Your ideas ti fix health care

Export it to India. Boom, done.

 

Get sick, get well. Hang around a ink well.

 

^WTF is that?

 

To the OP I think the idea of using nurses more has been discussed, rather than EMTs (paramedics) and I think that under your reasoning nurses would be better than EMTs since by nature they are there for emergencies.

If we are leaving things like single payer and a public option off of the table I think that allowing small businesses to band together to buy health insurance would be a good reform but that wouldn't address the problem of having health insurance tied to employment. Allowing people to buy health insurance from states other than where they reside might be a good option to increase competition but that might run into Federalism issues with how the states enforce their own laws.

Taking the opposite tact one idea I would like to see is to let the states decide on their own how they want to run health care so you could have states that have their own state options that residents could buy in or even a single payer system. The Fed would provide funding in terms of grants directly to the states. I could see this causing problems in terms of how funding is equitably distributed, say you have one state with a single payer system and another state with a completely private system, but it would be a good way of testing which sort of health care system might work best for the whole country.

 

More on EMTs.

My dad recently had a heart issue and they called 911 on two occasions. Two ambulances showed up each time with a total of 5-6 EMTs. This is in Houston. I told my brother who lives out in California and he said that in California they send out a firetruck as well. Speculation for the firetruck is that in case a door needs to be busted down, they are more equipped to do so. I have no idea why 2 ambulances and 5-6 EMTs are necessary. Redundancy?

 

A lot of places send out a firetruck when an ambulance is called. My guess with the multiple ambulances is that a general call is issued and if whichever ambulance is closer shows up and the dispatcher calls off the other ones. If two are about the same distance they both show up before the dispatcher can call one off.

 

With respect to ambulances, if that is the case then the 2nd one should leave, but in both instances they hung around. I'd be curious to see their bill to see if insuance is paying for two ambulances.

 

I've heard they have to be ready to carry/handle some truly enormous people, so that might explain the 5-6 EMTs. But then you would think a few of them could just be lower wage people who are ready to lift. What training do you need to lift a fat person?

 

You would also think that in many cases they could get enough details to decide what/who to send. In each of the instances a relatively calm, rational person made the call to 911. It could have been easily determined that there was no need to break in, my dad weighs around 180 and was downstairs and alert.

 

Already being done, its called medical tourism.

 

Don't allow insurance deny coverage for pre-existing conditions or drop you when you get sick. At the same time, mandate that everyone buys insurance (with subsidies for the poor when needed), that way insurance companies can spread risk more widely.

And with this, perhaps we can avoid a public option.

 

I would move away from employer-based insurance. It creates a distortion in the marketplace because what's most competitive for employers may not be what's best for the public. This also eliminates the issue of people losing both their jobs and their insurance at the same time. Let individuals buy insurance and give them the tax break that's currrently reserved for employers.

I would also focus on the insurance exchange that lets people more easily compare different insurance. Right now, there's just not enough transparency to create good competition. It's impossible to know if you're have "good" insurance right now - that's a major problem, even for those who believe purely in the free market. Having more information would force insurers to compete properly.

I'd allow importing of prescription drugs to spread the true costs around the world instead of us subsidizing the rest of the world's drugs.

 

I agree with the first two. As far as importation, wouldn't that mean that no one pays the true costs of new drugs, and as a result, fewer new drugs are introduced?

 

No - I think it would raise prices in the rest of the world and lower them here. Research will always continue because that's where future profits come from. (on an odd side note - something like 5 of the 7 largest pharma companies are European, where they have the lower prices.)

But if drug companies can't rely on just charging out the wazoo here and selling cheap elsewhere, they'll have to lower prices here and raise them elsewhere to find a balance. Those countries that refuse to let them raise prices would just not be able to get the drug anymore, which would change their tune pretty quick. Right now, they can get away with it because they know the drug companies can just raise prices in the US.

 

I would agree that this is a start, although you would need more regulation and more subsidies. For instance you would have to remove a lifetime cap, where an insurance company simply stops paying for care once you reach a certain cost. That, plus forcing them to cover people with expensive diseases will inevitably raise the cost of your health insurance.

I agree with Major in that I think an employer based system is fundamentally flawed. It ties people to employers and restricts their ability to independently flourish. It forces companies considering US employment to look elsewhere where the cost of caring for their workers is borne by a government rather than the company itself.

WRT the pharma costs, I think we need to go back to removing ads for pharmaceutical drugs on TV. Companies spend a lot more on advertising than they do R&D. I also think it contributes to the disturbing amount of drugs that are created, and then a disease is invented for the drug to cure, Not to mention it would remove the freakish disclaimers on some of these ads from my TV. I also completely agree that they should be available across borders.

 

here's a question about people being stuck to their employer plans. How many people actually need plans for specific needs. I have type I diabetes, which I discovered two years ago. I put myself on my wife's plan and didn't really think about. there were three kids on the plan. other than my diabetes, there is never anything major to look at.

as a matter of fact the only thing we really pay attention to is vision because people in my family can't see and that's the most expensive component. I don't use visual, but the wife and kids do.

I would suspect there are a lot of people like me. I don't mind paying for other's people's coverage in the sense we don't use the doctor that much, but one day I may need serious substantial coverage cause of my disease. that being said, how many americans would you think go beyond the standard with real serious medical issues. is it mostly old people driving up the costs.

 

Medicare for all. Those who like their present insurance can keep it.

Period.

Obama blew it with his timdity.

Hopefully he gets something worthwhile. The type of "reform" that causes pharmaceuticals and health care stocks to spike is not what we need.