Impeding changes to our Health Care system

[Clodfobble]

I have heard, however, that in states where they have capped the maximum value a malpractice suit can pay out to a victim, it has had the unintended consequence of increasing malpractice suits, because now the lawyers have to file more cases to keep the same income.

There need to be harsher, direct penalties for lawyers who bring frivolous lawsuits, not just having the case thrown out.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

I have heard, however, that in states where they have capped the maximum value a malpractice suit can pay out to a victim, it has had the unintended consequence of increasing malpractice suits, because now the lawyers have to file more cases to keep the same income.

There need to be harsher, direct penalties for lawyers who bring frivolous lawsuits, not just having the case thrown out.

I don't know about that. I would like to see some stats on it. The bottom line is that malpractice insurance is VERY expensive. And if you have a specialty it is even more expensive. If you want to work they have you by the balls. But the system, in this respect, has you hostage. In some cases the choice of who you can buy your insurance from is very limited.

[classicman]

I heard that too Clod - leads me to the same conclusion ... Fuck Lawyers

[Clodfobble]

Oh, absolutely. But somewhere between that, and the woman who falsely accuses her obstetrician of sexually harassing her, there's a line we have to find and adhere to.

[classicman]

Obama Goes Postal

“UPS and FedEx are doing just fine. It’s the Post Office that’s always having problems.” -- Barack Obama, Aug. 11, 2009

No institution has been the butt of more government- inefficiency jokes than the U.S. Postal Service. Maybe the Department of Motor Vehicles.

The only way the post office can stay in business is its government subsidy. The USPS lost $2.4 billion in the quarter ended in June and projects a net loss of $7 billion in fiscal 2009, outstanding debt of more than $10 billion and a cash shortfall of $1 billion. It was moved to intensive care -- the Government Accountability Office’s list of “high risk” cases - - last month and told to shape up. (It must be the only entity that hasn’t cashed in on TARP!)

That didn’t stop President Barack Obama from holding up the post office as an example at a town hall meeting in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, last week.

When Obama compared the post office to UPS and FedEx, he was clearly hoping to assuage voter concerns about a public health-care option undercutting and eliminating private insurance.

What he did instead was conjure up visions of long lines and interminable waits. Why do we need or want a health-care system that works like the post office?

What’s more, if the USPS is struggling to compete with private companies, as Obama implied, why introduce a government health-care option that would operate at the same disadvantage?

Everyone makes a mistake or flubs a line when asked questions on the spot, including the president of the United States. We can overlook run-on sentences, subject and verb tense disagreement, even a memory lapse when it comes to facts and figures.

The proliferation of Obama’s gaffes and non sequiturs on health care has exceeded the allowable limit. He has failed repeatedly to explain how the government will provide more (health care) for less (money). He has failed to explain why increased demand for medical services without a concomitant increase in supply won’t lead to rationing by government bureaucrats as opposed to the market. And he has failed to explain why a Medicare-like model is desirable when Medicare itself is going broke.

The public is left with one of two unsettling conclusions: Either the president doesn’t understand the health-insurance reform plans working their way through Congress, or he understands both the plans and the implications and is being untruthful about the impact.

Neither option is good; ignorance is clearly preferable to the alternative.

An admittedly partisan view, but Obama's quotes are a little frightening.

[TheMercenary]

Fighting false health care claims, Obama repeats one of his own

By Steven Thomma | McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama participated in a scripted online discussion of his health care overhaul with a friendly audience of religious voters and pastors Wednesday. It ended with him bemoaning those who bear "false witness" against his plans — and then making a claim of his own that's been widely shown to be false.

"There's been a lot of misinformation," Obama said, complaining about people who are "bearing false witness."

He said the first thing he wanted to correct was the idea that the proposed overhaul would force some people into different health care plans. "If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan," he said, repeating one of his stock lines.

That's not true, however, according to FactCheck.org, an independent truth squad run by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

"He can't make that promise to everyone," concluded FactCheck's analysis, one of several that point out that the Democrats' health care plan could lead to employers switching plans, and thus forcing their employees into different plans and perhaps to different doctors.

"Under the House bill," FactCheck said, "some employers might have to modify plans after a five-year grace period if they don't meet minimum benefits standards.

"Furthermore, some firms are likely to buy different coverage for their workers than they have now, or simply drop coverage and pay a penalty instead, leaving workers to buy their own private coverage or go on a new federal insurance plan."

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/74035.html

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Fighting false health care claims, Obama repeats one of his own

That's a pretty weak point. Employers could switch plans if healthcare is not reformed, in fact they often shop for the lowest price. Maybe he should phrase it "if you want to, you can keep whatever coverage your employer provides for you".

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

That's a pretty weak point. Employers could switch plans if healthcare is not reformed, in fact they often shop for the lowest price. Maybe he should phrase it "if you want to, you can keep whatever coverage your employer provides for you".

Eh, that might be fair. But the reality is that unless they have a government option nothing much sounds like change for the insurance companies. They must have had some pretty good deal with the White House to be so agreeable.

[TheMercenary]

Oh Canada...

Canadians visit U.S. to get care

Deal lets many go to Michigan hospitals

BY PATRICIA ANSTETT
FREE PRESS MEDICAL WRITER

Hospitals in border cities, including Detroit, are forging lucrative arrangements with Canadian health agencies to provide care not widely available across the border.

Agreements between Detroit hospitals and the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care for heart, imaging tests, bariatric and other services provide access to some services not immediately available in the province, said ministry spokesman David Jensen.


The agreements show how a country with a national care system -- a proposal not part of the health care changes under discussion in Congress -- copes with demand for care with U.S. partnerships, rather than building new facilities.


Michael Vujovich, 61, of Windsor was taken to Detroit's Henry Ford Hospital for an angioplasty procedure after he went to a Windsor hospital in April. Vujovich said the U.S. backup doesn't show a gap in Canada's system, but shows how it works.


"I go to the hospital in Windsor and two hours later, I'm done having angioplasty in Detroit," he said. His $38,000 bill was covered by the Ontario health ministry.

Canada eyed in the health care debate

Dany Mercado, a leukemia patient from Kitchener, Ontario, is cancer-free after getting a bone marrow transplant at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit.

Told by Canadian doctors in 2007 he couldn't have the procedure there, Mercado's family and doctor appealed to Ontario health officials, who agreed to let him have the transplant in Detroit in January 2008.

The Karmanos Institute is one of several Detroit health facilities that care for Canadians needing services not widely available in Canada.

Canada, for example, has waiting times for bariatric procedures to combat obesity that can stretch to more than five years, according to a June report in the Canadian Journal of Surgery.

As a result, the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care in April designated 13 U.S. hospitals, including five in Michigan and one more with a tentative designation, to perform bariatric surgery for Canadians.

The agreements provide "more immediate services for patients whose health is at risk," Jensen said.

continues:
http://freep.com/article/20090820/BU...08200420/1319/

[gadfly]

Can Healthcare reform happen without a gov't run system?

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by gadfly

Can Healthcare reform happen without a gov't run system?

No.

[Happy Monkey]

Yeah, it seems like many of the complaints about the reform are that it will cause things that are already happening. It's a magic reform, reaching back in time, forcing insurance companies to ration care and employers to change insurance plans even before it is enacted!

[Happy Monkey]

They like the mandate. They think that 40-50 million new customers will make up for the costs of the other reforms. And they're working to kill the public option, so they get all of those new customers.

[TheMercenary]

Yea, they are laughing all the way to the bank. WOW, now that is reform! not.

[Happy Monkey]

Actually, the mandate is necessary in order to eliminate the concept of "preexisting conditions", which in itself is a massively good reform. Without a mandate, if the insurance companies couldn't discriminate based on health, you would be stupid to buy insurance until you were sick. Like buying auto insurance after an accident, if auto insurance wasn't mandatory.