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Date Posted: 06:14:20 06/30/09 Tue
Author: Paul Davis
Subject: I guess it depends on how you look at it
In reply to: Jeffman 's message, "Re: I have to wonder" on 06:50:09 06/29/09 Mon


The situation now is chaotic, and will shortly break down in a chaotic way if something isn't done. That's self evident if you just step back from your local interests for a minute, ask a few questions and bug your eyes at the answers.

For instance, many family doctors are simply not going to accept insurance any longer. They'll tell you flatly that they are getting paid about 1/3 of what they bill, even allowing for the co pay you give them up front. Friend of mine posted a letter online that says essentially his family doctor made about 9000$ off running a clinic last year, and he'd lose money if he accepted insurance this year at the rates they are paying now. So he cut his fees, dropped the expensive systems for filing claims, laid off the two people who filed the claims, and flatly isn't taking any insurance at all.

Ask your doctor, I have, and they'll fill your ears in a hurry. The family doctor has been kicked to the curb just as hard as the 47 million citizens without medical insurance.

Want more evidence of a broken system?

Ok, how's this? If I drive over to a Lilly's warehouse, and watch them load up a load of pills, follow them across the border into Canada, and watch them break it down and deliver those pills to Canadien pharmacies, and then walk in and fill a prescription, I can be arrested when I reenter the US! Why? Because those pills are "unsafe" since I bought those US made and manufactured pills in another country. Same applies to Mexico or Europe. Now, excuse me, but that's insane logic and insane law passed solely to encourage massive profits and guarantees of future profit - there is obviously no safety issue involved. Flatly, if I manufacture something, ANYTHING in the USA, and then send it overseas to sell at a lower price than the identical item in the US, I'm obviously price gouging US citizens. If the law supports this, then the law is obviously bought and paid for by the business in question. There can't be any exception to this.

Price gouging and cartels - and there is no other correct word to apply to the US drug industry - always result in massive shocks and breakdowns in any system where they manage to become effective. See the wiki article on OPEC.

I could mention the insane state laws that force hospitals to suck it up on paying for emergency room usage by indigents, or the crazy medical schools that work to lower the number of qualified doctors, or the absolutely maddening idea that we should import doctors from India instead of training them here - but what's the point?

The system is BROKEN. Shattered. Fini! It ain't working any more, and if you think it is, you simply have not been sick enough to really need it in the last year or so. Medicare is propping the whole mess up, but even that's very close to simply breaking under the stress.

It's busted. Patching it isn't going to work, and this bill is no better than a patch. We need to tear it to the ground and start over. And the sole and only working model in the world to build up from is - guess what - the model that works for every other industrialized nation. If you've got a better idea, now is the time to promote it. But "lets keep on with what we've been doing" won't fly, because it broke.


>Tjere are some very large downsides to national
>healthcare. I expect this to be VERY VERY expensive on
>a scale that dwarfs what we have today. Remember I
>said because its coming. Worse.. going in, I expect I
>will be paying for my own insurance and then paying
>taxes on the employers share which is not a small
>amount. So I expect to have to pay more. So again tell
>me how this is going to benefit everyone? How is it
>reining in costs if its costing more?
>
>There will be significant tax increases coming to pay
>for this as well and expect the middle class to be hit
>and hit hard.
>
>>Is it just me, or does the arguement "government can't
>>do things right" and "private insurance can't compete
>>with a public plan" seem to be contradicting itself?
>>
>>It's nonsense anyhow, what serves every other country
>>in the world (single payer) would probably do as well
>>in the US. And our system is just about to fall to
>>pieces totally. Odd thing is that most don't realize
>>that.

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