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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Koligman who wrote (10083)	10/3/2009 11:07:03 PM
From: Peter Dierks	Respond to of 42652

Not all med students want Obamacare The Baltimore Sun (MD) By: Nicholas J. Rohrhoff 10.1.2009 The Baltimore Sun (MD), October 1, 2009 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- As a third year medical student at the Unviersity of Miami Miller School of Medicine with parents strongly considering a move from the Sunshine State to the Old Line State, your piece on the hidden loss for primary care ("Primary care's hidden loss," Sept. 29) was well received -- that is, until the end. The physician workforce issue is one that I have been passionate about since entering medical school. It clearly must be dealt with in order to successfully achieve health care reform. If we are going to extend insurance to more people, we must train more physicians to care for them or face decreased access via increased wait times. This is clearly demonstrated in Massachuesetts where politicians from both parties champion the fact that 97 percent of their residents are insured. What they fail to mention is that, on average, it takes 51 days to see a cardiologist in Boston compared to a nationwide average of about 3 weeks. Residency programs throughout the United States have not increased since 1997 despite population increases and shifts between states. And physicians continue to choose to specialize with the hope of providing high quality care while still achieving financial security for their families. All of these important facts are clearly documented in the article. However, closing with medical student Nidhi Goel's self-proclaimed "bleeding heart liberal" views on health care reform without presenting those of medical students with different opinions gives the impression that all medical students favor government-run health care. This, of course, is false. As a self-identified Reagan Republican, I believe health care costs can be contained while access is expanded and quality is improved by empowering patients and doctors to make the choices that are best for them. Tort reform could provide massive savings, as the Pacific Research Institute estimates defensive medicine wastes $200 billion dollars each year. Taxing employer health benefits and returning the money to the employees to purchase their own insurance would empower patients to choose plans that meet their needs while simultaneously making their plan of choice completely portable. Additionally, allowing the purchase of said plans across state lines would immediately create a robust market of choices. So you see, medical students have opinions as diverse as our physician counterparts. The Baltimore Sun would do well to represent us all. Nicholas J. Rohrhoff, Sarasota, Fla. liberty.pacificresearch.org

To: John Koligman who wrote (10083)	10/4/2009 9:53:38 AM
From: Lane3	2 Recommendations Respond to of 42652

But They Don't Want 'Government Care'? The theme of that piece doesn't make any sense. The federal government is a great EMPLOYER when it comes to health benefits. So it seems natural to me that those employed by the federal government would have a high regard for private, employer-provided health care benefits as opposed to "government care" and find it in their personal interests to retain their own employer-provided health benefits. Why give that up for themselves and others who get excellent employee benefits in favor of "government care"?

To: John Koligman who wrote (10083)	10/4/2009 11:23:33 PM
From: John Koligman	Respond to of 42652

Dad’s Life or Yours? You Choose By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF Published: October 3, 2009 So what would you do if your mom or dad, or perhaps your sister or brother, needed a kidney donation and you were the one best positioned to donate? Most of us would worry a little and then step forward. But not so fast. Because of our dysfunctional health insurance system, a disgrace that nearly half of all members of Congress seem determined to cling to, stepping up to save a loved one can ruin your own chance of ever getting health insurance. That wrenching trade-off is another reminder of the moral bankruptcy of our existing insurance system. It’s one more reason to pass robust reform this year. Over the last week I’ve been speaking to David Waddington, a 58-year-old wine retailer in Dallas, along with his wife and two sons. I’d love to know what the opponents of health reform think families like this should do. Mr. Waddington has polycystic kidney disease, or PKD, a genetic disorder that leads to kidney failure. First he lost one kidney, and then the other. A year ago, he was on dialysis and desperately needed a new kidney. Doctors explained that the best match — the one least likely to be rejected — would perhaps come from Travis or Michael, his two sons, then ages 29 and 27. Travis and Michael each had a 50 percent chance of inheriting PKD. And if pre-donation testing revealed that one of them had the disorder, that brother might never be able to get health insurance. As a result, their doctors had advised not getting tested. After all, new research suggests that lack of insurance increases a working-age person’s risk of dying in any given year by 40 percent. “At the time David needed a transplant, the people closest to him couldn’t even offer a lifesaving donation — for insurance reasons,” said Mr. Waddington’s wife, Susan. Travis, who is living in New York and working toward a math doctorate, is anguished at having to weigh insurance obstacles against the chance to save his dad. “Can you put a price on your father’s life?” he asked. “My brother and I talked it over privately, and agreed that we should both go ahead and get tested anyway. It seemed like the only course of action. We presented our plan to our parents, and of course Mom immediately shot it down, with Dad firmly behind her. “We had to respect their right to want to protect us. But it was enraging to be in that situation, and to be completely impotent to do anything to help. I told myself a number of times that we would reconsider the issue of testing if Dad’s dialysis stopped working before he got a transplant.” David Waddington finally got that transplant when a kidney from a deceased donor became available. But our insurance system has had other excruciating consequences for the Waddingtons. Though PKD has no cure as such, there are experimental medications that may delay kidney problems. To get access to the medications, a patient must be tested — and since Travis and Michael Waddington don’t dare get tested, they don’t have access to these medications. “The only way to do it is to lie about your name during testing, to use a fictitious name,” Susan Waddington said. “That was the advice we got from a major person in the field. We didn’t do that.” The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, passed last year, should eventually help people get access to health insurance even if they have a genetic predisposition to a disease. But insurance companies will still be free to discriminate against people who show symptoms of those diseases. That’s what’s happening now with Michael. For years, he and Travis were afraid to mention to physicians their 50 percent chance of inheriting PKD, but recently Michael began suffering pains and went to the emergency room. After examining him and ordering tests, the doctor asked him, “Have you ever heard of PKD?” “I felt the jig was up, and I could disclose my knowledge,” Michael said, so he told the doctor about his father. The broader problem is this: Our broken system leads Americans to spend 16 percent of our national income on health care, twice as much as in parts of Europe, yet with maternal mortality rates and child mortality rates twice those of the best-performing countries. Lack of insurance is linked to nearly 45,000 unnecessary deaths a year, according to a peer-reviewed study to be published in the December issue of The American Journal of Public Health. None of this seems to move members of Congress who oppose health reform. They have first-rate health care for themselves and so perhaps don’t appreciate how their posturing forces people like the Waddingtons into impossible situations. Let’s hope they find it in their hearts to overhaul an existing insurance system that is the disgrace of the industrialized world.