Health Care

President Obama has delivered his major blitz to get his health care plan underway. In one of the hallmarks of his reign, he wants to have it passed right away, without being completely fleshed out. (At over 1200 pages, could some of that flesh be pork?) So far as I can tell from his comments, he still doesn't know within a half-trillion dollars what it is going to cost, and has only a vague idea of what will be covered. Also typical is his accepting input only from the wild-eyes in his own party and the interests of those who paid for his election. Is he really so dense that he doesn't understand how his decisions will doom this plan to failure? If he severely reduces payments to doctors, won't an increasing number of students decide that it is not worth the cost and effort to become a doctor? Soon there will be fewer doctors spread over more and more patients, and the quality of health care will definitely decline. And I truly believe that slapping a tax on everything that moves to pay for this mess will be a terrible drag on businesses that are trying to grow and on individuals that are just trying to keep their head above water. One more giant obstacle on our road to recovery.
I do have a view on this. Ross Perot, in his bid for President several years ago, came up with a plan for health care that sounded pretty good then, and sounds good now. He said he would gather the smartest men in the country, including doctors, hospital managers, insurance company CEO's, accountants, economists, successful business men, government representatives, etc., and lock them in a room (figuratively). He would instruct them to work out a plan that would be satisfactory for each of them, then they could knock on the door and he would let them out to explain what they came up with. He would take their proposal and make it law. At least the end product would be the best that experts in each field could come up with. Compare that with what is going on in Congress right now. There isn't one expert among them, and they want to be trusted with over a trillion dollars! There are a couple of things I would do if it was necessary to proceed on a step-by-step approach. The idea of putting all the medical records on a data base sounds good to me, so I'd get right on that. If you have ever had to go to an emergency room for treatment, you will have noticed that the ER might be full of poor people waiting to see the doctor for what might be a minor problem. Not long ago, I had the pleasure of going to the ER to have an irreguler heart beat checked out. I sat in a room with a monitor attached for four hours, and was presented with a bill for $5,200. Now, if the government was getting billed $1,300 per hour for the treatment of the poor people in the ER, that would amount to a lot of money. So, my suggestion would be to set up minor medical clinics in the areas of town that have a poorer population. Staff them with Physician's Assistants, and students from the Med School (with proper supervision, of course), and keep the expenditure on equipment to a minimum. If someone came in with a really serious problem, you could still refer them to the hospital, where they have more capable staff and equipment. In an effort to appease the lawyer lobby, who also helped pay for his election, Obama refused to consider putting a cap on medical malpractice lawsuits. Every doctor I have talked to says that his malpractice insurance is his biggest expense, and lawsuits are one of his biggest worries. So, I would put a cap on the lawsuits. Obama himself says that administrative costs make up a substantial part of medical expenses. Since a lot of these costs relate to government compliance, it should be easy enough to trim these back.
Well, this gives you some tidbits to think about. Thank you for your kind attention.