Enough with the negativity. Let’s start discussions based on positive proposals for various issues in a Three Things series. Pick an issue and list three things that could be done to help fix: health care, the California budget deficit, California Delta water wars, schools, downtown Walnut Creek, Hwy 4, county government, etc.
Offer some links for further reading. Commenters must also list three ideas to help solve the problem, and so on.
So pick a topic and send your THREE THINGS via e-mail or the contact page.
I’m going to take Obama up on his challenge to offer some sound ideas for helping to fix U.S. health care. I think we can go a long ways toward achieving goals of reducing costs of health care onsurance without the level of government involvement Congress and the president recommend. Here are my THREE THINGS to fix health care insurance.
1. Reduce costs from defensive medicine with tort reform
2. Give individuals the same tax breaks as businesses when buying health care insurance .
3. Let people buy out of state health insurance plans instead of protecting health insurance companies.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Some links:
N.C. Project info:
http://www.aafp.org/online/en/home/publications/news/news-now/government-medicine/20070306northcarolina.html
What is the medical home?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_home
There can be no real reform without Tort reform, but opening up markets is only a small piece of the answer. The problem is no one really has all the answers, that’s why I find folly in HR3200 and HR676. I don’t have all the answers either, but I know we need experiment and results-based ideas, something that will take time and money.
Ms. Hunt, I have yet to see you add anything to any conversation.
RF – your negativity added nothing to the discussion. The query was my three items and if you follow the issue, one of the uniform ones (except for the plan proposed in Congress is tort reform).
RF it’d be great if you or a colleague could summarize the North Carolina Medical Home program with some good links that would be helpful thanks
Wow, Kris Hunt can repeat the author! What a Rocket scientist!
These three ideas are good, but not near enough to curb the problem. Defensive medicine does increase costs, but so does “emergency” medicine. Without a system or program bent on preventive medicine costs will continue to rise. It is cheaper to keep people healthy than to treat them when they are already sick. The two main areas preventive medicine can help are with diabetes and Asthma, the two leading causes of emergency room visits.
The problem with healthcare reform is people have opinions that are only that, never backed by fact or proved mathematically. There are no easy answers to this problem.
I am a fan of the “Medical Home” program that has saved North Carolina 150 million dollars over two years with just 10% of the population taking part.
3 things:
- Tort reform would reduce costs significantly
- Allow health care companies to be in multiple states to reduce costs and help individuals maintain access
- Increase government compensation rates for services to market so that those costs aren’t absorbed by private insurance payers.
Health Care three things:
1. go to a single price rule: an establishment may not charge a different price for services based on the customer’s insurance coverage. This way competition is direct and focused. Insurance is handled more on the car insurance model than the current health system where the uninsured are charged 20 times the amount for the same services as the insured.
2. go to build a government paid preventive and basic health care: all kids vaccines, reasonable check ups and testing for cancers etc on 5 year or whatever schedule so that conditions can be caught early and dealt with privately. Government plan to be an all included not just targeting the poor or uninsured/
3. make a massive education investment to produce doctors, PA, RN’s without having it cost 100,000K a year. Possibly tie in with community service at a fixed reduced rate for the same time as the education so that system benefits from cheaper personnel costs.