...but the Wall Street Journal printed an article quite a while ago (August 11th) that I recently discovered and really liked. Basically the CEO of Whole Foods Market Inc. wrote his ideas about what sort of Health Care Reform he believed would work. It pretty much said exactly what I think about the whole situation. Read it
here! And then tell me what you think!
5 comments:
Alanna, have I mentioned that I love you? :)This article is brilliant. And so concise, too. Thanks for sharing!:)
Pretty good article overall. I have a few issues though:
"• Enact tort reform to end the ruinous lawsuits that force doctors to pay insurance costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. These costs are passed back to us through much higher prices for health care."
This would be awesome. I'm as much against frivolous lawsuits as anyone. But how do you write a law that appropriately determines what is considered frivolous? Or should we just let doctors have no accountability for mistakes at all by not allowing them to ever be sued?
"• Enact Medicare reform. We need to face up to the actuarial fact that Medicare is heading towards bankruptcy and enact reforms that create greater patient empowerment, choice and responsibility."
How exactly would this save any money? Sounds like a good idea, but I must be missing the obvious correlation between these things and monetary savings.
"• Repeal government mandates regarding what insurance companies must cover. These mandates have increased the cost of health insurance by billions of dollars. What is insured and what is not insured should be determined by individual customer preferences and not through special-interest lobbying."
This could turn out well. Or it could be a disaster. Who decides what coverage for different things costs? People with pre-existing conditions or genetic predispositions could end up getting royally screwed (not that they aren't already). Is it really so horrible or costly to have the gov't mandate that insurance companies cover various types of preventative care? Did you read the article I referenced on your earlier health care post? I think I'm more for everyone discontinuing use of health insurance for minor things and only using it for major things as stated in that article.
"• Finally, revise tax forms to make it easier for individuals to make a voluntary, tax-deductible donation to help the millions of people who have no insurance and aren't covered by Medicare, Medicaid or the State Children's Health Insurance Program."
How many people would actually donate to this? Would you? I doubt I would. For me I just get the basics of my taxes done and get it over with. I don't want to deal with extras. I highly doubt this would generate enough revenue to cover the cost of insuring all the people with no insurance.
I definitely agree that people need to be more educated about what they're eating and more responsible for their own health. Part of addressing the root causes of poor health would be for the government to stop subsidizing the cost of the incredible surplus of corn we grow that becomes the HFCS and other variants of itself in all our food. But that's another rant altogether!
Hey, Erin! Thanks for your feedback AND for reminding me of that other article, which I had completely forgotten to read! (I'm working on it now and might just post it on my blog as well...)
In response to your comments here, I'm just going to give whatever knee-jerk reaction I have. They may or may not be well thought out, so don't hate me if they're a bit stupid/not at all researched:
Frivolous Lawsuits: Yes, I think doctors should still be accountable, but I think the people suing need to be more accountable as well. I worked for a company that would just pay off most lawsuits because it was cheaper than going to court and I HATE that. I think system wherein if a judge deems the lawsuit to be completely frivolous, the person suing has to pay all legal fees for both parties might be a good idea.
Medicare Reform: I can only assume here that he's talking about the people who are abusing the system and trying to find a means to make them more personally accountable for themselves. Like the people on medicare who are using it for fertility treatment-- you can't afford health insurance, but you want more kids? Let's see if we can stop just giving them what the ask for and try to fix the problems they clearly have. But I agree-- that point (if that's what he's saying) is very round-about...
Government Mandates: I'm not entirely sure why we have government mandates about what must be covered at all... Maybe I'm just really ignorant about this, but my understanding is that lobbyists from certain groups demand that their cause be covered, so now what's covered and what's not is fairly arbitrary. If we got rid of this, I think that over time different insurance companies would rise up that would cover a variety of issues and then you could pick and choose what company covers the things you need. Is that naive?
(Once I'm done here and if I can stall on dinner for that much longer I'll read the article you sent me-- I may have to revise my answer after that...)
Tax Deductions: Actually, I think this would be very effective. You may not bother with it, but my understanding is that there are a lot of REALLY rich people out there who give a lot to charitable causes and use those tax deductions. And there are also a lot of Christians who give regularly to various charities just because they feel they should (and probably don't already give 10% of their income to their respective churches!). According to my Mom (no real sources to quote off the top of my head-- sorry), that was one of the downsides to all the welfare programs is that people stopped giving as much because they figured their taxes were being raised for it so why bother. Many really good charitable organizations found themselves getting way less money because the government was getting it instead.
I still haven't read The Omnivore's Dilemma but I'm adding it to my list of books I should read. I need to know more about the food industry and all its problems!!!
Thanks for your comments, Erin! I like that you make me think!
Oh, he confused me with the medicare one. Isn't medicare for old people and medicaid for poor people? I always get them confused, so maybe I'm wrong. And I tend to think of older people as being generally more responsible than the people on medicaid...
Medicare is for old people, and Medicaid is for poor people. I used to get them mixed up too, but being married to a doctor, those kinds of things come up a lot.
I think what Medicare reform refers to is something like helping them be able to have other choices. Generally, once someone turns 65, they can't get any other insurance because who would cover someone who could be covered by the government? The government has taken all competition away from that age group, something that will most likely happen to everyone of all ages if the "public option" passes...
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