Posted on 09/08/2006 7:58:20 PM PDT by FairOpinion
The whole point is to bring the free market to bear on the problem in every way you can. Anytime you can increase supply, you'll decrease demand.
That's probably true somehow in the legal area, too.
Sure we can. I wish it were done. First, we stop Medicare/Medicaid from paying 80% of the real cost of procedures on their clients by...eliminating these taxpayer milking/physician draining/licensed clinical social "worker" employing boondoggles. Next, all lawsuits are barred for ANY elective procedure regardless of outcome.
Do you have any other ideas for free market reforms?
LOL!
sorry for my bad language....
I read your profile, and I should act better.
I agree many things folks go to MDs with can be handled other places, many times with the patient's own common sense and access to the correct chemicals with simple advice from a pharmacist. However, with the FDA/DEA being more of a moral compass and shill for the drug companies than what they should be, it will never work.
LOL! Well said.
I can't take it if this freak runs again.
I had some neat assignments in the army as a chaplain. I've covered a medical battalion with the 101st airborne, been the chaplain at a casualty collection point in the middle of combat, and been in a counseling role in family support centers in Germany.
One thing I noted was that the army was willing to trust clinics to PAs and lead nurses. They just didn't have enough docs to go around, so they were sort of forced into it.
They didn't have lawsuit issues with the soldiers, at least, because soldiers cannot sue the government. There were very few concerns about lawsuits from others. I think it did give them breathing room to have that "fear of lawsuit" albatross removed from about their necks.
There are going to be some areas of expertise where patients are going to want the best guy on the job....you don't let the barber do heart surgery. :>) (Instead, you look for Dr Frist if you're a republican.)
I think medical insurance is another area that causes costs to rise simply because of the existence of a known, huge pot of money for everything from headaches to cancer treatment. I remember when I was a kid that when I broke bones playing football/basketball, that I went to the local doc's office. He set the bones, wrote the prescriptions, and sent me home. My father paid on the spot.
His insurance appears to have been for "hospitalized" care. It kicked in for serious stuff and not for the less serious.
If the system knew that lots of care was going to have to be paid from the pocket of the patient it would probably force a different expectation regarding price.
Look on the bright side, Howlin, he is good for lots of laughs.
Basically we are talking about deregulation, with few exceptions it works every time it is tried.
You get what you pay for. This basic principle seems lost on folks who love saving cash with their HMOs, but then sue over "substandard" care. If "greedy" MDs actually audited their true costs for procedures, 90% would reject all Medicare/Medicaid patients out of hand due to economic realities. Thankfully, most really want to help people, but they still must pay their employees, keep an office and pay for their malpractice insurance.
There is no stopping of lawsuits, regardless of anything signed by a patient before a procedure. You'll STILL get sued.
Quite a few MDs in certain states have divorced their spouses, divested their assets, practice without insurance and accept only cash for their services. Outrageous interest rates are charged to promote their patients to get bank financing rather than carry the costs on the books. The charges are a lot lower than regular costs, but no recourse for lawsuits at all due to a lack of assets on the part of the MD, and NO MEDICARE/MEDICAID is accepted.
Even in our small town, the local hospital only recovers 48% of what it charges under the current system of private insurance and government requirements for ER treatments! No other private business, nonprofit or not, can operate that way.
Forty years ago, if you had a car wreck, the same ambulances that served the local funeral homes came to haul you to the ER or the morgue. No paramedics. No helicopters. Minimal equipment beyond oxygen, bandages and tournequets were in these vehicles. MRI was a wet dream in some physicists head. Some engineer was dreaming of a "scope".
Everyone wants all this stuff, but nobody wants to pay for any of it! This is an effect of the "free" insurance and unlimited procedures offered by employers back in the day, and now folks feel "entitled" to have it all, even those who refuse to work to provide for themselves. If anything doesn't go exactly right, they feel like they should hit an economic jackpot.
The biggest problem in medicine today is the customers.
Dittos, dittos, and more dittos.
It is sad to see people on a conservative website continue to push voting for marxist, socialist, leftist Dem Angelides. Why do you keep campaigning for Angelides, using the phony mantra "there is no difference between Arnold and Angelides, so let's help Angelides win".
Pathetic.
Not to mention, that this article points out a major difference between Arnold and Angelides. Arnold vetoed socialized medicine, Angelides is campaigning for socialized medicine.
I have NEVER "push voting for marxist, socialist, leftist Dem Angelides." Why do you keep campaigning for Angelides, using the phony mantra "there is no difference between Arnold and Angelides, so let's help Angelides win".
It won't be free: They will tax the hell out of you!
This campaign is the place to find the 2008 Dhimmicrat prez hopefuls -- Kerry and Edwards both have campaigned for Angelides. If one of them takes the White House, the value of the current activity will be equated with Valley Forge. ;')
CA: Arnold outflanks Angelides on the left
Los Angeles Daily News | Earl Ofari Hutchinson
Posted on 09/17/2006 1:21:10 PM EDT by calcowgirl
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1703113/posts
"Nearly a year ago... while much was made of Schwarzenegger's momentary in-the-tank popularity ratings, no poll showed any Democrat beating him... [J]udging from the Democrats' delirium at getting pretty much whatever they wanted from Schwarzenegger in Sacramento these last few months, it's even less likely that the party will rush to the barricades for Angelides... Yet even though many Republicans continue to grumble that Schwarzenegger is giving away the company store, come Election Day, they'll close ranks behind him. They really have no choice. Republicans make up less than 40 percent of the state's voters. The prospect of having a Democrat back in the driver's seat -- and no Republican to check against the Legislature -- is unthinkable to them. Single-party, Democratic rule would also seriously erode Republicans' political bargaining power... Schwarzenegger remains the consummate political cash cow for Republicans. The party couldn't survive without his ability to bring in the big bucks."
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