Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Presidents of this country can not fix the current system: the system must be changed completely. Why invent the wheel?
Borrow the system from Japan, Canada or UK. Even look how Mexico can afford to provide universal healthcare to everyone, except foreign born- ironic, isn’t It?
I. Get rid off bureaucracy in healthcare: if you do not deal with actual patients by answering their phones, treating them, helping them- you are out of healthcare- your salary is now being used for actual health CARE, not management of it. What is the salary of ceo of Aetna? Blue Cross? Numerous secretaries, managers,clerks.
Keep it simple, you get the point. Set up a system of direct payments to actual healthcare workers based on criteria of actual care provided. We can not afford the middlemen.
II. Obvious one is pharm robbers; pardon,meant- lobbyists. Deal with them by buying the meds on international market- it will be the same meds at 1/10 of price. Spend tax dollars on a true unbiased, independent and non- for profit driven research in cardio, cancer,etc field. Who wants to get cancer? It is here we as a nation need to help the most tragically affected.
Do we really need to pay for another new heartburn medication? Stop eating that pasta with rich source and get pepsin for cents on the dollar. Stop making new “diseases/ conditions” and meds for those conditions where lifestyle change will do. Make it not covered and private pay for those who want it.
Why are we paying for Viagra? Nobody died from celibacy- make it a private pay. List can go on.
Do not even start me on “ panic attacks, anxiety, depression”. Mental illness is a terrible thing, but hooking the vulnerable on benzodiazepines is even worse and making taxpayers pay for that is robbery.
Read classical literature and philosophy - it is called human struggle, personal growth, human sufferings which make us humankind and helped to create the greatest art, music, literature and inventions in various fields!
Very few truly need and are being helped by meds-pay for those only- schizophrenics come to mind, etc.
III. Here is a novel idea for capitalist society- supply and demand. Make more doctors!!! ( in state funded inexpensive universities)
Instead of another x billion dollar submarine or fighter or another military base in Foreign Lands - provide inexpensive medical education to deserving hardworking intelligent students!
Without being burdened by loan debts their services will be cheaper. Make them provide some free/ affordable services to cover the public’s investment in their education. States could sponsor large medical campuses instead of stadiums where the doctors can have access to fancy diagnostic equipment and possibly medical staff etc so the doctor could concentrate on treating people and not waste valuable time on dealing with running his business practice issues like office property management, human resource management; insurance; legal, regulatory and meeting with pharm sales people. Now we would have doctors whose main motivation in studying medicine is NOT the desire to become rich, but an altruistic desire to help, scientific curiosity to find solution to a problem - we would have a totally different health care system
IV. Lawyers. Enough said! Fill here your own ideas- sure you guess what I am thinking about starting from regulatory hoopla to malpractice and back. Time to get rid of antiquities, injustice and enormous unbearable public and personal expense of precedent law system and not only in healthcare but everywhere - all the way to the criminal justice system as well.
Rate this post positively
Give Physician Assistants and RNs additional training in pharmacy and pharmacology and let them prescribe drugs. Why should I have to see a Doctor and have my BSBS billed $300 for a simple visit to get my prescriptions refilled?
The OP is missing what is expensive in medicine and it isn't the doctors.
Let's assume your family pays $1,000/month in medical insurance premium how much do you suppose your could lower your premiums if we went full Josef Stalin on the nations doctors? Tell you what, why don't me take everything they have and force them to work 80 hours/week for bread and water? They get not a dime and should feel lucky we give them free bread and water. Make them worse off than slaves.
How much do you suppose this action would lower the monthly cost of your premium?
The answer is 8%. If we only jailed the nations doctors forcing them to work for free we could all save $80/month!
Doctors are not necessarily the principal beneficiaries of healthcare spending. ... Some critics have suggested that physicians' incomes and the fact that physicians direct most healthcare spending (80 percent is a frequently ... for a total hip replacement – $16,336 to the hospital and $1,446 to the surgeon.
And we could save another 10% if we simply enslaved all the nurses and office clerks that work in these doctors offices. A nation of slaves would be working for us!
Maybe we could start with having doctors and hospitals post their prices for various items and services. Same price whether being paid by a person or by insurance. Oh, but that would put all the accountants at the hospitals out of business because they would no longer need their elaborate pricing schemes.
OP: Lots of good advice....true you want Viagra pay for it. You want Birth Control pills pay for them. We should NOT be paying for other's sexual adventures.
I've been working on Prevention for over 25 yrs and continue and I'm 79...many here on C-D especially laugh at my remedies etc...but I don't buy into those expensive drugs that are pushed down throats and so advertised on TV.....that's a whole other subject. US and NZ are only 2 countries who spend millions on TV drug ads.
Our last President and his wife tried to instill "taking care of oneself" into the picture but how much good it did, don't know. Yes, BO smoked but worked to stop...hope he has and stayed away from that poison. More later.
Give Physician Assistants and RNs additional training in pharmacy and pharmacology and let them prescribe drugs. Why should I have to see a Doctor and have my BSBS billed $300 for a simple visit to get my prescriptions refilled?
PAs already prescribe.
i wouldn't touch an Rx written by a nurse without advance practice training. if they want to do that the training and education is already available.
Maybe we could start with having doctors and hospitals post their prices for various items and services. Same price whether being paid by a person or by insurance. Oh, but that would put all the accountants at the hospitals out of business because they would no longer need their elaborate pricing schemes.
you can have prices posted. what you won't get is an idea of what your final bill will be. no one can predict ahead of time what tests/treatments you're going to need.
and what to do in an emergency?
Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
34,705 posts, read 58,031,425 times
Reputation: 46172
Quote:
Originally Posted by old fed
you can have prices posted. what you won't get is an idea of what your final bill will be. no one can predict ahead of time what tests/treatments you're going to need. and what to do in an emergency?
^^^ Fly to Thailand...
May be less likely to die enroute, than waiting in USA ER...
<>And we could save another 10% if we simply enslaved all the nurses and office clerks that work in these doctors offices. A nation of slaves would be working for us!
It ain't the doctors.
Wasn't Zhivago a Doctor? In the Gulag? How did that work out for Russia?
Give Physician Assistants and RNs additional training in pharmacy and pharmacology and let them prescribe drugs.<>
Well, then they'd BE doctors and would, after all those years of training, expect higher salaries? Nuh?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
