Consensus emerging on universal healthcare
Consensus emerging on universal healthcare - Los Angeles Times
The prospect of bold government action appears to be accepted among players across the ideological and political spectrum, including those who opposed the idea in the 1990s....
At the same time, those groups, which span the ideological and political spectrum, largely have agreed to preserve the employer-based system through which most Americans get their health insurance.
The idea of a federal, single-payer system patterned on those in Europe and Canada, long a dream of the political left, is now virtually off the table.
Read this as non-profit BlueCross/Blue Shield becoming the de facto single-payer company with huge government subsidies. Why is this better than a government-run scheme? Maybe because it will be much more difficult to unionize workers in the 50 "Blues" incorporated in each state....
Comments
We have seen that the private healthcare does not work well and the government run healthcare system has also failed in many countries that tried it. Private health insurance companies are unfair to sick people - sometimes people get disqualified because they have one of the million sicknesses listed in the pre-approval applications and those companies try to give insurance to healthier individuals because healthy individual = less doctor visits, less medications and less drug coverage = more profits for private health industry.
I think what we need is cooperation between government and private insurance companies. I do not believe it is right to list million health preconditions as a qualification test for applicants and deny them healthcare. This is unfair and barbaric! Can you believe in 20th century America we can disqualify an American citizen from healthcare coverage because 5 years ago they had an emergency doctors visit? That’s where the government should step in and redefine all rules for private healthcare companies. These companies should not be able to easily disqualify families for coverage and if they want to stay in the game they have to actively work with the people, not just push them away.
So the problem is obvious: get rid of health industry lobbyists and drug company lobbyists and start listening to the people, it’s time to start addressing the average people’s needs. Until the lobbyists will have money, power and say, we will have this problem follow us in future as a shadow from dark past.
Posted by: David Dzidzikashvili | December 20, 2008 12:03 PM