giant in the silhouette of the American people and their values. Freedom is a powerful chastity which people do not take lightly. When usurpation begins to infringe on freedoms and liberties people become active. This is why we are seeing tea parties, marches, and tribe beginning to uprising. As instanter as the people identify that some politicians are trying to infringe on their freedoms or take some away from them, they will fight to the death to save it.
Health care reform may lead down a path towards revolution, and not in a good way!
