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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Katelew who wrote (130448)	2/8/2010 12:46:13 PM
From: Suma	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542043

Bill Moyers Journal is a very interesting program and I wish all of you could watch it. He has guests and usually more than one so that each takes an opposing position when discussing a topic. This leads to an open discussion and less biases. For example he had two separate persons arguing the S.C. decision. So as a listener you got both side of why the decision might be good and why it may not. He is also alert for stories throughout the US that might appeal to the viewer which was the case this week with a pediatrician woman Doctor who had gone to see Obama as he had said in his State of the Union, IF anyone wants to come up with a different idea I would welcome it. She was turned away at the gate of the White House. Eventually she picketed with another woman and was picked up and arrested. She just wanted to talk with the president about health care. She was hand cuffed and arrested. She was quizzed by the secret service and eventually released. Bill Moyers became away of this incident and had her on as a guest. She was a young woman by name of Dr. Cummings I believe. She told her side of the health care issue. She went in to pediatrics to help young children have better health so that they might live longer lives. A dedicated woman who was most attractive and very earnest in her story. She said that every thing the Doctors do is monitored by insurance companies. For example. If she had a child in the hospital she is told how long for the condition the child has she or he can stay. Even if the prognosis is such that she knows the child should be in longer. If is the same in office visits. If a mother brings a child in for a specific problem that is the only problem the insurance company will cover.. The Doctors are told this. If the parent wants to bring up another health issue a new appointment needs to be made. She said it is becoming increasingly difficult to practice medicine for dedicated Doctors. A single payer system she said would be so wonderful for the medical profession and she represented this approach in front of Congressional committee's. When they would get excited about the prospects that this single payer system would be the proposal and it was not the message she and the other Doctors were told IT CAME FROM THE WHITE HOUSE. Bill Moyers said, you mean Obama and she said yes. What is he doing to sabotage this health reform bill ? It left me angry that a woman like this and all doctors who know what is best for their professions and patients have to be denied the plan best for their interests.... which is in patients.

To: Katelew who wrote (130448)	2/8/2010 5:43:17 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 542043

To me, your complaints are example of complaining just to complain. Why? Because Medicare was never designed to cover everything. If it did, the cost to beneficiaries would have to go up, too, wouldn't it? I'm not complaining, let alone just to complain. I'm trying to point out the shortfall in Medicare to those who seem to think it or something like it for everyone would be just lovely. I'm operating in the abstract with my systems hat on, not as an enrollee. The only complaint I have made here about Medicare is that you can't avoid being affected by it. That's a major complaint. I think that's flat wrong. And that I have to go to an inconvenient hospital for my colonoscopy. That's a minor complaint that I only made in passing while discussing the cost inefficiency of it. Medicare's shortfall doesn't really impact me much since I have other resources so there's little to complain about. In the abstract, though, I find its quirks fascinating. It leaves people 'free' to choose from any one of a number of private plans to cover the other 20%, plus a few extras. Or they are 'free' to not get a supplement at all.....just pay the 20% out of pocket. I thought you believed there should be choice, and not a cookie cutter insurance world?<?i> We're talking about two different things. As I posted to Cogito, I don't consider a fixed package of benefits where all you get to "choose" is the size of your co-insurance percentage to be choice. Choice would require different sets of benefits and different cost structures. And, for the record, I wouldn't want Medicare to offer that choice. You get choice from the market. From government you get a standard package. That's as it should be. And that's why I prefer a market solution for most of the population. Would you prefer that Medicare cover everything under the sun from backscratching to hangnails.....and pay through the nose for this coverage whether we want them or not? I never said or suggested that I wanted Medicare to cover everything or anything. I'm just trying to point out that it is somewhat arbitrary in what it covers, that it rations, and that it's one size fits all. That's for the benefit of those who apparently haven't recognized that. There must be a big sale everywhere on rose-colored glasses. Had I expressed a preference re Medicare coverage it would have been that it cover less rather than more.