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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: i-node who wrote (381708)	4/30/2008 8:46:13 PM
From: bentway	Respond to of 1574854

"that the problems within this area stem from GOVERNMENT payers, NOT from commercial payers" Dave, every patient that has insurance and a doctor that has to clear treatments with their clerks KNOW this isn't true.

To: i-node who wrote (381708)	4/30/2008 10:22:26 PM
From: RetiredNow	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1574854

So, you aren't going to solve the problem, or even improve it, by handing more of it over to the government. You cannot solve the problem by giving more responsibility to the organization that has screwed it up in the first place. On this we can agree. Now McCain hasn't really any idea how to reform health care. All he wants to do is give every family a $5K tax credit, but that doesn't solve the root causes. So I think it's fair to dismiss McCain's so-called plan without much further analysis. However, let's look at Obama's plan. Here is what he has to say about lowering costs. Using your expertise then, what is your take on this? barackobama.com # Lowering Costs Through Investment in Electronic Health Information Technology Systems: Most medical records are still stored on paper, which makes it hard to coordinate care, measure quality or reduce medical errors and which costs twice as much as electronic claims. Obama will invest $10 billion a year over the next five years to move the U.S. health care system to broad adoption of standards-based electronic health information systems, including electronic health records, and will phase in requirements for full implementation of health IT. Obama will ensure that patients' privacy is protected. # Lowering Costs by Increasing Competition in the Insurance and Drug Markets: The insurance business today is dominated by a small group of large companies that has been gobbling up their rivals. There have been over 400 health care mergers in the last 10 years, and just two companies dominate a full third of the national market. These changes were supposed to make the industry more efficient, but instead premiums have skyrocketed by over 87 percent. 1. Barack Obama will prevent companies from abusing their monopoly power through unjustified price increases. His plan will force insurers to pay out a reasonable share of their premiums for patient care instead of keeping exorbitant amounts for profits and administration. His new National Health Exchange will help increase competition by insurers. 2. Lower prescription drug costs. The second-fastest growing type of health expenses is prescription drugs. Pharmaceutical companies are selling the exact same drugs in Europe and Canada but charging Americans more than double the price. Obama will allow Americans to buy their medicines from other developed countries if the drugs are safe and prices are lower outside the U.S. Obama will also repeal the ban that prevents the government from negotiating with drug companies, which could result in savings as high as $30 billion. Finally, Obama will work to increase the use of generic drugs in Medicare, Medicaid, and FEHBP and prohibit big name drug companies from keeping generics out of markets.