Posted on 12/05/2001 12:55:14 AM PST by 2Trievers
BEDFORD — H. Ross Perot, two-time Reform Party presidential candidate, spoke yesterday of his concerns about the risk of chemical or biological attacks for which he fears the country is unprepared. “We’re in a war,” Perot said during a forum on health care at the Manchester Country Club sponsored by Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare of New England. “It’s necessary that we get everything in place in every city and town in the country.” “We really are vulnerable,” he said, citing the nation’s gas pipelines and water systems. “But nothing is more important than the health of our people,” he said. Perot, who ran for President on the Reform Party ticket in 1992 and 1996, said he had personally funded programs to help American soldiers who were exposed to chemical or biological attacks during the Gulf War, at an average cost of $65,000 per person. Studies found that “it’s brain damage when you get through,” he said. “I can show you 35-year-olds dying of ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis).” Speaking of the urgent need for preparedness, he said, “I would be thrilled if we were all ready, and it never happened.” Perot spoke of the dangerous escalation of violence between Israelis and Palestinians and warnings by U.S. leaders of terrorist threats at home. “All of these things are a ticking bomb out there that could affect us on the local level,” Perot said. Before giving vent to what he called his “No. 1 concern,” Perot had given an upbeat talk, recounting American technological accomplishments from the telephone and telegraph to the Internet and eCommerce and outlining a promising future. Computers will soon be so fast and so powerful that the only limits on what they can do will be those set by our imaginations, he said. “We can get a control over health care like we’ve never had before,” Perot said. With population growth, health care will be a global industry, he said. Perot is chairman of Dallas-based Perot Systems, which has worked under contract to provide claims processing and other information technology assistance to Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare. The non-profit health insurer, which began a turnaround plan in August 1999 to stem huge losses, has performed in the black for five consecutive quarters. The luncheon forum attended by about 150 physicians and other medical practitioners, insurers and regulators, also heard talks by Charles D. Baker, Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare president and chief executive officer, and John Collins, Dartmouth Hitchcock Clinic chief executive officer. “We think New Hampshire is a place where we have a great future,” Baker said. Harvard Pilgrim is making increasing use of the Internet to communicate with doctors, hospital administrators, employers, brokers and health plan members, he said. Next year, the plan hopes to start electronic billing, Baker said. Eventually he hopes to see claims processing and dispute resolution conducted online. “The opportunity is very, very big,” he said. Dartmouth Hitchcock’s Collins said population growth and the aging of the population would mean continued escalation for health care costs, but much can be done to trim the rate of growth, he said. “Variation in medical practice goes unexamined most of the time,” he said, citing work on physician practice variations done at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center. “Cost and use variations are major drivers of the increase in health care costs.” Yet, he said, understanding variations can lead to cost savings. When process improvement initiatives are applied to previously unexamined medical procedures, he said, the range of cost savings is from 10 to 80 percent. A study of a particular type of bowel surgery at Dartmouth Hitchcock Clinic in 1995 and 1996 cut average costs per surgery from $14,000 to $10,000 and increased patient satisfaction, he said. Greater use of the Internet by medical consumers will cut down on phone calls to medical providers and be more efficient, Collins said. “We have the capacity to improve, and the tools to improve and our challenge is to make sure that we have the will to improve,” he said.
I know you've seen these, but pass 'em on to others:
Nuclear, Biological, & Chemical Warfare- Survival Skills, Pt. II
Could Mr. Perot's timing here, be a little suspect?
This makes me hotter'n a French whore on doller night.
We gotta do summ'n, and quick.
Ah'll turn this meetin' over to mah son Ross Lite....git up here Junior.
Very- I've long suspected a vendetta by him against the Bush family.
Bottom line Larry! Kan I speak Larry! Kan I speak! OK! Now, if the flying monkeys from the Wizard of Oz had not interrupted my daughters weddin, I'd a been president! See this cheer chart? Look at dem monkeys!
An alligator ain't a water buffalo on a moon lit night in west Texas. Dat explains it all Larry!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.