Posted on 05/25/2007 9:10:05 AM PDT by AZLiberty
WASHINGTON, May 24 (UPI) -- Presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., presented a seven-part plan Thursday aimed at lowering healthcare costs -- a roadmap that several doctors deemed encouraging. The proposal focuses solely on cutting costs, which Clinton identified as one of three areas critical to healthcare reform.
Addressing students and faculty at the George Washington University Medical Center in Washington, Clinton said she would outline at a later time the other two key components of her reform agenda, improving quality and covering the uninsured.
Clinton acknowledged her first rocky encounter with healthcare reform during her tenure as first lady but said she won't make the same mistakes this time around.
"I have tangled with this issue before, and I've got the scars to show for it, but I learned some valuable lessons from that experience," Clinton told attendees. "One is that we can't achieve reform without the participation and commitment of healthcare providers, employers, employees and other citizens who pay for, depend upon and actually deliver healthcare services."
Public attitudes have shifted as well, with healthcare emerging as one of the paramount issues of the day and one that affects every American -- a fact Clinton is banking on to help build support for her plan.
"I think we finally have a recognition (of healthcare problems)," she said. "Everyone sees there is an economic imperative to rein in cost, there is a moral imperative to extend coverage to all Americans and there is a practical necessity to promote wellness and prevent illness wherever possible."
The senator laid out seven steps to mitigate costs: increase disease prevention, convert from paper to electronic medical records, provide comprehensive care for chronically ill patients, eliminate insurance discrimination, create a "best practices" institute, drive down prices for prescription drugs and reform medical malpractice.
(Excerpt) Read more at upi.com ...
And several hundred thousand others deemed disastrous.
Yes, an honest title would have been, “Several docs back Clinton plan”.
Gee, I could have sworn from the headline that she just picked up the endorsement of the AMA.
In addition to Kervorkian, there is Howard Dean. Will two more make several?
increase disease prevention
Not the government's job
convert from paper to electronic medical records
Already being done by hospitals and providers, per Hitlary's own HIPPA act in 1997. Does this woman ever do her own research?
provide comprehensive care for chronically ill patients
People who are chronically ill due to poor health habits or engaging in risky behavior shouldn't receive long-term care. It's that simple
eliminate insurance discrimination
Which means that insurance won't pay for certain procedures, driving up costs even more
create a "best practices" institute, drive down prices for prescription drugs and reform medical malpractice.
More bureaucracy, and Hillary won't reform malpractice.
Not another word at all in the article about tort reform, or anything that would reduce the drain that litigation attorneys (aka ambulance-chasers) have on the medical system.
"Clinton said lowering costs is the first of three parts of her healthcare strategy. The other two parts are improving quality for everyone and insuring everyone."
Everyone in healthcare knows the mantra: cost, quality, access. Hillary has absorbed it, and taken it as her own. Her healthcare "strategy" now seems to be to identify seven ways to improve cost, seven ways to improve quality, and seven ways to improve access (or perhaps just one: "insure everyone").
Hillary should talk to her pal John Edwards about reforming medical malpractice law and practices. He could fill her in how lawyers are having such a negative influence on the practice of medicine and how their malpractice insurance costs have skyrocketed due to people like him.
Clintoncare II, the terror continues....coming soon to a White House near you...
Not ONE of the 7 measures to reduce medical costs - involved controlling the obscene profits to LAWYERS from medical “malpractice” lawsuits...
Yet - few things have contributed more to the cost of medical care today...
Notice also - that no mention of LIMITS placed on the nature or level of medical care that must be provided FREE to illegal aliens in the country....
Could this have been a oversight by the “smartest” woman in America?
This SAME loudmouth bitch is one of the first to complain about the obscene profits of "big oil" or the "drug firms" -- who provide necessary deliverables to society, but she omits her largest political contributors, the Trial Lawyers who bring little of value to society to justify their cost or profit...
Shakespeare had it right!
"The first thing we must do, lets kill all the lawyers!"
No matter what, I wouldn’t trust Hitlery in any thing. There is always an ulterior motive behind anything they are involved in. And they are never good for America.
Hold on to your wallets and purses folks, she’s coming after them!
Yes, and bend over, because to pay for it "we're going to take from you for the common good"......COMRADES
Gee, I guess the first time she just concocted a twelve-hundred page plan without consulting any of those parties. Now of course she knows better, though what she knows about health care other than through annual check-ups and dental exams is beyond me. And what the heck is the matter with health care? My health care is great thank you. In fact we have the greatest health care in the world. Yes it's costly but you get what you pay for. Who is going to pay for the development of new drugs and prcedures and equipment? I read the MRI machine was actually invented and patented by EMI in the UK. With their national health care system I believe they have less than ten percent of the number of MRI machines here in the States now. And is tort reform a part of this, so trial lawyers like Edwards and his ilk wil be stayed from driving insurance premiums through the roof?
Any time government enters the equation, health care costs will go up. That's a given.
Yeah. let's hear it for socialized medicine.
SNORT.
When I want my local hospital to be run like the Department of Motor Vehicles, I’ll let Mrs. BJ know.
Forward-looking medical students will gravitate to non-regulated specialties like plastic surgery and fat-sucking and veterinary. Medical schools will become "free" to students who will promise to "serve" in the public interest for 5 years. New medical students will be dispatched to underserved and remote areas. Service times will be extended.
Eventually, fewer students will be willing to study for so long, to work so hard, in places they do not choose freely to live, for so little money without much upside.
Sure, Dr. Phil, Dr. Ruth, and Dr. Pepper!
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