Health Country » Health Care System

Health Care Economics

admin — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 23:56:04 +0000

If nothing else, the political process in this country is exciting when it gets heated up. I haven’t seen such commotion since I don’t know when. Congressmen and senators are having town hall meetings across country attempting to sell a healthcare bill that isn’t quite fully written, several versions of which are in excess of 1000 pages and written in a legalese that would make any laymen’s head spin. It is enough to make anybody anxious about the future of our health care system.

President Obama tells us that if we don’t do something now, the current system will implode. Politicians are calling citizens who disagree with them “Nazis,” and the democrats say that all those people that show up at the demonstrations and town hall meetings have been put up to it by the Republican Party. The press and the comedians are as divided as the parties as is hyperbole that comes with any emotionally charged discussion.

So with that said, I would like to take a more simplistic and logical view of the health care issue in the context of our current economic situation. Our current situation appears to be this:

1. 85% of the people have health insurance and are satisfied with the policy they have;

2. The country is currently 7 trillion dollars in debt, (approximately $23,000 of debt for every man, women and child in the county), and that debt is projected to go to 9 trillion dollars over the next ten years.

3. The latest count of illegal aliens currently in the United States is approximately 12 million. When these people visit our hospitals and clinics more often than not they cannot afford to pay the bill.

4. Hospitals by law cannot refuse treatment because of inability to pay. A double edged sword in that, we are showing our generosity to those less fortunate, but the hospitals pass their costs for this unreimbursed mandated care on to the patients who can pay, again raising medical costs and insurance rates. This law turns out to be a mandated subsidy for the poor paid for by the responsible paying patrons of the hospitals.

5. This country is lawsuit crazy. Medical malpractices suits, both frivolous and justified, contribute once again to increasing medical costs and medical insurance costs not only because of the cost of the suits and the large and often time excessive awards, but also through the extreme defensive medical practices that doctors and hospitals employ in order to avoid law suits and avoid loosing law suits.

6. Projections are that both Medicare and Social Security will be paying out more money than they take in a few years. (This item alone should give one pause when considering the resolution of the problem through government programs).

7. The unemployment rate in the country is currently 9.6%.

When considering the above items, why would anyone want a government run health care system? It would be just more bureaucratic waste and inefficiency. The healthcare bills currently in Congress are a smoke screen for the government’s failure to control our boarders, provide meaningful tort reform, control wasteful spending and represent its citizens honestly. As it looks now, if anything passes. it will more than likely deal a catastrophic blow to the economy when implemented.

I believe we need to focus on the cause of the problem, not on the symptoms.

Let’s fix the tort system.
Let’s enforce the borders and remove all illegal aliens from the country.
Let’s cut corporate taxes so that corporations find it profitable to have there companies in the United States.
Let’s implement health saving accounts for standard medical care and have insurance for the big ticket items.
Let’s take insurance away from employers and put it in the hands of consumers.
Let’s put America back to work so that more people can have health insurance.

If we do these things, I believe, medical services and medical insurance costs will come down, that in turn will help the economy to recover, and that will get more people covered.

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The Plight Of The Mentally Ill In Our Country

admin — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 04:33:01 +0000

Why does our government not take better care of the mentally ill people that are running the streets of our nation? There is not enough mental health care in our country to take care of these sick people. I see these people left behind in the streets with no way to get their medicine. These mentally ill people are usually the target for abuse and worse.Then nothing gets done by our government to help these people. There must be a better way of life for these mentally ill people then to leave them run the streets. Some of these mentally ill people need constant mental health care just to get through the day.

How many lives could be saved with the proper mental health care was available? Helping the people that have a mental illness should be come top priority in our nation. Our nation insures peoples crops but there is no national health and mental health care plans for these people that need proper mental health care in our nation. How can these people ever get a chance to become a part of our work force when they can not get proper mental health care?

How many children with real mental health problems have some where they can reach out for the proper mental health care? This is the greatest need in our nation for a national mental health plan to help these people and children. Being Mentally ill seems make some people uncomfortable in our country. People and children get mentally sick there must be proper mental health care possible to help these people.

With a proper mental health care system our country might never be able to stop the ever rising rate of suicide among today’s young people. Our country can no longer leave these people run the streets or throw them in jail just to get them out of the way. The problem of proper mental health care is not going away our country must work to set up a proper mental health care plan for these people.

The need for proper mental health care is growing every day. Our government must become aware of the need for mental health care plan in our country. The longer our government avoids taking on this problem of proper mental health care the more the need mental health care will grow. There must be answers to help get these people the proper mental health care possible to help them . How many mentally ill people get killed in jails and run the streets of our nation? These people can not help them self with out the proper and best mental health care possible.

Being mentally ill means these people just need the proper mental health care available to help them become part of our countries work force again. Then there are those mentally ill people that will never get well where will these people go to get proper mental health care that they need? To long I believe that this subject and these people needs have not been talked about.

I do not believe that these people should be pushed aside with out finding a way make better mental health care available for these people. There are so many life altering tragedies today that make the a need for proper mental health care to be made available to help these people.This problem proper mental health care in our nation needs to be solve. Every day that gets wasted the longer it will take to deal with this problem of proper mental health care. Getting a mental health care plan is not a subject for our government to avoid talking about. There real need for proper mental health care for these people.

When will this long term problem become important enough to get our government to help these people and children need proper mental health care? The longer it takes for this problem and get solved the longer that these mentally ill people will be left in the streets and jails where they make easy targets. This is another one of the great problems that faces our people and our nation long term so lets help find answers to help these people get the best mental health care.

I know that this problem of proper mental health care needs to faced by our government in our country. These people need some one to help make this nation aware of the growing need for mental health problem that faces our nation. . The only real reason to fear a the words mentally ill is the fact that there is no proper mental health care to help change the plight of the mentally ill in our country.

Please help get this message out there this is a real need to openly talk about getting the proper mental health care for those people who need it. Dealing with this problem for the future of the mental health care for people is important that the proper care to be made available. Avoiding the problems in our country has gone on for way to long. I believe it is time to start facing these problems head on and make the changes needed to solve them. The longer problems are left the bigger and harder they get to solve long term so lets get to work and start dealing with these and other problems that face us all as a nation.

Sooner or later these problems are going to have to be changed. The faster these problems get changed the easier it will be to change and end these problems, The faster our nation deals with this problems of the mentally ill openly the faster life will get better for all these people.

As always I write with respect.

My name is Mike Carvell of the voice I hope that these articles will bring fourth change and hope for all people. I write to help people come together for all of God children. Because I believe really do believe that all people are important. I really believe that death and war must stop. I believe that god would want religion to be lived by not used as a weapon to kill. I think that we all can be so much more if we all try. I see a world where no one goes hungry. I see a world where no child cries out in pain from lack of food or proper medical care. I see A world where each of us values every life. I see a world that lives as God and Jesus would want his children to live. I see a world where we all stand together as one people. I see a world where death and war are weapons of the past. I see a world peace and love is part of every one of Gods children. I see a world where all people really live as Gods children. This is my hopes and prayers for all people that read these articles. May God bless all of us and bring a final and lasting peace to all people As always Thank you.

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Nurse Shortages Continue to Plague the Health Care Industry

admin — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:28:48 +0000

Nurses are in more demand than ever. That’s good news as far as nurses and those still in the nursing programs are concerned. But not so for the hospitals and health care facilities scrambling to hire new qualified nurses of all specialties.

The weak links in the “nursing supply chain” start from a lack of enough nursing programs in colleges and extend all the way up to the high cost of living in some metropolitan areas.

Sometimes the legislators get the blame for not earmarking enough money to support the existing nursing programs and start new ones. And in some other instances, the realities of the job market divert nurses to far away places for better pay and more promising career challenges.

The nurse shortage is acute in Central Texas where an additional 5,000 nurses are needed by 2010, which is only three years away at the time of this writing.

The same is true of California. According to a 2006 study conducted by the California Hospitals Association, there are 622 nurses for every 100,000 Californians, in contrast to the average of 787 nurses per 100,000 Americans. California is ranked 49th out of 50 states by CHA in availability of nurses.

But parts of California fare even worse. In North County, for example, there are only 356 nurses per 100,000 residents.

The situation looks similar in parts of Canada. In a recent news story, the O’Leary Hospital in Prince Edwards Island was reported to “go from 16 beds down to five” for the rest of this summer “unless more nurses can be found.”

Paradoxically enough, sometimes improvements in the overall health care system can actually reduce the demand for nurses. The overall picture is a complex one.

Lorie Shoemaker, chief nursing officer at Palomar Pomerado Health, for example, is quoted for pointing out to a less demand for nurses with the “national shift from traditional health insurance policies to managed care plans focused on keeping people well.” When people feel better and get sick less often, hospitals close and nurses move out to places where they are needed more.

By: U. Akinci

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How About Applying Capitalism to Health Care?

admin — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 13:32:37 +0000

Maybe our health care system would benefit from a little old-fashioned capitalism. Here are some ideas:

- Keep the federal government out of it. Let free enterprise take care of this.

- Don’t dictate that all employers must provide health insurance. This will only drive costs up on everything. Let free enterprise take care of this too.

- Make the patient pay for a certain portion of all of the expensive tests and surgical procedures that doctors perform, many of which are unnecessary. Maybe we could also put a cap on the (currently outrageous) costs for certain tests, such as MRIs and CT scans.

- Don’t dictate identical coverage for everyone. Remember that being able to afford certain things has always been a problem for most people. If a person cannot afford medical treatment or health insurance, then he can often go to a free (county, etc.) hospitals (at least) minimal care, where poor people can be treated, even though they may have to stand in line.

- Pay doctors (and especially surgeons) less. Recruit medical students who are more concerned with the health of patients than with money. Let’s see if we can get some younger doctors who are willing to squeak by on only a few hundred thousand dollars per year.

At the core of the health care problem are its outrageous costs. Health care reform doesn’t need to force small business owners to provide health insurance. This would only drive up costs on everything. Neither does reform need to dictate identical coverage for everyone, or restrict certain care for the elderly. Health care reform simply needs to address the ever-increasing costs of health care, with less influence from the government and insurance companies, and more empowerment to the patient.

By: Owen Weber

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