Comments on: The Future of American Healthcare

By: Frank

Frank — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 01:31:16 +0000

Jorge, I am intrigued by your 2nd, 3rd and 4th points but your first is just empirically denied. Tort reform has proven ineffective in all the states that have passed laws capping claims. There are a few reasons for this.

First: most medical cases are settled out of court and over 95% of cases in general are for less than 500000 so the change tort reform provides is minimal.

Second: insurance companies do not care. Doctors have to buy insurance no matter what, thus they can charge whatever they want. To be honest I would not be all that surprised if insurance agencies colluded on this, since it is odd that they do not seem to respond to lower costs.

By: Greg

Greg — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 01:16:41 +0000

I have to echo Christian’s comment about Canadian health care but Jerry’s point is even worse than that. Even if the Canadian system isnt perfect, is America’s any better? We have 47 million people uninsured, more than any other country in the world. We have the most expensive medical system and we spend more per patient than any other country in the world. Maybe we are the country that’s missing something. So many people die in our country from lack of medical care, thus we shouldn’t have the system where people who wouldnt get care should just have to wait a bit for it? this doesnt make sense to me, it probably shouldn’t for you either.

By: Jules

Jules — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 22:17:21 +0000

I realize this is probably an unpopular position, but I think that our healthcare system is doing just fine, and that it would be a mistake of epic proportions to monkey with it at this point. It would have been difficult with many repercussions even if we were not in our current economic state. Making some massive changes to a system that is reasonably well off at the moment would be a terrible allocation of resources that could be used to bolster the parts of our economy which are actually hurting.

By: Tobias

Tobias — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 22:10:36 +0000

This is the nightmare scenario. The last thing we need right now is for the government to step on the toes of business while it is trying to get up off the mat. There is no question in my mind that we should not let the government try to over-regulate industries. In order to cope with the current economic crisis we should allow business as much leeway as possible to regulate its self. Currently we have healthcare for americans, and the healthcare industry employs many workers. If the healthcare industry suddenly loses its customer base, there are going to be thousands of unemployed healthcare workers.

By: Christian

Christian — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 20:24:36 +0000

Jerry– universal healthcare actually does work in many parts of Canada. The mistake you’re making is that you think Canadian healthcare is nationalized, when in fact it varies from province to province. Some provinces are bad, and those are the nightmare stories people in the U.S. hear about. But other parts have great healthcare and it runs like clockwork. I am all for having universal healthcare in the United States if we could truly do it the right way and make sure it’s managable. It has been done wrong before, but it has also been done right (look at Cuba). We can use empirical evidence and better models to ensure our universal healthcare system works.

By: Jerry

Jerry — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 19:45:26 +0000

Nationalizing health care would be a terrible idea. We’ve all heard about how socialist health care in Canada and Europe doesn’t work. People wait in line for hours upon hours for even basic treatment and more advanced. Everyone is constantly booking appointments over anything, driving up expenses and government bureaucracy has made everything inefficient. These organization will find ways to fix the problems that exist for them. They are not going to fail: people always need doctors and will certainly continue going to them.

By: Jorge Burgoa

Jorge Burgoa — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 19:34:50 +0000

Please, no government management of anything. Just look at the problems and mismanagement of the Medicare system.
The actual healthcare system works, it is not perfect but it is good. The only problem it is that it is too expensive. Here in South Florida, especially in the area of group health insurance the rates are outrageous. Therefore, let’s concentrate in reducing the costs of today’s system and forget about the illusion of a government run health care program.

Here are a couple of ideas to cut costs and by that cut premiums:
1.- Tort reform. Less lawyers, less malpractice law suits,less malpractice insurance, less charges from the physician and hospitals
2.- Group Health insurance in South Florida, especially in Broward and Dade Counties is very expensive since about 25% of the premium is for prescription drugs. Therefore open borders and de-monopolize the drug industry. Cheaper drugs mean in general cheaper premiums.
3. Advertisement and marketing programs of insurance companies should be prohibited. That will give us the consumer a big chunk of savings.
4. Attach compensation of insurance companies executives not to what is the price performance of the company’s shares but how much percent has the premium charged to the insured was reduced
Any idea out there will be better than any Federal Health Insurance Program!

Jorge Burgoa
securefloridian.com

By: Colin

Colin — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 16:06:17 +0000

I just want to point out that government healthcare policies, first and foremost, should seek to benefit children, because they can’t buy insurance on their own. I think if an adult is lazy, decides not to get a job, freeloads off America, they shouldn’t get the benefit of health insurance. However, if those people have children, those children should be the U.S.’s first priority. Our priorities are backwards when we’re giving healthcare as a form of welfare to some people yet there are still millions of uninsured children across the country. Take as much healthcare money as you can and use it to insure every child in America. Whatever you have left over, use for the adults.

By: Jean Drogus

Jean Drogus — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 13:17:35 +0000

I believe that healthcare reform is necessary for groups without healthcare insurance in south florida. As a professional in the industry we find too many individuals and groups who do not have coverage.

Jean Drogus
http://www.securefloridian.com

By: Joshua

Joshua — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 06:58:49 +0000

We do not have nearly enough money to start giving it away to hospitals and health care providers. You know how we can fix this situation: MAKE MEDICINE CHEAPER!! Everywhere else in the world the cost of medicine and medical expenses is ridiculously lower than in the United States. If we find ways to regulate the prices, then we will see less people going into debt from their medical bills and less hospitals spending more than they can get back in return. This would not cost American’s a dime and we would get quite a bit back from it