Cosmopolitan Healthcare in the US?

Slavmed is back from a Sabbatical! We just couldn't stay away when all this interesting "healthcare reform" stuff happens!

You all heard that Investor’s Business Daily ( a little to the right!) announced that the handicapped physicist Stephen Hawking “wouldn’t have a chance,” in Britain because the government run National Health Service would consider his life “essentially worthless.”

You do know that Professor Hawking was born in Britain, has lived there all his life. BTW, he expressed that he is quite happy with the care he received.

Proposed Obamacare is not like Britain's system. Faux News is screaming that the plan would turn America into the former Soviet Union. But Paul Krugman (NEW YORK TIMES) says that the plan would turn America into Switzerland, far from a "socialist hellhole".

Every civilized country other than the United States guarantees necessary care to all its citizens. Switzerland relies on private insurance companies, using a combination of regulation and subsidies to ensure that everyone is covered. Everyone is required to buy insurance, insurers can’t discriminate based on medical history or pre-existing conditions, and lower-income citizens get government help in paying for their policies. Short of single payer system, it sounds pretty reasonable, doesn't it?

Swiss-style universal healthcare coverage is so much better than the US status quo. And we already know it works in Switzerland.

So if Obamacare Swissifies America, SlavMed would be out of business. We better start developing new product lines.

Doctors’ Group Opposes Public Insurance Plan

Doctors’ Group Opposes Public Insurance Plan

By ROBERT PEAR

Published: June 10, 2009

WASHINGTON — As the health care debate heats up, the American Medical Association is letting Congress know that it will oppose creation of a government-sponsored insurance plan, which President Obama and many other Democrats see as an essential element of legislation to remake the health care system.

Let us know what you think.

Slavmed"

THANKS


Sincerely,

Milla

What kind of healthcare do YOU want?

Remember how Republicans killed Clinton's health care reform? NYT reported that at a closed door Republican strategy session Bob Packwood,(R-OR) said those famous words: " We've killed health care reform, now we've got to make sure our fingerprints are not on ". Are we really better off now?

Remember the cries about "Big Government Democrats Gone Wild"? It sounds familiar because opponents of the reform still repeat it, over and over again. It is mind boggling that people still buy into this crap - even those who are uninsured themselves!

Apparently,the key is to stick to “big lies” –lies so HUGE that they must be true. (Who would dare make up such a whopper and repeat it on television, online or in print?) Distorted language is not meant to provoke thought; it aims to close off thought in order to play on listeners’ emotions.

Why do Republicans refer to Obama’s proposal as a “Washington takeover” of health care? Why do they insist that patients will have to “stand in line” with “Washington bureaucrats in charge of healthcare.”?

Because apparently fear-mongering is an art that pays off. “It could lead to the government setting standards of care, instead of doctors who really know what’s best.It could lead to the government rationing care, making people stand in line and denying treatment like they do in other countries with national healthcare.”

Here the speaker neatly avoids having to offer any evidence. He is not saying that Obama has proposed letting the government set standards or ration care. He is just saying that reform “could” put us on a slippery slope, planting images in the reader’s mind without really claiming that they are true. It “It’s not what you say; it’s what people hear.”

Most Americans recognize that health care has little to do with a free market where sellers compete for customers. Eighty percent of our health care dollars are spent when patients are very sick, they don’t have the luxury of shopping around, and bartering. A patient not likely to tell surgeon A, “if you can’t give me a better price, I’ll go to surgeon B.” The truth is, at best, the patient isn’t looking for the cheapest surgeon; he’s looking for the best surgeon, just as he is looking for the best medication, the best hospital. In reality, the patients go to where their insurance plan offers the best coverage.

Get smart. Don't let the techniques designed to wake up the "group think" in you affect your own judgment. No one in Washington is talking about having the government take over the hospitals, or put doctors on the government’s payroll.

White House has no plans to take over health care. And the last thing politicians want to do is vote on what care people should and shouldn’t receive.

Stem Cell Funding Ban Lifted

President Obama completed a turnaround of Bush administration policy this morning by officially ending a federal ban on funding of stem cell research. "In recent years, when it comes to stem cell research, rather than furthering discovery our government has forced what I believe is a false choice between sound science and moral values," he said, carefully noting that the new rules would not "open the door" for "dangerous, profoundly wrong" human cloning. Obama went out of his way to make clear that under his watch, "We base our public policies on the soundest science" and "appoint scientific advisors based on their credentials and experience, not their politics or ideology." The National Institutes of Health now has 120 days to figure out federal funding guidelines and limitations.
Retrieved March 9, 2009 from http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheat-sheet/
Maybe soon we will not need to travel overseas to find cure for Diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, Cancer, spinal cord injuries and other life threatening conditions.
Tell us what you think.

Private Health advocate for insurance woes

Have a health insurance nightmare? Fighting with insurance could be exhausting...

If you simply don't have the time or energy to fight, would you retain a private advocate to battle the bureaucracy? Experts say that even the most complicated claims disputes are often resolved within two weeks with an advocate's help. Would you go this route? let us know by replying to this post.