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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (348017)	2/9/2010 1:55:03 PM
From: Hawkmoon	1 Recommendation Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793799

The two major reasons for health costs in this country are Government regulation and Government payments Lindy.. I want to agree, but we have to have quite a few caveats to that. I want some regulation in healthcare, setting a standard for care. We expect this with food quality with the FDA as well as other safety and quality related goods and services. As for Government payments??.. Well.. that's Medicare, right? Medicare does have some cost controls, but I think they are legally limited from price controls over services. And we know Health insurers are limited to how much profit they can make for providing coverage, so the higher the hospital bill, the bigger amount that percentage becomes, right? Therefore, it strikes me that the heart of the problem is at the clinic and hospital levels and the lack of cost controls and oversight. To make the comparison more dramatic, a gal from Japan I was dating told me a story where she had gone to a doctor there for some cold medicine and antibiotics for a case of bronchitis she had. She told me that, in Japan, people pay 30% co-pay. So I asked her what her bill was and she said "Y400" ($4), which meant the total cost was $12 for the visit. This included cough syrup and the antibiotics. Now.. Japan's health care system isn't a bunch of witch doctors stirring eye of newt and bat's wings into some medicinal concoction. They have to top-notch service. They also have 3 times as many hospitals per capital as in the US. Yet, they only spent 8% of their GDP on health care, while we're spending 20%. Lindy.. Government health care frightens me because I want quality standards to be maintained. But seeing us possibly paying up to 30% of our GDP for health care also frightens the hell out of me. We need competition in the healthcare system so costs can come down. And we need the hospital administrators knocked over the heads to contain costs and not think they have a blank check for sticking it to the taxpayer just because the patient is on Medicare. And here's something personal.. My father died last June due to complications from having a lung/pleural lining removed (Mesothelioma). He survived the surgery just fine and the surgeon was top-notch. But some ICU doctor ignored the signs that he had a leaking chest tube that venter air into his chest and he blew up like the Michelin Man (they call it Subcutaneous Emphysema) and left him blinded for almost a week. It also prevented him from getting up and walking around and exercising his remaining lung. So the poor guy developed pneumonia, as well as some nasty bacterial infections and they eventually had to sedate him for 3 weeks and put him on a ventilator. Poor guy never had a chance after that. All because a $32 "Pleural-Vac" drainage container had either been improperly hooked up, or malfunctioned, pumping air into his check cavity.. The ICU doctor failed to notify my dad's Surgeon, and the latter later confessed to me that there were a few "weak links" in any of these procedures. He obviously could not lay blame on the ICU doctor, but it was pretty evident to both of us. I think Medicare should have a policy for "claw-backs" when medical negligence is so egregious. We were told by our attorneys for the "Meso" case that it would have been worthless to pursue a malpractice suit because my father's cancer was terminal and the hospital would have been covered by a "so what" clause... ("So What? We did the best we could and he was going to die from the cancer eventually, anyway"). My father would have likely survived for at least 3-5 more years, given how successful the surgery had been. And that surgery was over a quarter million dollars. I also believe, given that his cancer was due to Asbestos exposure, Medicare should also have the ability to seek damages against those Asbestos companies to cover the costs of my father's care. Sorry to rant and rave.. Just trying to find a solution that benefits both the patients, while also keeping qualified doctors involved. Hawk