2008-12-6 15:22:00
In Message Number 38539, dated 2008-12-06, posted by JJ Dewey to The Keys Of Knowledge spiritual discussion group, JJ wrote:
The ideal solution for our health care problems would be to dismantle everything, cancel out all laws and regulations and start all over from the ground up. Then we could get back to affordable medical costs like we had back in 1958.
Unfortunately, barring a complete collapse and rebuilding of this country such a thing is not feasible in one giant step. Therefore, we need to look at what can be done within our current structure and even here a Herculean effort needs applied to accomplish anything constructive.
John K responded with:
"As close as we are to it anyway, I vote for the complete collapse and rebuilding option. Perhaps if in doing so we reasserted this country's original liberties, we could better afford its resultant niceties."
JJ then responded to John K in a separate message with:
That may happen someday. Let us hope the good guys do the rebuilding.
On the same topic, Sharon, first quoting JJ from his original message referenced above, wrote:
"Under the present system the person who is not well insured will not go to the hospital unless he absolutely has to because of the cost."
Sharon responded to the comments she quote above from JJ with:
"This is not what I saw when I was the lead trainer for a company that trained people to work in hospitals interviewing people to see if they qualified for Medicare or some other government program. The hospitals had us interview anyone who had no insurance or was under insured. There seemed to be three categories of people.
"1. The under educated and underinsured went to the hospital for everything, even if they just were lonely and wanted company. They went for sniffles and minor aches and pains. They used our emergency rooms like a free clinic and most of the hospitals in the 23 states that were served by the company where I worked knew many patients that came to their emergency rooms by their names as they were there so often.
"2. Foreigners who got sick while in the USA as they knew they would not have to pay as we have laws on the books that state we must give the service first and ask about a person's ability to pay later.
"3. Educated and underinsured people take more responsibility for their own state of being and their choices and these are the people who don't go to the hospital unless they absolutely need to do so. However, there were quite a few well educated people, that I found while training people in the hospitals, who knew the system and laws well, and used the hospital when they wanted a vacation from work. The hospital acts like a great free hotel with the best room service imaginable and they answer questions in such a way and do the paperwork such that they receive money from a government program.
"I wish what you stated above was true, but that is not what I found. Since medicare came into existence, which helped extinguish our vast free clinic services, people changed from going to free clinics only when needed to using our emergency rooms as their free clinic. So we now have our most expensive doctors, with the most training and highest malpractice insurance costs, serving our most minor conditions on a very routine basis."
To this, JJ replied:
Actually, the first two groups are insured through the system and take advantage of it. But if a person has to pay medical bills out of his own pocket, or even 20% plus a deductible then he will think twice about it.
I'll probably rewrite the statement in question to clarify.
In yet another on-topic message in this thread, John K comments further by saying:
"I think it may be possible to transform the healthcare industry by promoting privately owned and operated low cost care facilities for the treatment of minor illness and injuries, holistic preventive care, as well as physical therapy before and after major medical procedures. Providing only 'non-invasive' care, these facilities should be protected against many of the liabilities incurred in the medical profession by a signed release/waiver system, allowing the facilities to be profitable, while relieving the pressure on hospital emergency rooms and medical after-care programs which are usually operated at a loss.
"The insurance industry would also need to respond to the changing marketplace. Through the implementation of tort reform, low liability care facilities, holistic preventive treatment, and the resulting cost reduction to patients and providers, medical coverage would only be needed for 'catastrophic care' as in major injuries or disease. Likewise professional malpractice insurance would only be needed for acts of carelessness resulting in harm, while willful acts of negligence are handled by criminal courts, separate from financial and/or civil liability. With the reduction of civil litigation, excessive settlement awards, cost of care for minor illness and injury, and reduction of illness and/or injury incidence through preventive care, there's no reason that the cost of premiums for adequate catastrophic and malpractice coverage shouldn't decrease dramatically, making coverage affordable for almost anyone who desires it."
JJ responded to John K's second set of comments by writing:
This is good thinking John and I have been thinking along these lines for years. You reminded me that I should put something in this direction in the book.
Copyright © 2008 by J.J. Dewey, All Rights Reserved