If the dope...the "O", had truly done what he said he would have accomplished his goals. If he had changed "politics as usual", he would have won the health care argument.
If he, the dope, had said, in agreement with Rich(ie), that the current system was bad and things had to change and then offered HSA's and tort reform, I would have at least listened.
But no, the dope just offers the usually liberal spittle. Honestly, how can he, Rich(ie), and all the liberals talk about how our country's health care system is so different yet not acknowledge the difference in Malpractice.
Just another liberal. I had hoped for better.
7 comments:
You hoped for better? BS - you have been a flaming complainer from the start. You are looking for a vast right wing conspiracy to join...
Lessons For Health Care Reform
By Reps. Marsha Blackburn and Phil Roe
Tennessee was home to a failed attempt at universal single payer care, and has lessons to teach a President who has promised that in pursuing his goal of universal health care, he will learn from the policy failures of the past. In 1994 Tennessee implemented managed care in its Medicaid program, creating a system known as TennCare. The objective was to use the anticipated savings from Medicaid to fund and expand coverage for children and the uninsured. The result was a program that nearly bankrupted the state, reduced the quality of care, and collapsed under its own weight.
The genesis of TennCare has many parallels to the situation in which we find ourselves today. It was a public option plan designed to save money and expand coverage. In the early 1990s, Tennessee was facing rising costs in its Medicaid program. TennCare was designed to replace Mediaid with managed care and use the promised savings to expand coverage. By 1998, TennCare swelled to cover 1.2 million people. Private business dropped coverage for employees and forced them onto state rolls. By 2002 enrollment had swelled to 1.4 million people and forced Tennessee's Governor to raise taxes and ultimately propose an entirely new state income tax to cover the unforeseen costs. Governor Bredesen was ultimately forced to dramatically restructure a program he has since called "a disaster". By 2006 Bredesen had disenrolled nearly 200,000 people and slashed benefits.
TennCare lessons challenge the Administration's thinking on the benefits of a "public option" solution to assuring American's have the care they deserve. As a Tennessee doctor who provided care under TennCare and a state legislator who had to find ways for the state to pay for it, we learned these lessons the hard way. They shaped the way we both approach health care policy. With Democrats promising to pass a similar system in the House by August, those lessons are worth sharing with the country now.
"Free" Care Is Expensive: No matter how forthright the Administration's cost estimates are; no model accounts for the rational decisions that push people to over-utilize the "free care" a public option offers. TennCare's gold plated coverage included every doctor's appointment and prescription. As such, patients with a cold opted to charge the state hundreds of dollars for doctor visits and medicine instead of paying $5 out of pocket for over-the-counter cold medicine. Over-use caused TennCare's anticipated savings to evaporate and its cost to explode. While TennCare consistently covered between 1.2 and 1.4 million people; costs increased from $2.5 billion in 1995 to $8 billion by the time of TennCare's restructuring. It consumed a third of the state budget including nearly all state revenue growth. When the illusion of "free" care is fostered, it is always over-utilized.
Employers Prefer "Free" Care to Private Care: If the government offers universal health care, why wouldn't businesses move employees to the plan as a sound business decision? In Tennessee, this behavior dramatically expanded the public burden as people who had once been on private insurance migrated to the "free" option of public care, adding to the State's unanticipated cost. Studies indicate that only 55% of those added to TennCare came from the uninsured population, while the rest came from a decline in private coverage.
There Is a Difference Between Access To Care and Availability Of Care: Government-run health care advocates must overpromise on benefits to gain support for their plan, only to renege on those promises when the bill comes due. It's a classic bait-and-switch. To pay the TennCare bill, benefits were slashed and reimbursement rates for doctors and hospitals were reduced. Ultimately, 170,000 people were cut from the program. Since they weren't being paid; fewer physicians could afford to accept TennCare patients. So while a TennCare card guaranteed you access to care, it did not guarantee the availability of care.
Government Control Puts More People In The Exam Room Than Just You And Your Doctor: Because government health care can only provide what it can afford, a determination of cost-effective care becomes more important than doctor-recommended care. Doctors become intermediaries between the government and patients, only able to offer suggestions on treatment. Tennessee physicians often spent more time arguing with government bureaucrats over care than they did providing it to their patients. Other actors soon inserted themselves into the process, including trial lawyers and advocacy groups who stepped in to sue the state. Efforts to rationalize the program, pay doctors, and heal the sick became frustrated by repeated consent decrees and lawsuits that turned the system into a bureaucratic morass that itself could not be healed.
The President's new health care czar was a critical link in the TennCare story. Serving as Human Services Commissioner in Tennessee and then as a key health staffer in the Clinton Administration, Nancy DeParle should be well aware of Tennessee's health care saga. We hope that she lists the kind of universal care that TennCare embodied in the "don't try again" column.
We want to provide access to affordable basic health care for all Americans, and we're actively seeking a solution to do this. But creating a plan like TennCare is not the right answer. We understand the magnitude of the task ahead and we are dedicated to this debate and seeing reform come to our health care system.
Blackburn and Roe are Republicans representing Tennessee in the House of Representatives
Is it "over utilized" or "over charged" that cost the problem to Tennessee. The model in health care does not work in a free economy Jim that is why we need a change. Over use is the problem, most will choose to get "free" care if they can. We need to take the profit out of health care in this country for children under 18 and the ederly over 65. Let's start with a program that insures those in our population only. Take baby steps if you will before we embark on a nation wide health care system that bight bankrupt our country.
Terry:
Dopes abound!
Taking the profit out? Then who, per chance is going to care for these groups.
Profit drives innovation, care and gets people out of bed.
Dope...honestly, I explain it to you, patients involved in the financial aspect of their health care, you agree and whamo...now it should be free?
Is it "over utilized" or "over charged" that cost the problem to Tennessee.
there is already a set fee schedule in medicine, it is called Medicare.
It is over utilized, health care providers give services to patients not involved in the financial aspect of their care in the setting of Malpractice vulnerability and declining reimbursement.
Tort reform and patient involvement.
No...let's just tax the rich.
I agree 100% on tort reform and patient involvement - but that simply isn't enough. A government option will introduce some discipline and create real competition.
I also suspect that our visions of tort reform differ. There still needs to be responsibility and accountability. Lets just strip out punitive damages, pain & suffering awards, and raise the standard of proof required to "clear and convincing" from a "preponderence of the evidence'.
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