Reagan: Efficient Nationalized Health Care? Not So Fast

[Terri]

By Michael Reagan
June 11, 2009

President Barack Obama has undertaken the expansion of health care to the roughly 45 million Americans who do not currently have health insurance. Having about one American in seven with no health insurance is undeniably an undesirable situation which deserves our attention and concern.

This is not just a matter of compassion either, but also of practicality. About the most expensive way imaginable to deal with routine illness is to provide it in hospital emergency rooms, yet this is the only alternative for millions of people. In addition, the uninsured commonly defer getting needed treatment, and with the looming threat of infectious diseases to all our families, we are all at risk when millions go without needed treatment.

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[P. McBride]

Basically, this is what I saw when Mr Obama wanted control over the health care system. What he is really asking the congress and senate to do is legalize passive euthenasia, and he will be in charge of the gas chambers....oops, there won't be any gas chamber this time will there? Or the way things are going, at least not yet.

[Goatlady]

I work in the healthcare field and can tell you that lack of educated professionals extends further than doctors and nurses. Laboratory professionals, which is what my background is, are training at an even lower rate than nurses. I won't disagree that costs are out of hand, but government overregulation plays a hand in some of that. It is so difficult to jump through all the FDA hoops to get your drugs and testing on the market. The expense of licensing prevents real competition. The threat of litigation prevents it as well. How many of those ads have you seen about suing the big bad drug companies over side-effects? Litigation also increases the costs of practicing medicine. The malpractice premiums are killing the doctors.

Maybe we could withhold healthcare from all those aging and ill Senators and Congressmen. They are worth less than my 90+ year old granny.

[ReneeCA.]

Regan was concerned about quality care for our elderly citizens and a supporter of Medicare and it's solvency.

In Obama's health care bill, most of the lost care will be at the expense of the elderly who will have many of their cases over viewed for procedures that the government feels are not necessary because of their age and the few years of life they have remaining.

His main medical costs will go to the young.

Does anyone else find this terribly disturbing that the government would have this kind of power over our doctors and hospitals as well as the quality of people's lives?

What Michael Regan did not mention was the statistics on the uninsured figures the government gives us.

12 million illegals.
10 million people who can afford it but are young and feel they don't need insurance.
14 million are eligible for many state and federal programs but do not apply.
4 million are WITHOUT health care and not eligible for any program.

Seems to me that we can help these 4 million without tearing the finest health care system in the world apart.

Then maybe we can fix Social Security which will soon be bankrupt and save the trillions it would cost instead of getting a health care system like the failed ones in England and Canada.

[qrayjack]

12 million illegals.
10 million people who can afford it but are young and feel they don't need insurance.
14 million are eligible for many state and federal programs but do not apply.
4 million are WITHOUT health care and not eligible for any program.

Not to mention hypochondriacs who go to the doctor for the slightest sniffle or headache, who regularly take enough medication to paralyze an elephant and whose trivial aches and pains would go away on their own given the chance.

[Mary-Lou]

Back in the day, we would have a "Family Doctor". We would go to the Doctor for one of two reasons:
1. We were sick
2. We had missed a period and thought we might be pregnant (same family doctor!)

Family Doctor knew everyone by name and charged a nominal fee per visit.

It worked fine. Health Insurance was something you had through your employer and it was a shared cost that paid for catastrophic illness, operations, or hospitalions due to something catastrophic like an automobile accident.

When did this change? I think it was in Boston when Harvard Community HMO initiated its new plan in the late 70's with its new version of "Managed Health Care". My own Family Practicioner, Dr O'Connor, hated the new way of practicing medicine. He tried combining his practice with some other phycicians but ended up taking early retirement because Insurance Adjusters began to dictate what treatments and drugs could be prescribed instead of people who had studied MEDICINE! Dr. O'Connor eventually passed away, but he was a unhappy man, who was denied his profession by a bueracratic monolith known as the Insurance Controlled Managed Health Care System.

[qrayjack]

Bad news, ML, but minor compared to what Obama will do.

[AZ Patriot]

Mary-Lou: That was a sad story for you, your doctor's patients and for our nation. As soon as HMOs and "managed healthcare" arrived on the scene, the demise of personal health treatment began. Because I am "older" and have a pre-existing condition, I expect to be denied treatment because I haven't shown "worthiness" to be allowed medication. Luckily, I DO have private health insurance (which I pay $745/ month) but, if Obama's plan passes, all private plans will eventually be put out of business (after all, who can compete with the almost unlimited resources of the federal government?) and I will be FORCED under penalty to sign up for socialized health care--only to be denied treatment.