How would you fix the US health care system?

[F0uad]

I want our brightest and most talented people here is the good ol US of A. Currently we get the cream of the crop physicians from around the world. I think our medical system should be more like hotels. Different levels of service if you will. I believe everyone is entitled to treatment if it is life threatening. I'm not a cold hearted person, people need a basic care system as a safety net. Poor people get medical treatment in this country already. If you have a job, you should have to contribute to the kitty. We need sliding scale medical facilities for basic care to make things more affordable, but if we are going to sustain people with new organs it should be for those who can afford it, children being the exception.

I believe the issue here is when it is your time to leave this world, it should not be delayed by expensive medical procedures that would only put off the inevitable.

I find myself agreeing with this...

 

[Mister_T]

Social Security and Medicaid aren't the same as the mandate in the Affordable Care Act. Under the mandate, citizens of the US are forced to buy a product from a private corporation. Social Security and Medicaid are government provided services funded by tax money paid to the government.

Whether a service comes from a private entity or governmental institution is irreverent in this case. You are mandated to pay for those services that you may or may not use via taxes. Take a look at your paystub.

If you think for one second that far-right conservatives aren't going to use this law (should it be struck down) as a platform for doing away with other so-called "entitlement" programs that they're already vehemently open about dismantling, then you've got your head in the sand I think. Having it (Medicaid, Social Security, etc.) be a "government" service mandate will only fan the flames even further of their already anti-government rhetoric.

 

[Reverend Rick]

Medical care is not competitive enough. If it was, MRI's and CT scans would be much less expensive. It is hard to shop around for a good deal. No one wants to discuss what things cost, you just get the bill and are charged pretty much what ever they want to.

I wish my business worked like that.

Hospitals have us by the short and curlies and they know it.

 

[cledussnow]

Medical care is not competitive enough. If it was, MRI's and CT scans would be much less expensive. It is hard to shop around for a good deal. No one wants to discuss what things cost, you just get the bill and are charged pretty much what ever they want to.

I wish my business worked like that.

Hospitals have us by the short and curlies and they know it.

Exactly!

Don't know if it's been mentioned, but the same is true with the insurers. Why not let them be shopped across state lines? THAT would certainly help drive down insurance costs...

 

[Trey of Diamonds]

Down the Insurance Rabbit Hole

ON the second day of oral arguments over the Affordable Care Act, Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr., trying to explain what sets health care apart, told the Supreme Court, “This is a market in which you may be healthy one day and you may be a very unhealthy participant in that market the next day.” Justice Antonin Scalia subsequently expressed skepticism about forcing the young to buy insurance: “When they think they have a substantial risk of incurring high medical bills, they’ll buy insurance, like the rest of us.”

May the justices please meet my sister-in-law. On Feb. 8, she was a healthy 32-year-old, who was seven and a half months pregnant with her first baby. On Feb. 9, she was a quadriplegic, paralyzed from the chest down by a car accident that damaged her spine. Miraculously, the baby, born by emergency C-section, is healthy.

Were the Obama health care reforms already in place, my brother and sister-in-law’s situation — insurance-wise and financially — would be far less dire. My brother’s small employer — he is the manager of a metal-fabrication shop — does not offer health insurance, which was too expensive for them to buy on their own. Fortunately, my sister-in-law had enrolled in the Access for Infants and Mothers program, California’s insurance plan for middle-income pregnant women. AIM coverage extends 60 days postpartum and paid for her stay in intensive care and early rehabilitation.

But when the 60 days is up next week, the family will fall through the welfare medicine rabbit hole. As a scholar of social policy at M.I.T., I teach students how the system works. Now I am learning, in real time.