If you don’t hear complaining, you’re not talking to the right people. I will explain just one of the fabulous features of Medicare - called diagnostic related groups. How it works is the government comes up with a standard type of and length of time of care for specific conditions. If the hospital can get ‘er done for less, they get to keep the money. If they have to do more, it’s on their dime. Venture a guess on how many very ill seniors are discharged too soon so the hospital doesn’t end up with a bill. I worked as an owner of a senior care business for 5 years, saw it several times myself, and other providers did as well.
Medicare and Medicaid are both full of corruption, very costly, very inefficient. If you think private healthcare is a mess, government run healthcare literally has people going to other countries to get serious illnesses taken care of.
The Brits and Canada both have big problems in quality. The Brits have kept the costs down by hiring immigrants as doctors (and are startled at the reduced quality, and that doctors (oh my) are involved in terrorism.
Here’s my shopping list: Healthcare should be portable - if you have kept coverage continuosly and leave your job, the next provider shouldn’t be able to do a pre-existing condition decline or exclusion.
We should (and I cringe at this, since it would be painful) pay a larger portion of our healthcare directly - it would make us more conscious of the costs and less likely to misuse services. Do we really need a doctor to tell us - it’s a cold, get some rest, drink fluids, and get some cold pills.
More use of nurse practitioners for minor ailments.
Healthcare savings account?
Illegals (before they are deported along with their “anchor babies”) should be treated in special, low-cost clinics/hospitals and not allowed to use emergency rooms for non-emergency care. A true emergency would be handled until safely transferred to the lower cost environment. Nurse practitioners could be the major staffing, with doctor consult available.
If someone decides to risk not having coverage (young and dumb as I once was), then they would be treated in the low cost clinics along with the illegals for non-emergency care. Perhaps, doctors should get their malpractice premiums and/or education costs paid back (I’d be willing to subsidize that) if they agree to serve in those environments their first few years of practice.
Other ideas? What I do know is that universal, government run healthcare does not work well, so we need to go to a Plan B.
Percentage of payroll/income deduction set at 7%, family with one working, 12%. Everyone is in a Medicare type plan. Everything has a co-pay. Doctor co-pay $35.00. Drug co-pay $5.00-$10.00. Hospital co-pay $200.00. Lab/screen test co-pays $25-$100.
Pharmacists, with brief medical/allergy history of customer, can disperse anti-biotics, blood pressure and cholestrol drugs without a script. All narcotics must have a script.
Depending on extend of crime, minimium penalities should be: Anyone in health field caught for over-billing, fraud or theft loses license for 1 year and works for free for 60 days. Caught twice, revoke licenses for life and do minimum of 5 years in prison.
Extentive tort reform with maximium limits.