What's the health care solution?

Posted at 8:09 PM on June 15, 2009 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Health

President Obama heard the boos from doctors on Monday when he said he wouldn't support limits on jury awards in malpractice cases. The president spoke to the American Medical Association in Chicago (See transcript), warning doctors that if something isn't done about health care, the country might go the way of GM.

But at the same time, he seemed to allay fears of a big upheaval.

"If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period. No one will take it away. No matter what," he said.

"What's the 'reform' about simply allowing you to keep your present plan as is?" ABC's medical editor, Dr. Tim Johnson, wrote in an online column.

"Obama wants single payer, government controlled and operated. He is a facist (sic) who will stop at nothing but total control," a commenter wrote.

About that single-payer stuff. We heard from Doug Miron, of Solway, Minn., in advance of a show Kerri Miller is doing Tuesday on the subject.

We, as a young family, lived in Canada from 1970-1979. Before then, I grew up in Conn. from '41. After that, we lived in Brookings, SD until '99, and have lived here near Bemidji since 2000. I have 60 years experience with American medicine and 9 years with the Canadian system.

Right off, let me say that we much prefer the Canadian system. It is simpler for everybody involved. The medical service is as good as anything we found in the U.S. The main cost control is that the provincial governments negotiate the prices with the physicians. In neither Clinton's effort nor the present effort aimed at real cost control through negotiation of prices charged by the providers.

I have heard on NPR that some rich opponent of single-payer coverage is going around the world collecting horror stories for commercials against it. On the one hand, I think somebody should check the facts if these commercials hit the air. On the other hand, I think supporters ought to make horror-story commercials about our system. The other day we heard stories about farmers and rural workers who either couldn't afford medical insurance or were one serious illness away from bankruptcy. My wife, Molly, remarked that this would be a strange conversation to a Canadian. In the past, we've heard stories about indigent patients who show up at places that don't want to give free medical treatment and are trucked off and dumped at a county hospital or a free clinic.

Of my own experiences, I think the most damning was one in the mid '70s. We were visiting Molly's sister on her dairy farm in upstate New York. Our middle son, then a crawling baby, sustained a head injury. I held him to me while we all piled into cars and drove to the Ogdensburg Hospital. I walked in with blood all over my shirt holding the baby and the first thing said to me was something to the effect that we need to do the financial paperwork. I growled "Fix the baby first, then we'll talk about paperwork." They stabilized him and we were sent to a hospital near Watertown, where they could really deal with the injury. Luckily, while his skull was penetrated, his brain sheath was not.

Opponents of the plan now in Congress say that the public insurance component is a step toward socialized medicine. I hope it passes and they are right.

Midmorning will, indeed, tackle the subject at 9 a.m. on Tuesday. I'll live-blog it here.

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Comments (4)

For anyone not clear on the concept of how abysmal our profit-driven healthcare system is and how well single-payer works in almost any other developed country you can name, I recommend a viewing of Michael Moore's recent documentary/indictment, Sicko.

Being a realist, I think the U.S. is fated to remain an outlier when it comes to meaningful healthcare reform -- unless it finds a way to keep the entrenched interests from dictating the terms.

Posted by bob | June 15, 2009 10:28 PM

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This is so frustrating. Why can't people in this country get it right? Haven't we learned anything about how badly the profit motive and greed of the financial industry has ruined us? Why do we want our health care system to be controlled by the profit motive and greed of insurance companies?

We recently had to buy individual insurance - after job layoffs - and it is frightening now to know that we are susceptible to having all of our savings wiped out by our insurer's self-interest! Also, the very high deductible we qualified for will cause us to NOT SEEK HEALTH CARE AT ALL. What kind of system is that? BTW, two companies declined to insure me - one decline letter received after jogging, putting on my size small clothes and eating oatmeal for breakfast! What!?

We need safety in our system!
Sandra

Posted by Sandra | June 16, 2009 9:44 AM

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Midmorning is not really discussing the subject of health care solutions. What we have is Thomas Miller, who is no expert on health care reform, acting simply as a shill for the private, corporate profit-driven managed health care industry. Miller is dogmatic about his profit ideology. He is generating fear, uncertainty and doubt about any changes which will reduce the profits. There's no discussion. Every point, every question is met by Miller with false claims, misdirections, a return to his same talking points for profits, and blaming doctors and patients for the costs. Miller keeps saying we are not delivering health care efficiently (doctor's fault) and patients are not choosing (!) efficiently (patient's fault).

The plain truth is that managed health care companies are making billions of dollars of revenue, dollars which are being spent by patients and employers for health care but which never get spent on health care, but instead on administrative costs and corporate profits.

Miller also blames claim and payment clearing houses, etc., which is also BS, as those industries exist primarily because there is such a blizzard of paperwork required by corporate payers and because they find every possible way to NOT pay claims, and because claims, although "standard" are anything but standard.

The US system is a tragic, embarrassment compared to most other modern countries, despite our doctors being among the best trained and the US medical industry having the latest technologies and research.

Posted by Chris Johnson | June 16, 2009 9:48 AM

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I listened to the entire program and have to say that the Single Payer plan sounded great, but I was still skeptical so I did a little research on the internet.
I found Dr Himmelsteines website http://pnhp.org and followed links to several other websites, including one to HR676 . After reading the text of the bill, I asked myself, "How could anyone in his right mind, oppose this?".

PNHP has done plenty of research and provided a set of FAQs at http://www.pnhp.org/facts/singlepayer_faq.php

I am now convinced that Single Payer Healthcare is the ONLY way to go.

Posted by Tom Cox | July 1, 2009 4:50 PM

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