thread only yao will reply to.

[thesightless]

http://www.newsweek.com/id/202015

glad to see im not the only thinking.

shame everyone still has thier mouth on the proverbial cock.

[Shpira]

Re: thread only yao will reply to.

Some good points other not so good.

Some uninsured would benefit from coverage, but others wouldn't. Either they're healthy (40 percent are between ages 18 and 34) or would get ineffective care.

Thats a completely opinionated and moot point. Like healthy people can't have an accident or what?

On the other hand I do agree that a reform of

fee-for-service payment and reduce the fragmentation of care.

is needed although it could be argued that the advances in medicine could suffer as a result.
Either way I think any reform should be approached cautiously but I don't think that increasing spending is necessarily a bad thing especially if there is proper oversight.

Furthermore the article seems to argue that people will get ill more often and into accidents more often...which I don't really agree with...
anyway a couple of valid points but I don't agree with the bulk.

[Lorn]

Re: thread only yao will reply to.

Either way I think any reform should be approached cautiously but I don't think that increasing spending is necessarily a bad thing especially if there is proper oversight.

Proper oversight you say?

[Shpira]

Re: thread only yao will reply to.

yeah individuals with no interest of their own who will be well paid...a panel of anonymous doctors that are not allowed to have any connection with insurance companies or something like that...I don't know I would need to think about it...but definitely it should be taken out of the hands of politicians

[Lorn]

Re: thread only yao will reply to.

yeah individuals with no interest of their own who will be well paid...a panel of anonymous doctors that are not allowed to have any connection with insurance companies or something like that...I don't know I would need to think about it...but definitely it should be taken out of the hands of politicians

Some how that seems highly unlikely to me.

[Yao]

Re: thread only yao will reply to.

lol, thanks for the thread title Sightless .

I think that there's strong arguments mixed with quite the bullshit in the article -simply giving some 46mln Americans health insurance isn't going to cut it, and like the article mentions:

Hospitals and doctors are paid mostly on a fee-for-service basis and reimbursed by insurance, either private or governmental.

Yeah, that encourages doing obsolete work in return for a higher income.

What's needed is a fundamental remaking of the health-care sector -- a sweeping "restructuring"—that would overhaul fee-for-service payment and reduce the fragmentation of care.

IMO our govt here has done a better job at that, with fixed salaries for doctors/surgeons for example. They're now trying to take on the pharmacists, where it is still commonplace that producers pay bonuses depending on how well their product has been promoted/sold. One chosen strategy is by determining a list of which medication is insured and which is not. From a list of possible variants with the same active/effective substance, one is selected -the rest will have to be paid for by the patient himself if he chooses to divert from that list. Probably not something anyone in favour of 'free choice' would want to hear, but how free is your choice if the one you're dependent upon for your medication is financially reimbursed for prescribing you a certain drug?

I'd say the increase in costs is less a matter of people going for unneeded medical care themselves, than commercial interests constantly interfering with and influencing the health care sector leading to the employment of much less cost-effective treatments.