Thursday, May 08, 2008

Have you ever wondered about all those negative health stories in the news?

"Is it possible that the constant drumbeat of negative news stories — the dire state of our healthcare system and need for a massive overhawl, the epidemic of obesity and chronic diseases in need of "disease" management by a third party, errors in need of a nationalized electronic database to improve safety, and the crisis of uninsured necessitating mandates requiring everyone to purchase health insurance — might not be entirely objective, accurate portrayals and that certain interests might, instead, be working very hard to convince us of all this? Can we trust that their new healthcare delivery system will deliver care that's in our best interests, or their's?" Read Sandy's take on the "Medical Home" concept.

2 comments:

John said...

I personally think that health care is a necessity. I know that a "national" health care plan is controversial because it forces everybody to use same insurance, but I think we need some form of it. I think a compromise solution is a hybrid health care system where everybody gets basic health, dental and vision care. If you want "better" care and have money, you can buy extra insurance.

Norma said...

Actually, that's what we have now, and it doesn't seem to be working all that well for some. No one in the US is denied basic health care, even if they don't have insurance. In fact, they might get even better care since they may actually get what they need instead of what the insurance group manager says their policy allows. I have government health care (Medicare) and because I'm retired, probably my lowest income (not assets) since I was on a graduate student stipend in the 60s. It's a huge chunk, but I still have to pay for all the extras, like a vaccine or special lab test. In 30 or 40 years, it will probably be about 90% of our government's outgo, so you go figure the taxes or downsize what you think is "basic."