5 Votes
How Would You Implement Health Care
So I’m going to keep this ridiculously simple. Everybody likes to armchair quarterback the government and yell about how stupid they are and whatnot. Well … given the task of national healthcare, what would an OmniNerd create/want?
I’ll seed some parent comments to get your thoughts organized into various lanes.
Similarly tagged OmniNerd content:
- Surrogate Mother and Abortions, by VnutZ 4 months ago
- Why a Health Nut Is Against a Soda Tax, by Brandon about 3 years ago
- 5 freedoms you'd lose in health care reform, by smcbride almost 4 years ago
- Statist health care, by the numbers, by LordDilly almost 4 years ago
This article was edited after publication by the author on 08 Sep 2009.
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Illegal Aliens by VnutZ
I’ll make it interesting … a nine year old Mexican boy is lying on the side of the road having been hit by a car with a compound fracture, some internal bleeding and maybe more issues.
- Does he get ambulatory care?
- Does he get X-Rays?
- Does he get surgery?
Prescription Medication by VnutZ
The twelve year old child of a meth dealer is exhibiting signs of paranoia, visual and auditory hallucinations.
A seventy year old grandmother living on nothing but social security is suffering severe alzheimers.
- Do either qualify for prescription meds au gratis?
Unemployed by VnutZ
You were just laid off from your job and have spent the past two months seeking employment to no avail. You’ve come down with swine flu (but don’t realize it yet) and are burning up a fever in bed completely incapable of doing anything but barely making it to the bathroom to vomit.
- Should you get ambulatory care?
- ER time?
- Medications?
It has been done in America by Occams
This article covers the issues rather well I think.
A few years ago, the State of Massachusetts passed legislation that facilitated almost universal health insurance coverage for its citizens. Massachusetts also now enjoys health outcomes comparable to those of other industrial countries and generally superior to the rest of the United States. Despite these achievements, the level of health spending, as well as the rate of health care inflation, remain so stubbornly high (at about the national average) that many citizens of the Bay State regard the experiment as a failure.
Health care reform is not simply a technical problem, but also a moral and political one.
It can be done, but like all insurance schemes there will be winners and losers and the losers will be those who pay but don’t claim on it. Even so, they will have gained from it because their premiums mitigated a significant risk and they did enjoy that protection.
The main thing here is to keep it from becoming a profitable vehicle for any service providers. If business can be kept out of it it might have a chance.
Let them choose by MateFrio
Everyone gets a tax rebate earmarked to pay for health care insurance of their choice picked from government or private plans.
Illegals are given emergency health care and a one way ticket home.
After six years all drugs are produced generically.
Cort reform where the lawyers do not get a % of punitive damages.
Better privacy laws to protect patient’s personal data.
A Healthcare fund that continues once a person is retired.
Run like a business by marcus
Rather than marketing around the country with stories about how hard your grandma had it without health care, why not
1) Have a plan where you show costs lower than revenue
2) Hire an executive team whose pay structure is structured to encourage keeping costs lower than revenue
3) Have fairly accurate details of what tax payers are providing the revenue and where the costs are coming from – make sure the data can show outliers so we understand the plan and who is paying way over their share and who is getting way more than their share, if there are too many outliers, something is wrong
Re: Run like a business by Anonymous
Occams, I think you are simplifying this too much
I would assume that there is going to be some standard pricing based on a standard deviation. The outliers are probably where
1) People are high risk because of certain factors
2) People are abusing the system
3) People are lower risk because of certain factors
Do you really believe someone who works out, stays in shape, doesn’t smoke, and drinks socially should have to pay the same health insurance as someone obese or a chain smoker? The kind of system that guarantees the same health care cost to everyone or based on income level will not take into account the factors I am listing above.
This will not help American’s behavior to prevent health issues by living a healthy life, as you can chain smoke and eat yourself into cancer at the same cost of health insurance as someone who exercises and eats well.
Health care should consider both prevention and protection.
I really believe the government needs to take some of the emotion out of their plan, gather facts and data, and make some informed decisions that include prevention of health issues and to insure that costs remain below revenue.
Another thought on alians by MateFrio
Send them back and bill the country of origin ….
Universal Health Care by ldsudduth
Just like this.
Shocked? One of the board conservatives (more libertarian/conservative) types actually agrees with Universal Health Care—isn’t life amazing.
Moot Question by GreatWhiteDork
Healthcare is not in the Constitution. It is also not a logical extension or result of something in the Constitution. (And no, you can dredge up the preamble and “promote the general wellfare”)
Healthcare is therefore, by the 10th Amendment, reserved for the states respectively, and the people.
Implement away at the state level, but it is unconstitutional at the federal level. Yes, I know we already have some federal level medical programs, but they are bankrupt and unconstitutional as well.
And no: I don’t believe that a need on one person’s part is a claim upon another. My need is not your moral, ethical, or legal responsiblity. If you are able to and choose to help me with my medical bills, thanks. But federally forced charity is not moral virtue, it is merely compliance.
If I don’t save for a rainy day and am too poor to pay for my medicine, I can ask for help from my Family, Friends, Church (If I have one), Community, or State.
But not at the Federal level.
sigh by AnonBCA
I’m disappointed…not ONE answer to the actual question…just a bunch of pseudo-intellectual bickering…shame…