A Nearly Perfect Domestic Model For National Health Care

[ThomWV]

I want our Nation's health care system to mirror a well run municipal trash pick up system.

Consider a well run Municipal trash pickup service. Once or twice a week a truck come by and picks up the trash and then deals with it according to law. The trucks are specially made and though expensive will give good service for years. The equipment is well maintained. The workers are reasonably compensated for their service and skills and appropriate benefits are provide to them. Administrative cost for this simple system are small because of uniformity and inclusively of service, no one is denied and anything that gets tossed into the system is deal with.

I want the system to be available to every person, rich or poor, and the same no matter where they live. I want a system that accepts whatever is fed into it and deals with it. I want the system to have the best tools, be it trucks or magnetic resonance imagery machines. I want adequate facilities and I want them well maintained. I want they system's personnel to be paid a fair wage for the service they provide, be it at the back of the truck of the head of the operating table. I want the system administered by rational and pragmatic people, but few of them. I want the system structured such that it is immediately responsive to complaints. I want all of these things and I am willing to pay for them. Tax me for it. Tax me and tax my neighbors, tax us all. Just put together one well run program for us all, don't hide anything - we will pay for it.

[rubberducky]

1. Thank You, for saying it so well!!

[msongs]

2. it will be sweet when congresspersons have to give up THEIR cushy health plan.. nt

[ThomWV]

4. I have exactly the same plan as every Congressperson and Senator.

It is not as great as you might think. Although there are a number of providers available to select from basically they are all the same, about like and including Blue Cross, Blue Shield. The cost is partially born by the Government (about 65% I believe), the employee, no matter if they are the President or a GS-nothing picks up the rest of the tab. There is nothing special about it, about the same as but a little bit skimpier than most big companies offer their employees.

[Hidden Stillness]

3. Reminds me of an Attempt to Make Social Security More Like Commercial Insurance

This reminds me of something I just read about Social Security, in a great book called "The Battle for Social Security," by Nancy J. Altman. During the 1950s, the Eisenhower Administration put together an "advisory" group to study Social Security, its budget and how it ran the program, etc., with the hope of "proving" that it was inefficient as compared to their ideal, the profit-making corporate world. They hired consultants and executives from insurance corporations to study it and make a report on where they could "improve" things. To their surprise, but not to anyone's who understands Social Security, Medicare, or any of these other programs, they found that Social Security was so much better-run, so well-managed, so efficient, that they ended up taking the information about the way Social Security operated, and changing their own commercial insurance models and practices to be more like Social Security's; they also abandoned the asinine idea of changing Social Security so that it would be more like the corporate world. Funny, you never hear about things like this.

[postulater]

5. And if you throw in a Cheney?

Does it go into the compactor?
:silly:

[Thothmes]

6. All paid for by the taxes of its Citizens.

[dysfunctional press]

7. excuse me, but i'm a conservative, god-fearin' redneck troglodyte, and i have one question-

will any of my tax dollars be going to provide this same program to inner-city blacks?

cuz, that's like- a deal-breaker as far as i'm concerned.


:sarcasm:

[ThomWV]

9. Interinting cuz inner-city blacks said

That if some redneck was gonna get treated with money they paid in they wanted nothing to do with it either.

[dysfunctional press]

17. really? when & where...?

because i've NEVER heard that kind of attitude expressed...

[SammyWinstonJack]

12. LOL!

[Stinky The Clown]

8. That's Socialized Garbage Pickup.

Just like socialized education and socialized fire protection.

Socialized roads and socialized police protection.

By the way - Great essay! K&R #4

[BattyDem]

10. We treat our trash better than our people.

:-(

Great essay! :hi:

[zagging]

11. If you ever see federal municipal trash hauling

Get ready for dumpsters overflowing into your yard. That has got to be the worst parable I'v ever seen. I hope it doesn't come to that.

[ThomWV]

14. That is pure bullshit. You have been fooled into thinking Government is inefficient, it is not

You are buying into the Rush, Hanity, and Billo bullshit - Government is perfectly capable of inexpensive and efficient operations and in fact provide services to the American people every fucking day and do it in a way that satisfies. Some of the finest and hardest working people in this country are employed by the Federal Government and it just boils my ass to see clowns who haven't got a clue on this earth what they are talking about berate those good workers.

[Samantha]

13. I agree with the essence of your argument HOWEVER

the point was made tonight (can't remember by whom) that if one had enough funds to insulate himself or herself from medical default and they wanted to waive payment of health insurance, that option should be open. I agree. I have thought many times if I had enough funds to defray the cost of any medical disaster I might experience, I would totally not pay that premium. And yes, I do know that hospitals charge the insured twice as much as the insured, but I also know one can bargain.

[ThomWV]

15. NO!

There can be no option to disenguage from the program - none, nada, zilch, not jack shit. There is no faster way to kill a national program than give the rich a way to opt out of it. They will, and that reduces the base which increases the cost for everyone who is left in the system. In short putting in a provision for opting out is suicide for any national health care program.

[Samantha]

16. Yes, it does

but I don't think those who have the cash to set aside to pay for their own health care should be forced to pay these premiums of HMO's and PPO's. I despise Managed Care. I personally like that program some doctors have started: two or three go into business together, one pays a flat fee annually, say $5,000, and when one is ill, he or she can immediately call them on their cell phone. Simplifies everything. If I ever have the opportunity to enroll in a program such as this, I will do so. And if anyone tries to force me to into into anything else, I will not be happy. The impetus should be to acquire health insurance if possible, not to dictate the nature of it.

[Cleita]

18. You can find lot's of models of well run government programs

that aren't being squeezed by conservative underfunding and harrassment. Closer to medical is the VA and Medicare which run fine when they are allowed to run as they were set up. Here are the programs you need to look at:

Senate Bill H. R. 676

http://www.pnhp.org/docs/nhi_bill_final.pdf

and PNHP proposal for a single payer universal plan

http://www.pnhp.org/physiciansproposal/proposal/Physicians%20ProposalJAMA.pdf

So far only Dennis Kucinich has offered a similar plan.