My doc told me today she & her fellow docs know what will solve the health care mess....

[LiberalHeart]

My doctor told me she and her MD pals talk about the health care system and health care insurance problems a lot and even before the recent disaster in the financial markets they had decided that the only way to fix what ails us is to have an utter and complete collapse of the system. Only then, she said, will politicians on both sides of the aisle recognize that the system is in critical condition and not expected live -- and only then will they get to work on finding a cure. And now, with the immediate and dramatic response we're seeing in regard to the financial market collapse, she and her colleagues see their evaluation of the patient (the health care system) validated.

[Roland99]

1. Kucinich had the best plan for Universal Health

[Cleita]

3. Yes he does. n/t

[Cleita]

2. Your doctor and her friends need to read the information on the

Physicians for a National Health Plan website before they accept that only something this draconian will change the status quo.

http://www.pnhp.org

[LiberalHeart]

5. She told me doesn't think either candidate will make the necessary changes.

She's expecting politics as usual no matter who's elected because Dems and GOPers don't know how to pull together unless the sky is falling.

I get her point. How long have we been talking about the need for new energy sources but there's no rush to find them? How long have we talked about our failing schools without fixing them? How long have we talked about our many environmental challenges without solving them? Compare that to how long it took congress to get off their duff and start looking for solutions to the financial meltdown? My doc seems to think we don't have the luxury of time or wheel spinning because the system's a mess and it needs to be fixed now.

[Cleita]

6. McCain wants more privatization which means nice legislation favoring

the insurance companies and big PHRMA at the expense of the patients, doctors and care givers. Obama needs to hear from those doctors en masse that he needs to do something that will work as evidenced in other countries who have workable national health care. If they just throw up their hands in disgust, sure it won't happen. That website which is operated by doctors from the Harvard Medical School gives them a blueprint about what could be done, and is a place for them to start.

[LiberalHeart]

8. I'll send it to her.

She's a really good person -- goes off to third world countries to provide medical services, helps patients work around the obstacles put in place by their insurance companies, fights the insurance companies that want to dictate what meds she can prescribe. She was looking tired today. She was ticked off that the insurance company would have the time and money and staff to look at her orders for a patient in order to deny providing the coverage, yet that same company would send her a letter letting her know how badly she is doing her job because she hasn't ordered a pap test or mammogram for me for years. Never mind that I've had a complete hysterectomy and a double mastectomy, which the insurance company paid for so they know that, thus the tests would be pointless. She's so fed up with their misused resources.

[seemslikeadream]

4. Tell them not to post here at DU, they'll be trashed to death

[raccoon]

7. I think they're right. Usually governments don't want to change anything until

it hits the wall.

[Speck Tater]

9. The big change that went unnoticed is...

It used to be you go to the doctor, who had is office with a nurse and maybe his wife at the reception desk. You got your exam and as one individual person you paid the doctor as one individual person for his services.

Today, you go to your doctors office which is a huge corporate-owned medical center with hundreds of employees, including lots and lots of non-medical managerial staff at the home office in some other state, and you get your exam, and then a huge corporation, your health insurance company pays your doctor via a huge corporation.

So what used to be you helping to support your doctor's family is now you helping to support hundreds of corporate employees and the shareholders of two big corporations.

[LiberalHeart]

10. I used to date a doctor who did house calls, traded health care services for a plate of cookies....

....and the only insurance his patients had was for hospitalization. He made a living, but barely. More important to him was that he made a life -- one he loved living.