26-01-2003 02:22									#1
	Bush to 'Shake up Health Care' Inflate your Upload Space

quote: President George W Bush is expected to make health care reform the centrepiece of his domestic policy agenda when he makes his annual State of the Union address to Congress next week. More people will be able to afford expensive drugs The president is expected to link the introduction of a long-promised drugs benefit for senior citizens with proposals to reform Medicare - the government programme that pays for health care to the elderly. Under the proposals, leaked to several newspapers on Friday, senior citizens who wanted to receive help with the cost of prescription drugs would have to join medical insurance groups known as Health Maintenance Organisations (HMOs) This could limit their access to the physicians of their choice, which could in turn help to limit the cost of a new prescription drug benefit at a time when the federal budget is under intense pressure from tax cuts, a slowing economy and the costs of war. But it could anger the elderly, who so far have shown little inclination to join the voluntary HMOs that are already offered by Medicare. Ongoing crisis The problems of the US health care system have grown since former President Bill Clinton proposed a major reform in 1994 - only to have it blocked by the health insurance industry and the Republicans in Congress. On Thursday, he told an audience of health activists in Washington that Americans were paying hundreds of billions of dollars too much in health care costs because of the "crazy" way the system is financed - through a combination of private health insurance (for those in work) and government support for the poor and elderly. Over 42 million Americans of working age lack any health coverage at all, while the costs of private insurance at work have been growing at double digit rates recently - prompting the workers at the huge US company GE to go on strike. And the huge budget crisis that is affecting many states is prompting them to cut back on the level of heath benefits available to poor people, in a programme jointly funded with the federal government. No consensus But if there is widespread agreement that the system is not working, there is no consensus on how to improve it. President Bush has argued that a key element that adds to the high costs is the explosion of medical malpractice suits. He has proposed limiting non-economic damages awarded by the courts to a maximum of $250,000. Other political parties have come up with their own solution: * The moderate Democratic Senator, John Breaux, has proposed that the requirement to have health insurance be made universal, like car insurance, and that the states create cheaper private group insurance plans that would be available to people who currently lack coverage * Republicans argue that the long-term costs of the two big entitlement programmes for the elderly, Medicare and Social Security, must be capped if they are remain economically viable as the number of older people continues to grow * But the radical Republicans in Congress are pressing for the abolition of Medicaid - the programme that helps poor people and is in financial difficulty - to be replaced by a broad block grant to the states to use as they see fit. Elderly in revolt The lack of coverage for prescription drugs has been a long-standing concern for the elderly, and played an important role in the political debate during the 2000 election campaign. President Bush was forced to propose his own, more limited drug benefit plan (to be provided by the private insurance industry) after the Democrats began to make headway on the issue. Older people are more likely to vote than any other age group, and are highly organised by lobby groups like the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP). How to fix the broken US health care system could prove to be the biggest domestic political issue this year. Democrats are certain to call for some of the funds now earmarked for tax cuts to be used for dealing with spiralling costs and the lack of health coverage. And John Sweeney, the head of the AFL-CIO, the coordinating body for trade unions, told BBC News Online that his members would be making the issue one of their top domestic priorities.

On the Net
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2692407.stm

If we cut all of those stupid farm subsidies, and closed military bases around the world and stopped giving money to countries who dont need it we'd have plenty of money to put into a national healthcare system.

	26-01-2003 02:34									#2
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

What makes you think that? Have you done the math?

	26-01-2003 02:42									#3
	Increase the size of your Attachments

Universal Health Care could be a reality, there's no doubt. It's just a matter of getting the government to spend its money smarter. I don't think Bush really cares about health care. He just cares about his corporate constituents (pharmaceutical and insurance). Ooops, I forgot one thing. He cares about making the dumb average American thinks that he cares about health care. Any health care plan from the Bush camp will no doubt contain fat pork barrel provisions for the insurance and pharmaceutical companies.

	26-01-2003 03:50									#4
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The Republicans' idea of a health care plan is to have Bill Frist wander around giving CPR to accident victims.

	26-01-2003 04:09									#5
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

I have *excellent* private insurance through my employer ... but it also ties me to that employer. Fortunately, I like working there, and they like me.

Gatekeeper

	26-01-2003 04:15									#6
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quote: Originally posted by uh Clem The Republicans' idea of a health care plan is to have Bill Frist wander around giving CPR to accident victims.

	26-01-2003 05:45									#7
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

quote: Originally posted by Sava Universal Health Care could be a reality, there's no doubt. It's just a matter of getting the government to spend its money smarter. I don't think Bush really cares about health care. He just cares about his corporate constituents (pharmaceutical and insurance). Ooops, I forgot one thing. He cares about making the dumb average American thinks that he cares about health care. Any health care plan from the Bush camp will no doubt contain fat pork barrel provisions for the insurance and pharmaceutical companies.

I live in a country with socialized healthcare. Its not all its cracked up to be... in fact, it sucks. Hard.

Besides, you have medicare if you can't afford it. So whats to complain about? UHC is just like putting everyone on medicare.

	26-01-2003 05:52									#8
	Inflate your Upload Space

quote: Originally posted by JimmyCracksCorn Besides, you have medicare if you can't afford it. So whats to complain about? UHC is just like putting everyone on medicare.

Here you only qualify if you are old, and they don't give a person enough to pay for a medical bills. The medicare problem would be solved if they got rid the provision that exempts all income over $50,000 from the FICA tax. It should be the rich paying for the poor, not the poor being forcend to pay for the poor.

	26-01-2003 05:57									#9
	Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

I think he's including Medicaid with Medicare, Odin.

Government-run health care or insurance would be extraordinarily expensive. Even just a prescription drug benefit would be extraordinarily expense.

	26-01-2003 07:01									#10
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There are so many things the government could be do, but isn't doing, to create an affordable health care reality. Drug costs have been exploding since each new miricacle drug is ever more expensive then the last one; litigation costs don't help either but they are much lower then drug pruice increase. Since Bush wants to talk about litigation reform and not the much larger issue of drug costs I'd say it is just another example of him knowing where the republican bacon is being kept, i.e., he doesn't want to piss off the drug makers that are firmly republican.

The best way to control drug costs is to subject drug companies to greater competetion. The exact same drugs are often sold in Canada at steap discounts because the Canada NHS can negotiate mass purchase agreements for the entire country and has the ability to strong arm drug companies into giving up some their profit margins. Right now it is illegal to reimport these (mostly American made) drugs into the U.S. because the drug companies lobbied Republicans in order to protect their fat profits. Supporting Free trade in pharmasuticals between the U.S. and Canada will help interject competetion into a section of the economy which is used to opporating at a monopoly level thus lowering prices for the end consumer.

Why is it the Republicans always talk on and on about free trade and the virtues of free market capitalism but then they're always willing to screw the common man over if a company will pay them enough to do it?

	26-01-2003 07:03									#11
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

I think the government should run its own hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, and medical supplierers. Make them non-profit entities, and then you'll see the cost of health care go down. But then again, it's unAmerican to suggest that nobody should be allowed to profit off of death and disease, right?

	26-01-2003 07:19									#12
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Government owned organizations get fat and bloated over time. The only exception is the post office and they are forced to compete against UPS & FDEX other wise they'd be just as horrable are the DMV or the IRS.

A better route is forcing employers to provide every employee with health insurance with certain described benifets. It would be expensive but the costs could be controled by the government mass purchasing plans (to get a group discount) then reselling them to employees at cost. It also means we woudn't have to spend so much on medicare or medicaid so we could redirect some money from those plans.

	26-01-2003 07:36									#13
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The government would still have to compete with private hospitals and such.

	26-01-2003 08:28									#14
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quote: The only exception is the post office and they are forced to compete against UPS & FDEX other wise they'd be just as horrable are the DMV or the IRS.

The post office IS as horrible as the DMV and the IRS . And they are hemmoraging money at a rapid clip.

quote: A better route is forcing employers to provide every employee with health insurance with certain described benifets. It would be expensive but the costs could be controled by the government mass purchasing plans (to get a group discount) then reselling them to employees at cost. It also means we woudn't have to spend so much on medicare or medicaid so we could redirect some money from those plans.

I've always liked that idea. Government mass purchase plans of insurance would the best idea (in these times), I believe.

	26-01-2003 09:07									#15
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

It never ceases to amaze me that American's put up with a healthcare system that delivers such appalling value for money.

The US spend's around 6% of it's GDP on Medicare and Medicaid, (which only cover the poor and elderly) but, amazingly, that is the same proportion as that spent by most other nations for their universal healthcare systems. (the figures were 5.7% for the US, 6.4% for the EU, 5.7% for Japan, 6.5% for Canada and 5.9% for Australia)

The consequence of the inefficiency is that US companies (and thus their employees) face far higher costs as they are expected to supply healthcare (private spending on healthcare is 7.3% of GDP in the US, compared with 2.2% in the EU, 1.7% in Japan, 2.7% in Canada and 2.6% in Australia)

The US is clearly different from the rest of the western world when it comes to healthcare financing, so much so that one can make estimates of the savings that would result if it had a more normal system:
Public health spending would probably be higher, maybe as high as in Germany, France and the Scandinavian countries (where it is around 7% of GDP) but private spending could fall down the the average of 2.5% of GDP that most other countries find comfortable - this would make total healh spending in the US just under 10% of GDP (compared to the current level of 13%) or around $350bn a year lower than it is now.
To put that another way the current system is acting as a tax of around $200 a month for every worker.

Who's in favour of universal healthcare and a $200 a month pay rise?


Whether the US could actually achieve these savings by switching to a more socialized healthcare system is debatable, but $350bn is a hell of a lot of money to 'waste' each year.


I'm not proposing anything like the neo-stalinist NHS of Britian, which is many american's experience of socialized healthcare, that system is as far removed from the international norm as America's is (just in the other direction) - take a look at how the continental european's (or even the aussie's & canuck's) do it.


(source for the data: OECD in figures 2002)

Last edited by el freako on 26-01-2003 at 09:14

	27-01-2003 01:50									#16
	Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

We're gonna put universal health care on our next Florida ballot.

	27-01-2003 02:56									#17
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I think it highly doubtful that we would get a better or cheaper health care system by overlaying our current system with a universal set up.

To illustrate, a doctor in the US will get paid a certain amount in our system. This pay scale is set by convention, and is considerably higher than any other place in the world. This would be true, even if we had universal health care or universal health insurance.

Furthermore, who's to say that the convention on doctor's pay scale in other countries is better than what we have? We have decided that since they have 4 years of college, 4 years of medical school, 3 years of internship, and up to 4 years of fellowship, that they get paid bucketloads of money. This seems only fair. Society gets its money worth.

Last edited by DanS on 27-01-2003 at 03:01