From the CNN.com article:
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius echoed Gibbs, telling CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that a final health care bill will include competitive choices for consumers in one form or another.
“There will be a competitor to private insurers,” she said. “You don’t turn over the whole new marketplace to private insurance companies and trust them to do the right thing. We need some choices and we need some competition.”
You gotta love these people, they just don’t get it. 1,400 health insurance companies isn’t enough competition? Competition only exists if the government becomes #1,401? These people don’t understand how business works. They don’t understand human nature. And yet they claim to be able to formulate regulations for both.
You want to cut health care costs? You want to increase competition? Then allow health insurers to compete across state lines, remove mandated benefits, remove the tax break for employer-provided health insurance, eliminate Medicare and Medicaid, and get serious about tort reform. In other words, get out of the way (except for the lawyers, in which case please do get in their way).
Kathleen, this is Scott McDonald, could you get this message to the President, Congress and Senate. This is a paper I wrote for a college Ethics course this week. I would think that if these people could pull their heads out and start acting like adults maybe they could accomplish something.
National Health Care Reform
The president, congress, senate, and the American people have been embroiled over the health care system and the debate on improving it. This debate has brought out the worse in people, fighting over what goes into the proposal, down to name calling and insulting each other. Neither side wants to give and provide even a beginning of improvement for the American people. They would rather fight to the death, over putting in one sentence than give an inch. Because of the backlash the congress received in August, they want to hide all of the information about the health care plan and force congress to vote on an unseen bill. The lack of ethical behavior on the parts of all participants has shown the worst case scenario of a government, out of control with no real leadership to get the job done.
Democrat or republican does not matter in the health care reform bill. Each has called the other names and refused to cooperate even among them to get a usable reform bill. The sad part is that the president has come out and given a guideline for the health care bill that even his own party will not follow. Special interest continues to be added to the bill to create a bloated and useless version of health care. Scare tactics by groups based on sections of the bill have questioned abortion payments, death panels, and cuts in Medicare. Even the legislators do not know what is in the different bills because of the size of the bill and the number of changes. Several legislators have not even been able to read the bill and understand it.
The dispute begins with the number of people without insurance currently estimated at forty six million people by the democrats and the president. This number includes illegal aliens, people who do not want to purchase insurance and others that should not be included. This changes the way we should look at the problem based on the actual people who want and or need health insurance. According to the president, illegal aliens would not be included in the health care plan. This has two problems, one is that the illegal aliens still will use emergency rooms for health care and two; if the president decides to legalize the illegal population, then they would be added to the system. Breaking down the real numbers to figure the real cost for health care would be the true first step.
The president told congress not to include the public option. The senate and the congressional democrats are still trying to put this option into the bill despite what the president said. “A public option, or “nationalized plan,” is a government-run, government funded health insurance option offered as an alternative to private insurance companies.” (Fox News, 9/9/09) Senator Baucus has introduced a bill with a co-op plan versus the public option; however, there are two democratic senators that plan on adding the public option to the current bill. “A non-profit health cooperative or “co-op” is a member-owned group that assembles a network of salaried medical providers and negotiates payment rates with them.” (Fox News, 9/9/09) Now the question is who is running this show, the democrats in the congress and senate or the president? The republicans and blue dog democrats do not want the public option, leaving this all up in the air. Poor leadership from the president, senate, and congress has confused this issue and keeps the public stirred up because they don’t know who to believe.
Read the bill, seems to be a reasonable request, by the American people. Open government was promised by President Obama during the campaign where laws would be posted on the internet for the public to review and have some input on the bills. This was done with the original bill and when the legislatures went on recess in August and had town hall meeting, they were met with outrage and anger because of the bill. People read the bill and were upset by the wording, issues left open to interpretation and the ‘pork’ that was included in this bill. Death panels, abortion payments, and cuts in Medicare were just a few of the issues that people found in the one thousand pages plus document. Greta Van Susteren did an interview with Representative Phil Roe republican from Tennessee and discussed the bill HR3200. Representative Roe, pointed out “the term “essential benefits package’ is defined in Section 122A. Then you’ve got to define 122A. And I’ve done this exercise, and it takes you about five different references to actually see what they mean by that instead of just having it written in plain English.” (Fox News 9/17/09) Another representative reported he would need two lawyers and at least two days to interpret the bill. It does no good to write a bill that is so complex that it is open to interpretation and can tie up the judicial section years trying to straighten it out.
Insurance companies have not advertised a lot about the health care bill. This is because the health care bill can actually help their sales by requiring all citizens to have insurance or pay a penalty. In addition to this, the insurance companies would be used to run a government sponsored health care system, similar to what they do with Medicare currently. This is a win-win situation for the insurance companies. “If the current reforms are signed into law, the insurance companies undoubtedly will grow both larger and richer, (because they will have millions more policies)…” (Ardinger, 9/26/2009)
We will actually save money by cutting the waste and illegal benefits currently being paid out to Medicare according to the president. What are you waiting for? If you know there is a problem, fix it now. There doesn’t need to be a health care bill to save billions of dollars that are known to be wasted. If the president wants to cut waste and save money, look into all of the ‘pork barrel’ spending that has been going on since he entered office. Billions, if not trillions, of dollars are being wasted in spending justified as ‘helping the economy.’ These projects do little for the American people and could be put to a lot better use. Saving a minnow in California, for the environment, put thousands of people out of work and turn thousands of acres of farmland into a dust bowl. This is one of many, thanks to the ‘stimulus bill’ that was fast tracked and forced through congress.
The president and democrats need to stop focusing on a deadline and concentrate on creating a bill that works for the American people. On September 24, 2009, Thanksgiving Day was given as a deadline by Rahm Emanuel. (Fox News 9/24/09) On September 27, 2009, President Obama was observed on Fox News saying that we would have a health care plan by the first of the year. This is the biggest problem with the current administration; no one is talking with each other to make consistent statements to the public, again creating distrust in the American people. (Fox News 9/27/09)
When Hillary care was in the works during the Clinton administration, Newt Gingrich advised Hillary Clinton “that it’s impossible to write a comprehensive plan in this country, that no one is smart enough to deal with 17 percent of the economy in one bill.” (The Corner 9/2/09) The continued push by the current house and senate to create a massive, complicated plan is a futile effort. To create a single large plan, which cannot be understood by the public, is creating conflict and distrust among the legislators and the American public.
Newt Gingrich offers a simple plan of six steps to create a workable health care system. One, is to stop paying the crooks in our current health care system. Two, is to move from a paper based system to an electronic based system. Three, is tax reform, creating tax incentivizes and vouchers to who can’t afford coverage. Four, is to create a health based health system, a system that works on improving the individual’s health. Fifth, is to reform the health justice system, tort reform reduces the payout for doctor’s, performing best practice, in the treatment of the patient. Sixth, is investing in scientific research and breakthroughs to accelerate the treatment of disease. (7/22/09).
Step one that Newt Gingrich listed meets with little debate. President Obama and congress have listed this as one of the steps to gain money for health care. Clean up the criminal activity in our current health care system. Fraudulent claims on the Medicaid system can cost the system estimated as much as $60 billion dollars a year. (Newt Gingrich, 10/6/2008) Earmarks and pork being added to the bill need, to be removed too. These additional costs diminish the funds available to provide treatment for the patient. This is as much an unnecessary expense as the criminal activities currently stealing money from the health care system.
Two, the transfer from paper to electronic recordkeeping can reduce duplication and errors that exist in our current system. This transfer can save 7,000 lives a year just in medication errors. Doctor prescriptions that are handwritten are difficult to read by pharmacist, and create time delays, calling back to the doctors’ offices to verify the prescription. A network with medical records would allow access to a patient’s medication history, current treatments, and issues which may save the medical personnel from making an error in the treatment of the patient. This would lead to less legal problems for the medical professional and increase the speed in which the professional can treat the patient.
Three, is tax reform, creating tax incentivizes for small business and individuals to reduce the burden of current health cost. Newt Gingrich proposed using a voucher system for people who cannot afford health care currently. (7/22/09). The ability for companies and individuals to be able to purchase health care across state lines would allow for more competition among the insurance companies. Reducing the federal regulation on the sale of health insurance and what they can sell would allow more savings from the insurance companies. “The vast majority of “pre-existing” conditions that currently exist in a cramped, limited, and heavily regulated insurance marked would be “covered” conditions under a free market in health insurance.” (Ann Coulter 8/19/2009) His fourth proposal was to invest in well care to help the American public to stay healthy versus having individuals go to the medical profession after they are sick. This would reduce the cost of health care by reducing the amount of sick people in hospitals.
Fifth, is to reform the health justice system, currently litigation against doctors costs the health care system $200 billion a year. Texas and California have implemented tort reform and have already seen a savings in their health care systems. Howard Dean in a town hall meeting said “Tort reform is not in the bill because the people who wrote it did not want to take on the trial lawyers.” (Newt Gingrich 9/3/09) “We believe that physicians should be shielded from liability if they demonstrate the use of clinical best practices in the care and treatment of patients. Shielding physicians from liability when the use best practices would reduce defensive medicine and minimize the loss of competent health professionals driven out by the high cost of litigation insurance.” (Newt Gingrich 9/3/09)
Sixth, is investing in scientific research and breakthroughs to accelerate the treatment of disease. “By curing three or four major diseases in the next seven years, Weisbach argues taxpayers could save $400 billion a year. And businesses would reduce their costs.” (Carol Marin 9/26/2009)
The health care debate has taken a downturn in civility. Accusations fly about racism, lies, and playing politics as usual. Both Nancy Pelosi and President Obama have stood in front of congress and insulted the Republican Party repeatedly. They have insulted the American public, calling them Nazi’s, brown shirts, birthers, and radicals. The democrats, after finding so much hostility and debate against health care town halls, cancelled, used telephones or bused in crowds to control the debate. They talked over people with questions; they refused to answer questions, and kicked people out of their meetings rather than be confronted. Senator Wilson had an outburst telling the president that “you lie.” The democrats condemned him for this outburst and censored him afterward even though he apologized to the president. The president said the illegal aliens will not be eligible for health care benefits. On Fox News 9-28-09 it was announced that 20 democrats are petitioning to include illegal aliens in health care. Note, this is why Senator Wilson said you lie to the president after democrats had refused to identify illegal aliens. “Despite the rhetoric, there has not been a bipartisan approach to solve the challenges of health care. Republican Leader, John Boehner, has not been invited back to the White House since April 2009. Instead of working together to solve this problem, Democrat leaders suggest that Republicans prefer to do nothing at all. To the contrary, Republicans have offered more than 40 bills related to health care.” (Jason Chaffetz 9/24/2009)
In the end, the debate continues without any leadership or management from the leaders. Everyone wants a piece of the pie and is throwing in earmarks to help their state instead of looking out for the whole country. No one will take the lead and hold their party to commitments, made by the president, or to the American people. Medicare is going to be broke in eight years, let’s start there, fix what we already have, the people have paid for, and deserve. Insurance reform, eliminate pre-existing conditions, upper limits, and restrictive sales of insurance. This alone would help lower health care costs. Create a single payer insurance system, not run by the government that charges the same rate as group policies, so individuals can purchase their own insurance. Give tax breaks, so that they can afford this insurance. Go after the fraud in the Medicare system and recover the monies lost for years by this fraud. Finally, everyone in government, step back and police their own parties for tax fraud, earmarks, lying, name calling, and in general, acting like a bunch of babies. Break the bill down, to fix each part of the system that needs attention, and increase the benefits when the money is there. Put the bill in front of the American people for a vote, and let them decide their future. Vote for the parts that are good, kick out the parts that are bad. Stop playing politics as usual and let’s make this country grow through intelligent interaction.