Wednesday, September 9, 2009

JUST SAYIN', MR PRESIDENT

There's one under the header today.
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And I used to use War and Peace to put me to sleep at night. I just don't know if I can afford the toner to print out that "health" bill. Wonder if I could get a grant from the White House? I'm tired of the Dems calling the 'Pubs names. And vice versa. Cat fights suck. And the man who was elected to bring us all together acting like a teenager. For some reason I have the feeling that he is still learning what we require of him. All this political infighting is the result of none of us thinking where the costs are and what can be done to halt the spiral. Apparently it is easier for the shallow minded to call names and be vicious, than to offer some alternatives. (I object to things like a surgeon charging $2,000+ for a minimally invasive 15 minute operation. I object to anestheologists who charge $2,400+ for the same operation. I resent $1,000 a day hospital rooms. And lots more rip off charges.) Here's a few alternatives I think might be accomplished to help stop us feeding on ourselves: 1. Doctors (including all medical practitioners), but primarily surgeons who overcharge need to be reined in. Anesthesiologists who overcharge for the same operation must suffer the same fate. These kinds of charges are an insult to patients. Knowing they have you in a lock (no pay, no operation) these practitioners are free to charge what ever they choose. So you get to pay it. Or your insurance company does. Or the government does. Eventually, it comes from your pocket. 2. Hospitals (all of them, every single one) have cute ways of charging fees that are eating up medicare and insurance money. Not just having a big bite, but wolfing it down in what seems to be a "pig out" contest. A couple examples: $2,000 a night for a shared room at a state university hospital. $300 for a television set that doesn't work properly. Tests never performed but charged for. Food never delivered but charged for. Medicines charged for but never given. 3. Insurance companies aren't going broke. Their rates and exclusions have, instread, broken more than one family's finances. Arbitrary limitations put more money in management pockets and the raising of their "operating costs" eat up your dollars. 4. The failure of medicare and medicade to challenge the bills they pay (with your money) to the "get rich quick gang" is an inherent fault which guarantees overcharging and theft. When any payee function that does not have an adequate oversight committee to catch the cheaters and make them pay fines and assessments, guess whose signature will be on the check signing line? 5. The insatiable greed of the drug companies wanting to swallow each other whole so that one will emerge as the omnipotent source for all the chemicals we consume via our medical orders. Until caps are put on their owners and salaries (across the board), it will continue to keep Americans poor. I also believe they should not be allowed to advertise their habit forming products any more than cigarette companies and liquor dealers. After all, the drug companies products have the same effects on the majority of us. 6. A government that wants change, but takes the wrong road, will meet with resistance from a section of its commonwealth. A government that cannot see how such an undertaking (altering health care costs without adequate policing) will open the bureaucratic doors to wild growth and the resultant over staffing (and secreting of those who could help the populace), of good people who become afraid to be known lest they loose their overpaid positions are non-arguable facts. Examine any government agency. Whistleblowers, instead of being protected to the fullest extent of the law, are most often moved to bland, boring jobs, or told to find work elsewhere. 7. A final (perhaps it should be first) need: ALL elected officials, their families and staff must also use the same system of health care that we, the people, use. Our Constitution and Bill of Rights are aimed at one man's life being as valuable as anothers. We do NOT need elitists in our country. We are neither China nor Russia...yet.
There are other, even more stringent plans available with more money saving, but as the man said: "This is a start". Let's keep America American.

4 comments:

Buck said...

That Mrs. Hughes is good! About the other... I'm beginning to believe ignorance really IS bliss. Or, put another way, I know too damned much.

Catmoves said...

She's a funny lady.
I wish I could believe that about bliss, Buck, but not knowing things is how we got into this mess in the first place. Just think of the politicians we would NOT have elected.

david mcmahon said...

Sorry this comment is off-post, mate - your comment on my Sky Watch post made me chuckle.

I've fixed the error, too. Thank you for the heads-up!

Hope you had a great summer.

Catmoves said...

Glad I give you a larf, mate. And you're welcome for the heads-up.
Summer has only been fair. Thinkin' of firing my doctors and giving the witch doctors a shot at me. Keep smilin'.