Are Dems ingoring public's growing Obama care concerns?

Are Dems ingoring public's growing Obama care concerns? Yes.

Roy,

No, I do not ignore any valid information.  But I really think we need to pass the legislation, so the people who are dying every day from lack of health insurance can stop, and the uninsured will get some coverage.  Having 47 million people without insurance is, in my view, a crisis and needs to be acted upon as such. 

This is the beginning of health care for all, and there will be room for adjustments as processes progress, which is included in Obama Administrations recommendations.  There will be improvements as we along, and this is a good thing.

 

We differ the nature of expeditious advancement of passing legislation, and I accept that and respect your opinion.     

Do it right or don't do it at all.

Those without insurance face difficulties. I know. I have been there. I had to depend on the county hospital, which in California is good.

We cannot say that there are 47 million people who go around untreated. They depend on charity and county hospitals.

When was the last time you heard about an illegal alien dying of no medical care?

I have yet to hear of that. What I hear is how OHSU spent 250,000 dollars on an uninsured Mexican illegal last year.

We pay for that. That is why emergency room treatment costs so much.

If the plan costs as much as this one costs, then the situation will be as bad as it was when I used the Italian health care system: spotty and getting worse.

Funding is now so low that people are expected in many hospitals to provide their own food.

And waiting times were so bad ten years ago that, as I have said here before, I had a student with a missing leg that could have been saved, had she showed up in Dallas, Texas sooner.

Road to hell is, indeed, paved with good intentions. We need real reform. That includes ending insrance restrictions on catastrophic care, state's restricting plans on insurance to one state and adding stuff consumers don't want. Tort reform. Generic drug reform. Wellness plans with discounts for losing weight, quitting smoking, etc.

Just extend MedicAid to the working poor and that would solve the problem of the uninsured without all the other baggage.

12 of the 32 counties in California still have a county hospital, and the ones that have managed to stay operational are on the brink now.   Relying of county hospitals to pick up the slack for the uninsured is unrealistic.  County hospitals provide limited care, with catostrophic illness like cancer or serious childhood illnesses like leukemia they have to refer to other facilities. 

Yes, people do go untreated and die for lack of timely interventions.  To expect charity or county hospitals is, again, unrealistic and a simplistic outlook with consideration to the economic restrictions by county hospitals.  They are bearly able to provide primary care, let alone extensive, prolonged interventions of serious illnesses.  

Don't believe me.  Here are some numbers. 

America has the best health care in the world: the most talented doctors, the most sophisticated medical technology. But we don’t have the best health care system.

Thousands of people suffer from preventable sicknesses or die prematurely each year because they don’t have access to affordable care. Health care costs are high and escalating, putting a strain on families and businesses. A failure to focus on initiatives that would cut costs—such as the promotion of preventive medicine and investment in efficiency-boosting health systems technology—means that health care dollars are not being spent as well as they could be.

Our health care system is broken, and we need to fix it. The Center for American Progress has a plan for health care reform that would guarantee affordable, valuable health coverage for everyone.

Here’s a look at America’s health care crisis by the numbers.


Living—and Dying—Without Health Insurance

44.8 million: Number of Americans without health insurance, according to 2005 U.S. Census Bureau estimates.

15.3: Percentage of the U.S. population that lacks health insurance.

16 million: Number of people who are under-insured: despite having coverage, they don’t have adequate protection against health costs.

18,000: Number of people who die prematurely each year because they lack health coverage, according to the Institute of Medicine.

10-15: Percentage by which the mortality rate of uninsured people could be reduced if they were provided health coverage.

35: Percentage of uninsured adults who reported that in the last year they needed care that they did not get; 47 percent reported that they postponed seeking care because of cost during the past year.

23: Percentage of families without insurance who report spending less on other basic needs such as food and heat in order to pay medical bills.


Costs Are High, and We’re Not Getting Our Money’s Worth

1: World ranking of America in health care spending.

$480 billion: Excess spending on health care in comparison to other OECD countries, adjusting for wealth.

$2 trillion: Health care spending per year as of 2005, or 16 percent of GDP.

7.4: Percentage by which health care spending went up in 2005.
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$4 trillion: Estimated amount health care spending is expected to reach by 2015, representing 20 percent of GDP.

30: Percentage of sick Americans who have access to same-day care

45: Percentage of sick Britons who have access to same-day care.

31: Ranking of United States on life expectancy.

28: Ranking of United States on infant mortality.

 

 

Actually, the best diagnosticians are the Brits. Told to me by a board-certified anestheseologist and pain expert.

Those particulars are great, but if we pass a plan that is very dysfunctional, you won't solve the very problems that you have outlined so well in that last post.

About life expectancy: Americans' life expectancy is a distorted figure. If you subtract murder and auto accidents, we have one of the highest in the world.

If you compare any ethnic group in the US with its home country, a fair comparison of how our treatment system works, we do fine.

The Italians are among the longest living people in the world, and I do know very well that is has nothing to do with their health care system nor has it anything to do with their avoidance of cigarettes, either. :)

About the county hospitals: The reason that county hospitals go broke is because of illegals. They are paid off the books or at near minimum wage with little, if any, paid in the way of taxes.

Then, they live two and three times as many in an apartment, but the property tax, the source of funds for the county hospital, remains the same or is in fact much less.

So, there is no money left.

Massachusetts has the very plan that Pelosi and Obama want and it has done nothing to contain costs.

What about that?

See, no one wants to bite the bullet.

The republicans and the Wall Streeters on the democrat side want to continue to overpay the pharma companies, and no one wants to make people pay for care based on their lifestyle choices, the only way that works. The only functional solution will be for people to be held accountable for whatever their stake in the system is.

So, we will turn in circles until we are tired of lying to ourselves about the health care system.

Massachusetts has the very plan that Pelosi and Obama want and it has done nothing to contain costs.

What about that?

Obama has said repeatedly that he will not sign a bill that is not fiscally responsible. 

Is being a child without health insurance considered to be a "life style choice?"

In 2008, the percentage and number of children under 18 without health insurance were 9.9 percent and 7.3 million, lower than they were in 2007 at 11.0 percent and 8.1 million.  Although the uninsured rate for children in poverty decreased to 15.7 percent in 2008, from 17.6 percent in 2007, children in poverty were more likely to be uninsured than all children.

So, then Obama won't sign this bill. He has constructed himself a face-saving backdoor from which to exit.

Let the states take the lead on this.

I do admire your interest, and your capacity to argue coherently. Thank you. We will solve the problem.