No comment...it speaks for itself:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G44NC...layer_embedded
No comment...it speaks for itself:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G44NC...layer_embedded
Ophthalmic Optician, Society to Advance Opticianry
Sure does, but some can't hear anyone speaking.
The Cash for clunkers program is why the government shouldn't run anything
Lets make a program with a budget of $x and run it for y weeks
Go through $x in y/8 weeks.
Add 2x to the funding still only make it to y/4 weeks and then end the program.
now that was well planned
Reminds me of the war in Iraq.Originally Posted by k12311997
But the war in Iraq didn't help the economy.
Indeed, it speaks for itself, and only for itself; this Congressman does not know what he's talking about. Apparently, this link is traveling along the right-wing email circuit; I saw it last week. It was interesting that he mentioned a study wherein Americans treated for breast cancer were found to show better survivability after treatment (2nd place in the study) than Canadians (3rd place, and much better than Brits); the Canadian press cited the same study as evidence of good performance of their healthcare system (see, e.g., http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNew...hub=PrintStory). The list of illnesses that the Congressman spouted as "going on and on" (where the U.S. system was the best performer) is not accurate. Nor was the U.S. the best performer on breast cancer survivability after treatment; those honors went to ... Cuba. Unfortunately, I can't provide a free link to that study; you may be able to find a library that has a copy of The Lancet Oncology, in which the "Concord" study appeared in the August 2008 edition.
Persons who wish to actually inform themselves on the principal claim this man made should read the following (more general) study:
http://www.rwjf.org/files/research/q...ikeaug2009.pdf
It's a relatively difficult read, because it consists of more than slogans and cliches, and assiduously strives for neutrality. If, on the other hand, you prefer to be misled, just keep watching the video.
[YOUTUBE]Jng4TnKqy6A[/YOUTUBE][/QUOTE]
The following is an op-ed piece that I co-authored with our State Representative, which appeared in our local paper.
The Public Option We Already Have
By Jack Thompson and Robert Shanbaum
Journal-Inquirer, September 1, 2009
While our national debate on health care reform in general, and the “public option” in particular, continues to rage, a couple of things are worth noting: First, those who see reform as creeping socialism, and who argue passionately for a return to the America our founders intended, should make note of the first public option: in 1798, the fifth Congress created the Marine Hospital Fund, which established a network of federally-run hospitals along the eastern seaboard to care for sailors and seamen, financed by a federal tax on their wages of twenty cents per month. That system grew into the Public Health Service, which operated hospitals continuously until 1981, and which persists today, comprising most of the health-related departments of the Department of Health and Human Services.
Second, there is another public healthcare option available today that most Americans don’t know about: the network of 1100 Community Health Centers that provide health care to over 15 million people across the U.S. at over 6,000 delivery points, and to over 200,000 people in Connecticut, yearly. Technically known as “Federally Qualified Health Centers”, the Centers get the majority of their funding from the federal government in the form of direct grants, Medicare, and Medicaid payments – but receive substantial funding from other sources; for example, direct federal grants and direct payments from individuals constitute similar portions of the Centers’ overall revenue.
These Centers can provide medical care to anyone! How much more “public” could an option be? They accept all forms of insurance, and for persons who lack insurance, they charge according to a sliding scale based on the patient’s income, including, for persons having little or no income, zero.
Since their origins in the early 1960’s, when they were first established to provide services to migrant farmworkers, the Centers have been intended to serve medically underserved populations. Since that time, Congress has extended the Health Center concept to serve urban communities, the homeless, and residents of public housing; similar programs serve schools, rural communities and Native Americans. A significant expansion occurred during the Bush Administration under the Health Center Growth initiative, which doubled federal grants to the Centers between 2001 and 2007 (to $2 billion), and saw the number of access points rise to 6,000.
Still, public awareness of the Centers lags. Most of us don’t know they exist, including many who go without adequate health care, who could receive it at one of the Centers.
One of the most significant elements of the health care reform debate centers on controlling the upward-spiraling cost of healthcare. The president has said that health care reform without features that control costs would constitute failure. But the fact is that the Centers already do many of the things that have been proposed from all sides in the debate, and they are, in fact, some of the lowest-cost providers of health care in the U.S. Federal law affords the Centers a number of advantages, and imposes a number of requirements, that help accomplish this.
First of all, the centers are required to be non-profit organizations, so, the provision of care doesn’t include that component of costs – the profits of providers or insurers.
Many commentators have said that one of the major contributors to rising healthcare costs is the fee-for-service system which is ubiquitous in the U.S. Under that system, providers’ incomes increase in proportion, not to the outcomes they produce, but to the number of services they provide. While the Centers generally operate on a fee-for-service basis (because that’s how Medicaid and Medicare are presently required to work, and participants in those two programs constitute almost half of the Centers’ patients), the internal architecture of the Centers, where physicians are salaried employees, whose incomes are not related to the number of services rendered, or tests performed, incentivizes producing good outcomes rather than maximizing the number of services.
Also, the Centers participate in the National Health Service Corps program, which allows young doctors and other practitioners to pay off the expense of their education and training by working in qualified facilities for a period of time.
One related cost-control idea that hasn’t been floated in the debate (at least not prominently) is that the most direct way to reduce the cost of healthcare should be to provide more of it. If the market pricing mechanism actually works in healthcare, making more healthcare available should result in lower costs. And if the market pricing mechanism doesn’t work, the entire discussion should be focused on something completely different, such as a regulation-driven single-payer system. One way to increase supply would be to expand the NHSC system – in short, create more doctors, nurses, and other practitioners through that program, and require, as the program does now, that they repay the benefit by agreeing to work in Centers for some period of time. That would involve making more money available to the NHSC program, but it would also require more investment in medical schools, and perhaps, an insistence that medical schools drop unnecessarily high barriers to entry.
Another claim that’s frequently heard is that malpractice damage awards are a significant contributor to high healthcare costs. That’s a debatable question, but in any case, the Centers may, on application, be covered by the Federal Tort Claims Act, in which case they and their employees are immune from malpractice actions.
The expanded and enhanced use of information technology is often touted as essential to reducing healthcare costs. The Centers have received substantial grants to pursue Electronic Medical Records systems. These systems will promote efficiency and reduce errors; but practitioners have been slow to adopt, largely due to the complexity and expense of implementing such systems. The Centers could serve as an information management service for not only their patients, but others’ patients as well, thus making the adoption of these technologies less expensive and more attractive. Beyond the automation of medical records handling, keeping electronic records could provide invaluable near-real-time information to doctors about the efficacy of treatments in cases similar to those before them, thus promoting the practice of evidence-based medicine, which is another element of reform that is generally agreed to be essential.
The Centers can provide all their patients with “medical homes” where they receive primary care – preventative care that promotes wellness, and treats illness when it is treatable at the lowest possible cost. And when specialist care is needed, the Centers can ensure that it is obtained. The Centers even receive grants to pay for transporting patients to specialist appointments, to ensure that the specialists’ time isn’t wasted, as it is when patients fail to appear.
All of this is happening now, in Community Health Centers across the nation. There is no reason to believe that this model cannot scale up effectively, and provide quality care at reasonable cost to a broad cross-section of Americans; not just the uninsured, and not just the underserved. No matter what form reform may take as we craft a more secure safety net for more Americans, the role the Centers serve as providing “a safety net for the safety net” will be critical. This is the “public option” that we already have, that already works, and on which we should build our next-generation healthcare system.
Shanbaum- Your State Rep is fortunate to have you in his district.
Have you considered forwarding this to other media for broader recognition/publication?
:cheers:
You mean, there's an outlet broader than Optiboard?
Almost all the same descriptors apply to the VA health system and the military health system. Except these systems limit access.
They are even required by law to bill insurance if a patient has "3rd party" coverage.
Yeah, every time you get one of those massively forwarded right-wing emails, attach it and Repy To All.
I have always wondered why the right wingers always seem to have so many belittling and fact-free emails as I have never gotten one from the other side of the fence. And you should see the intelligence-insulting "polls" and "surveys" that the RNC sends to my wife, a registered Republican. I'm sure there are those of you that got them and of course agreed with them totally, but you need to ask yourself this question, "Why do they feel the need to do this when the Democrats don't bother with such tripe?" I've never gotten anything like it from the Dems, my wife has gotten three of them since the Repubs lost the election. Sourest grapes I've seen, I guess.
DragonlensmanWV N.A.O.L.
"There is nothing patriotic about hating your government or pretending you can hate your government but love your country."
My question is why are you letting your politicians lie right to your faces and then take their sides?
Death panels?
Forcing Euthanasia?
Bringing in that one Canadian to tell a proven lie?
Seems like a shame that the politicians cannot get together and discuss FACTS. Instead of reaching for the lowest common denominator and saying things like "Hitler had a plan like this, it was called the Final Solution" (a quote that spat in the face of every Jewish person in the world and every one of the 6 million who died at Hitler's hands) or trying to make it seem like this is going to lead to communism.
A real shame.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks