Our federal government has attempted to fix our health care system and the result has been, as is usually the case when big government and big business "work " together, to worsen the situation! Many people are calling for a federal health care system "single payor" and the like. If you want to see what the federal governments health care looks like? Look at the Veterans hospitals where the horrible care was on the news! Half the care at twice the cost, where the customer is treated poorly. We can all agree we need to do something about our health care system. The question is what? There are too many people that do not have access to health care. Many of the people who do not have health insurance are young and choose not to purchase health insurance. For many of us health insurance is not cost effective. When you visit the doctor once every year or two for a check up, if that, it is far less expensive to pay the bills than to pay for health insurance. The truth is for most of my life it has been more expensive to pay for insurance, than to pay the doctor bills myself. With the exception of a couple years where the insurance company really had to pay. Many people would choose to buy a catastrophic only type policy if they were made available.
Earl Blumenauer voted against allowing small business to join together to form groups, where this has been done it has increased access to medical insurance for small business owners and their employees! I have had Military medical care, employer sponsored health care through Federal Express, purchased insurance through Fortis and American Family insurance companies and purchased small business group insurance through Blue Cross of Oregon, until the government decided to stop allowing the insurance companies to sell those plans! My premium and deductible both doubled!! Thanks for the HELP? I think I have had to deal with every variation of medical insurance available!
Making all health expenditures tax deductible for anyone that pays for them instead of only for big business, Health Savings Accounts, allowing insurance companies to compete across state lines, allowing small businesses to band together to purchase group health insurance, all of these ideas will allow greater competition in both the insurance and health care industries, the rates should decrease and coverage increase and most important the purchaser of the insurance is the boss, they choose what to purchase and are treated like the customer at the Drs. office. While also giving the purchaser the freedom to choose what he needs to insure against. When you are forced to use government sponsored health benefits, you are the problem not the customer a huge difference. Government subsidization of health insurance for the poor and disabled will allow poor people to have better care than they are receiving now while costing tax payers less. Unfortunately most of the government mandates to force insurance companies to cover all things for all people just runs up costs on all things for all people! The states that are tackling the health care issues should be empowered to do as they see fit, and the Federal government needs to butt out!
Socialized medicine has been tried in many countries around the world and has failed in all of them. If you consider people dying while waiting for treatment, being denied life saving treatment and rising costs failure. In Oregon where the Oregon health plan was created to provide health insurance for low income people at least 2 people have been denied chemotherapy for treatment of cancer. So the rationing, we are told would never happen, already is. Rationing is the norm in socialized medical systems. People often point to Canada as an example of a good health care system. The average wait for treatment in different states of Canada varies widely so I used the average across the nation as my comparison but the differences are shocking. A wait of 26 weeks for an MRI, a wait of 28 for orthopedic surgery so if you have a need for knee surgery which my son just had in Oregon. He went to the doctor, only 2 days after he called for an appointment had an MRI the next week and was in for surgery 2 weeks later. So before he would have had the MRI done, he is back at work 8 weeks after surgery. So his total down time was approximately 12 weeks, less than ½ the time he would have waited for the MRI to be done in Canada. Waits for surgery for cancer average 8 months! With a life expectancy of 6 months without surgery, the wait helps cut costs.
The Canadian system is a real improvement over the English system and in France they have begun allowing people to pay for medical needs which creates a very 2 tiered system where the wealthy get treatment and the poor wait for it. In Switzerland they have a private insurance system where people chose the health insurance they want ,depending on the circumstances and family size, style etc. Insurance companies compete across state lines and the government subsidizes health insurance for the elderly, poor and disabled. That system appears to have the best overall satisfaction rate, the costs are lower than in other countries where the satisfaction rates are lower. In Singapore all doctors have to post prices for common treatment, Such as $40 for 15 minute visit $35 for a pap smear, $50 for a back adjustment and people insure themselves not through the employer, so if you are too sick or injured to work you can still get health insurance and that is when it is most needed. People can choose to pay for less comprehensive coverage insure only for large things, accident , or illness like we do on our homes or cars and the costs are kept down. Also when my insurance company refused to honor the terms of the contract I took them to small claims court and they had to pay. If the government refuses to pay you have no recourse.
In Oregon the people that were denied Chemotherapy were told palliative death assistance would be paid for them, so we won't try to cure you but, we will kill you. This is also common in other nations when additional pain medicine are given to stop the heart to save money and open up needed bed space. In the United States almost 25% of our health care dollars are spent on 1% of the population, so if you euthanise (kill) 1% of our population, it would save a lot of money. 5% of our population uses nearly 50% of our health care dollars in any given year so if we eliminate them our costs would drop. This is part of the socialized medical systems solution.
Some people choose not to utilize medical treatments and for them a catastrophic policy would be nice, cover only the big unanticipated events. Just like we would on our house or car. You expect to have to re roof or repaint every 8 years it is not cheap or covered by insurance, car insurance does not replace tires or change oil, it only covers large costs. Many people prefer an insurance policy that is the same, some people prefer acupuncture or herbal treatments and these have not been covered by insurance anyway so why would they want to pay for something they will not use.
If I am elected to congress I would work to allow small businesses to band together to purchase group health insurance for themselves and their employees. I will work to make health insurance premiums tax deductible for anyone who pays for them, not just large companies. I will work to allow health insurance companies to compete across state lines allowing greater choice and more competition in the market place, something that has been proven to decrease costs while improving quality, consumer satisfaction and access to care. I would work to eliminate government control of our Veterans care as well, so they could go to the doctor of their choice and the federal government simply pay the bills. Amazingly that would cost us tax payers less while providing better care, more conveniently to our veterans. I would work to eliminate health care as a benefit from all government employees and they should purchase health insurance on the open market in the same manner I am proposing. That would include our congress and senate. Our congress should not have a medical insurance program that is different from the one they are forcing us into while we are paying big bucks for their care.