What’s With This Debate?
Ok, so I use the term debate loosely. What’s up with the people yelling and shouting down their congress critters over the cost of health care? They don’t want to “pay” for other peoples’ medical coverage? That already happens. It happens in the form of higher insurance premiums, in higher doctor’s visit expenses – what do you think the $20.00 aspirin is all about anyway? It covers the uninsured family that brought their sick child to the emergency room for an ear infection because they can’t pay for a Dr office visit and the hospital is required by law to treat the patient. A $120.00 office visit (man that price has soared!) and an antibiotic prescription could have sufficed, but a family without health care, without preventative care, without a $20.00 copay will rack up over $500.00 by visiting the ER. And if they can’t afford to pay the $120.00, they aren’t paying the $500.00 and your next MRI costs an additional $10.00. So give me a break. You’re already paying for it – the Government is already paying for it. The hospital, your insurance company and you are already paying for it. Wouldn’t it be better if $2.40 were added to your next MRI so that family can go to a private doctor? Wouldn’t it be better if the emergency rooms weren’t clogged with non-life threatening injuries?
I have heard the rhetoric about bureaucrats running the health care system. Usually it’s, “do you want a bureaucrat standing between you and your doctor? The answer is no.” Really? Ever hear of insurance, HMOs and the medical review board at the hospital? Whether you call them corporate executives, hospital executives, and even – gasp! – doctors they are still bureaucrats. So do you really want someone doing what they are already doing? No! We can’t have that! Oh wait, we already do.
Now that Sarah Palin quit – yes quit – her job leading Alaska in the middle of the biggest financial crises since the Depression she has time to post on facebook. Her latest ramblings are about the “death panel”
“The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.”
Really!? First, let me wipe the coffee from my computer screen. Next, let me remind you of all of the programs that support and pay for special needs. Point in fact – as a school district our first priority on transporting students is those with special needs. By law; end of discussion. Does anyone really think this calls for her one year old child to stand in front of a “death panel”? No. The rewrite calls for Medicare – only available to those retired under Social Security – to pay for the time a patient and doctor sit down to talk about end of life issues. Living wills, medical directives, etc. (Something Terri Schiavo’s family might wish they would have had.) It pays for the doctor’s time if they cover certain topics. NPR had a recent discussion on this very topic. Unfortunately, the attorney they had on skewed the issue saying that family members couldn’t be in the room when the doctor discusses all of these things with the patient due to HIPAA (of course, he did use the ambiguity of legalese, ie “doublespeak” to make his point). Since HIPAA protects the patient and the patient’s Personal Health Information (PHI) the patient can choose to include whomever they want. The doctor can only include medical personnel – and then only for medical purposes.
So to recap:
- You and I and the Federal Government are already paying for everyone else’s health care (you know, kind of like how we were paying for the Iraq war – it doesn’t matter if it’s “off the books” we’re still paying for it)
- there are already bureaucrats between you and your doctor – it takes nearly three office employees per doctor to process insurance claims – which bureaucrat are you most afraid of?
- death panel – um no. “When you can’t argue the law, argue the facts. When you can’t argue the facts, argue the law.” And when you have neither, you pound your fist on the desk or make something up. Oh, my poor widdle downs syndrome baby who can’t even talk has to justify his life to the scary black man in the White House.
I would love to hear your opinions –
