How to solve the healthcare crisis in a nutshell:

[ddeclue]

Adopt the model we used to use for treating soldiers and their dependents: gov't healthcare for all by the government directly. I had it from birth to age 23 and it is the ONLY real way to solve the problem:

STOP paying doctors fee for service and give them an annual fixed salary like the rest of us and that will put a stop to this charging us to death crap.

TRAIN a butt load of doctors for free and put them on the gov't payroll - that will bring down the prices in the private sector.

THAT is how you solve the health care crisis in a nutshell!

[valerief]

1. But how do we get rid of senators and lobbyists? nt

[Rosa Luxemburg]

3. Well........

when the senators' term is up then tell them - you're out.

[valerief]

4. And the electronic voting machine replaces them with a clone. nt

[notesdev]

6. Guillotine?

[valerief]

7. Hmm, I've always been a francophile. Tres bon! nt

[Rosa Luxemburg]

26. Ah oui!

[Rosa Luxemburg]

2. put all the helath insurance co. CEOs on a boat and push them out to sea

payment comes out of your salary straight to the government. Release the responsibility for very small companies to pay employees healthcare.

[brentspeak]

5. And after we push the CEO's boat far enough out to sea...

...signal the accompanying submarine to launch the torpedoes.

:evilgrin:

[ddeclue]

8. No fun in THAT... let''em starve and eat each other old school..

pass me a piece of that "long pork"..

:evilgrin:

[brentspeak]

13. But with torpordoing

we can reach out our hands to the CEOs in the water...then drop an anvil into their arms at the last second.

[ddeclue]

16. too quick... too easy....

where's the blackened swollen tongues? where's the second degree sun burns? where's the cannibalism?

:rofl:

[brentspeak]

18. There'd be cannabilism, as long as there's plenty of sharks around

[ddeclue]

19. Sharks have better taste than to eat lawyers, bankers or insurance men.

:rofl:

[valerief]

9. Talk about polluting the oceans! Ha!

:rofl:

[FLDCVADem]

10. I had military health care for 20 years

and no way would I want to go back to it. We ended up taking our kids out of it and using Champus and later TriCare and a supplement we paid for out of pocket.

[ddeclue]

14. I found it to be excellent.

I was born in a US Army hospital. I had my appendectomy in a US Army hospital. I had knee surgery in a US Army hospital. I had emergency dental work done in a US Army dental clinic. I had my wisdom teeth removed in a US Army dental clinc. I had braces courtesy of the US Army. I had all earaches, fevers, colds, chickenpox, etc. as a kid treated by US Army doctors. I had all my vaccinations by the US Army. Never cost us a dime.

[FLDCVADem]

15. I'm glad it worked for you

It sucked for us. It was better than nothing, but certainly nothing I would ever want to go back to. I much prefer the insurance we have through my husband's employer now.

[dgibby]

20. I've had military/VA health care since '69,

and am very happy with it.

[FLDCVADem]

22. Good for you

You can have it.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

11. Fee For Service vs. Salaried

There's a LOT of number-crunching going on with regard to that subject. We economists are seeing is that some areas of the country have inexplicably lower costs of healthcare. But there's a very strong suspicion that in regions where there is a large cadre of physicians who are on salary (i.e., the Mayo Clinic), the fact that there are no financial incentives to run extra tests is playing a role.

Stay tuned.

[sam sarrha]

12. clone Amsterdam's.. much better care for less than 40%, they have free college, doctors don't get a

mountain of debt to pay off. they go to school and get a job like the rest of us. max income tax is 39%

[Ozymanithrax]

17. I had it for 20 years while in the military.

It is wonderful system. But it would be dificult to implement on a nation wide basis.

[Laelth]

21. Good idea. Highly recommended. n/t

Kill the bill.

Forcing people to buy insurance is no more the answer to a failed health care system than forcing people to buy houses is the solution to homelessness.

:dem:

-Laelth

[knitter4democracy]

23. A lot of doctors are on a fixed salary.

Fixed by the practice or the hospital or by whomever employs them. I would argue most fall in that category these days.

[autorank]

24. k*r YES

Yes indeed. You would have a whole new way of charging for tests and equipment. Instead of buying testing services from multiple labs, there would be a lab network. Instead of having 100-200 MRIs or other imaging devices in a community, you would have 50 that were scheduled round the clock. Instead of paying through the nose for drugs, drugs would be produced and purchased in bulk.

The fixed salary issue would need some careful scrutiny since you don't want to drive a lot of docs into bankruptcy while the new ones come online but that could be managed through tax policies and transitional programs. The docs are not the big problem, it's the ridiculous overhead of insurance companies and the piling on of tests and hyper inflated drug costs.

Excellent post. Doesn't it make you wonder why there is such a fear of mentioning real solutions.

This is one excellent option. Another would be to federalize everything except doctors and have one huge government plan. That would give the government the right to set rates and the incentive to set them in a way that doesn't pound the people out there who actually help us (docs, RNs, lab techs, etc.).

There are huge efficiencies in either approach. But I've heard neither seriously discussed on the public forum.

[eridani]

25. That's Great Britain. We seem to be having a hell of a time--

--even imitating Canada.