Heatlh Care Reform For Dummies

You know when Joe Biden and Louise Slaughter start talking about health care we are in real trouble. The health care debate is out of control, a 2700 page bill is insane, so how about some good old common sense as to how to fix health care.



Congresswoman Louise Slaughter - You have to wait til the very end before
she talks about some woman wearing her dead sister's dentures.
Please America shut these people up.

The old saying if it ain't broken don't fix it is the best advice anyone could ever come up with, just plain old common sense. Second only to having enough smarts to know its broken in the first place or as my grandfather used to say she's ka-plunked.

Heath care industry is ka-plunked it is broken and it is broken from top to bottom.

Take a look at hospital ratings and it is shocking, for example if you are admitted to Hilton Head Memorial Hospital you are 200 times more likely to have complications from infection than had you gone to any other average hospital in the country. That is not good if you are on vacation in Hilton Head.

I paid a visit to the sports medicine group at Miller Orthopedic last fall nothing major, just a few x-rays and the bad news, I am over forty, heart breaking but not fatal. My insurance had changed and not having my new insurance information, I offered to paid the charges on my visa card.

Much to my surprise my bill was "adjusted" because I didn't have insurance. I don't mean a little, the rate if you don't have insurance is nearly 140 dollars less. In other words they were charging the insurance company nearly 30 percent more than the service was worth just to make up the costs of processing the insurance claim. I'm sorry but this is what is wrong with the system.

My uncle was a physician in the small town of Spencer West Virgina. For nearly fifty years he took care of the sick, and injured. He was well liked and respected. He became a doctor because he wanted to save lives not because he wanted a six figure income and a million dollar home. He was a doctor, today we have greedy lawyers pretending to be doctors. And that needs to change.

For all that is wrong with Heath Care we still have the best medical care in the world but we just need to make it work for everyone.

As Americans we have the ability to make it right and the following abilities are all we need to do the job:

Affordability - You can’t have health insurance for all if all can’t afford it. If your heath insurance costs are more than 5% of your monthly income it is too much.
Does health insurance coverage need to be on a sliding scale I'm afraid so, as socialistic as it seems it is the only answer.

Accessibility - No one should be turned down because of age, geographic location. In order to make it affordable for all it needs to cover all. Even those who are in this country legally, sky diver or couch potato everyone gets coverage. The costs need to be simple and straight forward and to do so we need everybody. How we collect premiums for the unemployed and those who live in a cash only lifestyle will be a challenge but we will find a way.

Understandability - Medical care is not simple, the human body is very complex so for God sake lets have insurance that is easy to understand. So far congress has screwed up the idea of passing a heath care reform bill by complicating the obvious and trivialising the momentous.

Portability - The number one failure of COBRA is price. There is no reason the same coverage I’ve been paying for with the same company for the last ten years should cost ten times as much the day after I quit my job. I understand the insurance company’s reasoning it’s called adverse selection. Only those who are sick will continue coverage after they loose their jobs and that is why the rate for a family of four goes from $399 a month to $3,350 a month I am sorry but that is just wrong.

Profitabilty - The main reason we have trouble with the insurance industry is profit and profit equals greed. The only way a heatlh insurance company could survive in the past was to be ruthless and greedy. From now on making a profit is out the window. Doesn’t mean government control for everything but only two types of heath insurance companies should be allowed to provide basic coverage non profit and mutual.

Reliability - Whatever form health insurance takes it needs to be reliable I mean like UPS reliable or SouthWest Airlines reliable.

Marketability - National health insurance coverage needs to be marketable. Death Panels are not a marketable feature.

Simplisticability - To implement this program was are not going to create another TSA style nightmare. Social security is a good enough format to add health insurance and we will save billions by closings down Medicare and Medicaid. By putting the social security administrate in charge of basic medical needs we will streamline the program.

There you have it straight forward simple and we have the ability to fix this problem without creating a whole new government agency. Let's fix it and move on because there are much more pressing issues that face our county.