Why Rush Health Reform? Let's Fix Insurance First

Kudos. Exactly my thought. Add HSA's and people can save for future health or dental costs, long term care, higher premiums for medicare in their later years.

Steve Swank, MD of MD 8:29AM November 10, 2009

Did you know that it is a very common practice throughout our Country for Drug Company Reps to provide expensive catered lunches to Doctors' Offices under the guise of educating the Doctor (who is often to busy to attend the brief session)about the benefits and side effects of the drugs they are pushing. These costly lunches are provided to the entire staff (clerks, receptionists, filers, billing department, nursing aids, etc.) who do not need to know this information, and serve as a way to quickly get past the office manager (and patients in the waiting room) and in to see the doctor for a few minutes to hawk their drugs and provide samples. And who pays for these eventually? The American People. STOP THIS PRACTICE, AND BRING DURG PRICES DOWN. Also, all the unnecessary drug advertising in the media (Newspapers, Magazines, TV, Radio, etc.) which is aimed at consumers, who cannot prescribe medications for themselves, and again is done under the guise of educating about drug benefits and side effects, is greatly driving up drug costs unnecessarily. STOP THIS PRACTICE, AND BRING DRUG PRICES DOWN. These practices, along with perks and gifts to doctors, etc. should be corrected before any attempts are made to improve healthcare in our Country. Greed and corruption in the current healthcare system needs to be eliminated immediately. These practices will be hard to correct because they benefit the drug companies, and provide advertising revenue to the media. But they are a serious problem, and hurt the American People.

Mary Berdon of NY 12:16PM September 19, 2009

I am self employed and buy my own insurance. I have found that it is FAR more economical to buy a catastrophic only plan and pay for most of my medical expenses out of pocket.

We all NEED insurance for the rare times in our lives when our medical bills exceed what we can reasonably afford. We do NOT need insurance to take as much as 5X the going rate for our basic health care so that they can turn around and control which doctors we can see, which procedures we can have, and have the ultimate power to deny coverage!

Too many people are dying or going bankrupt because they don't have access to affordable health care. WE NEED REFORM NOW!

Consider this as a simple and immediate approach to health care reform:

- Set up a government financial aid program that protects all Americans in the rare event that their medical costs become more than 10% of their family's annual income. (catastrophic health insurance for all) This would protect EVERY ONE of US from facing bankruptcy in the event of a medical crisis and break our DEPENDENCE on our current insurance plan.

- Require employers to allow their current employees to opt out of their company insurance plan and receive their premiums (average $1000/mo per family) in the form of a salary increase or tax-free medical savings account (transferable to a retirement plan). This would give money back to the people to make their own health care choices.

This plan would:

- SAVE most families thousands of dollars a year.

- Give people the freedom to choose an employer, change jobs, or start their own business without concern for health insurance.

- Bring DOWN the cost of health care because people would be paying attention to their medical bills, shopping around, and demanding quality care at a reasonable cost.

- People could shop around *IF* they CHOOSE to purchase a health maintenance plan. This would bring down the costs.

- Save a ton of paperwork in medical billing and pre-authorization forms.

- Give the American people more FREEDOM then they have ever had in making their own health care decisions.

Lara of NV 4:48PM September 16, 2009

The insurance industry could have reformed itself any time in the last 40 years and chose instead to complicate the process and milk the system in the face of everyone else's best interests. If you think they are fighting hard for the status quo at this point, just wait and see how the battle will escalate if you try to tamper with thier business model. In addition to the fact that they would battle to the death to maintain their method of doing business, they will stall the process until most of us trying to reform the system are long dead. The best thing is to offer citizens another option and the companies will quickly respond to make themselves more attractive to consumers. Only when they are facing some sort of serious competition, will they begin to take into account what is best for the rest of this country.

Sue of CT 2:34PM September 15, 2009