So, nothing gets done. Again. For decades.
Thanks for posting the big-business strategy for sabotoging health care reform:
"It's not perfect, so don't you dare let it pass."
on the contrary...nowhere did i say that.
i said we should immediately start some pilot programs.
i said this must be studied going forward.
i said that "the healthcare industry must learn that it is going to have to make some big sacrifices," (meaning the end to their monopoly exemption, the fact that we will lower restrictions against foreign drugmakers competing with them, and generic drug manufacturers, and we will impose price controls on certain sectors of the health care industry)
you may consider that a "big business strategy for sabotaging health care" but it isn't....considering i put the biggest business involved in health care...the health care and insurance companies, directly in the crossfire.
"nothing gets done for decades"? because you scrap a bad bill, and start over *IMMEDIATELY* taking a step by step approach?
sorry, that is not what i said at all.
you want my plans? i have spelled it out before and i will do it again now in the absence of a decent plan from you or anyone else.
phase 1. raising funds
1. immediately remove anti-trust exemptions for the health care industry.
2. immediately remove all protections against foreign and generic drug suppliers. let the drug companies compete to make their drugs more affordable.
3. immediately raise taxes 20% on: cigarettes, alcohol, soda, and all foods that contain high levels of transfats.
4. immediately legalize marijuana and tax it at a 25% rate. (taxation receipts from the new business nationally will skyrocket)
5. immediately legalize large scale industrial hemp production. (same as above)
6. raise tax rates on people *ONLY* in the top tax rate, back to Clinton era levels: from 33% and 35% current to 36% and 39.6% currently.
phase 2. *FULLY* funded pilot, implementation, infrastructure, education and investment phase
1. we simply do not have the infrastructure, or number of practitioners necessary to handle 40 million new people in the health care system. Not even close. so you will have 40 million new insured people, with no doctor to see and no place to go.
people must begin training, infrastructure must be invested in. plans for expansion and hiring must be made.
2. take 2 million of the most needy people...organize a bidding by insurance companies, to offer a comprehensive plan to this first group of people, the cost of which, in value per person per annum, does not exceed $500. that is a maximum cost of 12 billion dollars....the contract would be exclusive. the company that offered the best plan, would be required to lock in a rate, that did not advance beyond the rate of the inflation.
in return for the exclusive contract, said insurance company, would receive certain beneficial tax incentives, to be determined via negotiation, in order to guarantee that the profit margins can still be met to the shareholders to insure that price increases are not necessary. each of these contracts, would last a certain set period...like a health annuity, that the government would pay, in full, in the beginning of the plan and/or in increments, throughout the life of the enrollee.
this would ensure that it does not become the mess that medicaire has become costwise in terms of future insolvency.
3. immediately begin construction of "neigborhood free clinics" for minor checkups and routine procedures that can be done by less skilled but learning medical practitioners, such as mammogram screening, basic eyesight and health practitioning. to fund these clinics, people interested in the medical field, will be given money to go to med school, in return for serving internships in these clinics as they learn, supervised, of course by the proper staff...who can be full time, from a teaching school, or brought in as a consultant on a rotational basis.
this will allow basic, low cost checkups, for the poor at a reasonable fee of perhaps $15 per a session. the fees will allow for the running of, and basic maintenance of the clinics, and will cover the employment of those not in the medical field, but who will be employed there, such as secretarial and janitorial and maintenance staff.
4. Immediate investment in government owned surgical hospitals for more serious needs. people who have gone through medical school on the government's dime, must serve an apprenticeship and a certain period of years in these hospitals after graduating from medical school...once they are done with that time period, during which they will receive a salary, they can choose where to go (private practice, another hospital, or remain etc.)
the surgical and specialist hospitals, like the smaller free clinics, can be run for the same smaller fees and can deal with more routine operations and emergency room care, which are not as expensive as more difficult surgeries with longer recoveries or illness treatments such as chemo, etc.
phase 3 - extension of pilot programs, specialist hospitals and neighborhood clinics.
1. it would take perhaps 2 years to see how the small clinics and pilot programs with the insurance companies were working. to see the education and training of the first two years worth of medical trainees who are in college or special training (like nursing programs or medical technicians programs)
2. the larger hospitals would still be under construction obviously, but the first year programs with the insurance companies and neighborhood clinics would give a good idea as to what was working and what was not.
3. tweak the insurance programs to insure they are running smoothly.
4. continue the recruitment and training of more practitioners
phase 4
1. expand the pilot insurance programs to the next and larger wave of enrollees in shorter phases. (this would continue then by year, as the money began flowing in to the system through the tax revenues etc.)
2. complete the surgical and urgent care hospitals...by this time, about 3-4 years, the first group of medical students, internists, residents, nurses etc. etc. will be ready to take up their positions in the larger hospitals...not to mention, these hospitals will all need staff in a variety of different non-medical positions (cafeteria, janitorial, maintenance, secretarial, administrative etc.)
3. begin expansion of the entire system.
4. during this time, the drug companies, will of course also be competing with foreign and generic drug makers, lowering the costs of prescription drugs across the board, in theory.
*THAT* is a plan, my friend....obviously in its most basic form.
but i have seen nothing else on this site, other than a lot of yelling about those mean insurance agencies, and the mean republicans, and the rich people, and the corporations...
you can shake your fists at the sky, but until you come up with a better plan than i have proposed, my way remains far more intelligent, far better planned, far easier to pay for, considering at the moment we have *NO* money, and you want to go from zero to 60 in .1 seconds...
there is a reason that humans cannot accelerate quicker than a certain speed...they would break their necks from G-Forces...same principle with this super new system that you want to start in a big poof of smoke...except the neck being broken would be our economy and our health system.
i want to go step by step, to create a smart, financed, prudent, healthy, growing, cost effective, universal health care system
some of you folks seem to just want to drop a massive bomb and see what happens...
i thought you were against the type of "shoot first ask questions later" approach top financial policy that the republicans espouse?
this is the exact same thing...with the health care system...and it is an extremely bad idea.
----
I don't demand perfection...we will never get that...
that does not mean you rush helter skelter into a totally irresponsible, wasteful, outrageously slapdash situation without a competent plan that takes in to account that you build a skyscraper floor by floor.
you build the foundation, you build the structure, you make sure you have the money to complete the project, you then do the wiring, and the outside, then you do everything else.
you don't just throw a bunch of glass, concrete, steel, wire and bricks into a large hole, along with all the money that you have not even raised yet, and say "let's go!"
but this, should be your last line if you wanted it to be accurate:
"It's an awful mess, so don't you dare let it pass."
