Blog 6 (Comment on a colleague’s work #1)

New Public Plan for Health Insurance:

I agree, I think that this many people that are still uninsured are most likely not to participate in the new public plan, because if they wanted to participate in this public plan that they would’ve have some kind of insurance before that would make them to take interest in this. . A government health insurance plan is not going to be financed primarily by premiums paid by the insured. If it were, it would not draw many people away from private plans. As human being and physician, I believe health care is a right. It is unethical for publicly traded corporations to sell health insurance - the only way they can grow, or pay dividends, is to charge more and pay less. This fundamentally puts the interests of the patient against those of the insurer. What's more, these companies are bloated and inefficient, consuming at least 20 cents of each dollar for administration - and creating an unfunded mandate for doctors and hospitals to hire armies of staff to collect what is due. Another problem is liability. We need a system where cases are adjudicated by medical professionals and there are limits on pain and suffering; those injured most be made as whole as possible. There is a tremendous amount of defensive medicine practiced to "CYA" and the cost should not be underestimated. Finally, a bit of enlightened self-interest. Physicians need to be better paid for their time. Real earnings are less than they were in 1990 - in 1990 dollars! This is worse than not keeping pace with inflation. If we, as a society, hope to attract bright and hard-working people to medical careers then we need to pay better. It is simply an issue of political will to pay physicians better - not as well as investment bankers, of course - but better. Simply allowing us to reduce our overhead by eliminating private insurers - and raising fees to keep pace with inflation - would mean a substantial increase in take-home pay. For example: The insurance industry and leading Republicans decry that as unfair competition. Hospitals and doctors worry about being underpaid, but there is a limit to how low government reimbursements can fall without driving them out of the program. If they will add the new public plan in their insurance than more people will be getting involved and more people will start visiting the hospital. This is cause the hospital to wait for the government to pay them what it is left for them to pay. I don’t agree that they should add the new public plan to the insurance they the families own. I think they should leave it the way it is.

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