Clinton or Obama?

[kathyp]

that article is spot on.  there is another factor that it did not address and that is the cost of malpractice insurance.  the reason more and more doctors are joining HMO's is that they can't afford the insurance to cover a private office.  in the old days, a primary care or family doc would have care of a family for life.  they would only refer out to specialists when the disease was beyond the scope of their practice.  between the cost of running an office, the hassle of billing various plans, and paying the insurance, there is no profit in family practice anymore. 

i actually like what Kaiser in the PNW has done.  we have a primary care doc.  they take care of all our stuff and send us to a specialist when needed.  not only do we get the consistent care from one doc, we have all other care available when we need it.  this system seems to work well here, but i am aware that other Kaiser plans are not the same and other HMO's are not the same.  i also know that if i had a different outside insurance plan through Kaiser, my access to care would be different.

it seems to me that the majority of the problems with health care in this country come down to two factors.  1. 3rd party payers and 2. malpractice costs.  if you could reform both of those things and allow market forces to bring down costs to all of us, we'd have much of the problem solved.

[Kev]

that article is spot on. 

it seems to me that the majority of the problems with health care in this country come down to two factors.  1. 3rd party payers and 2. malpractice costs.  if you could reform both of those things and allow market forces to bring down costs to all of us, we'd have much of the problem solved.

Yep, the article is right. Of the med students I know of at a nearby medical school only two are considering primary care

Kathy, Oregon actually has a pretty rational state system for health care. It at least attempts to balance Medicaid benefits with the budget. One of the few states that does, I believe.

It's not surprising that you think things are pretty good. Out there they are. Kaiser didn't do so well out east because the state regulations are very different and not so well thought out. It pulled out of VT and Mass years ago after losing a bundle. This is another argument if not for a universal system at least for universal set of standards by which companies like Kaiser could do business.

You're right also about malpractice. We just hired an oncologist from Connecticut. Exact same malpractice carrier. We got his license approved in a month. He's never had a claim, yet the malpractice carrier held up approving his insurance for an additional 3 weeks, keeping him from seeing patients. It was the SAME company he had in connecticut.

I'm not convinced that the market will solve everything though. For the market to bring prices down, you need competition, and for competition, you need volume. For some specialties and in some places, there just isn't enough volume to make that happen. So rural areas will suffer either with high prices or no service. It's sort of the same problem that they faced before the Feds helped out with rural electrification. There weren't enough customers to make it profitable to run lines, so electric companies didn't.

In addition, consider the Mississippi Delta where poverty is high and incomes are low. The freemarket alone will probably not solve their health care needs because the market will naturally go where the money is.

Maybe it's not government's role to fix that problem. But market forces are moved by money, and there isn't any there, which is why no one is flooding that area right now with specialty services. BUT you can find all you need in Manhattan and LA.

kev

[kathyp]

for better or worse, i think we just listened to our new president.

[Jerrymac]

for better or worse, i think we just listened to our new president.

OK? And who was that?

[kathyp]

obama and the speech he just gave.

[mick]

Well what I was told by a lot of you on here is really true! Shes nothing but a devious lying cow. "Oh we ran through the sniper fire", on the footage = "we strolled around the place".

Great news for Obama, any trace of cred she had is now gone.

Downunder, we would have been happy with a choice between a black man and a whote woman for president. It would have been interesting watching some of the US voters catatonic with the situation.

Can she change sides?

Our new leader of the opposition used to be a member of the enemy party, hes on youtube actually frothing at the mouth screaming how hed never vote for the liberal party and how his family has fought and suffered as the working class............then he swithces sides. what a crack up. Ends up as leader of the party, I nearly wet myself. The poor bloke like Clinton has no idea how stupid he/she looks.

[dlmarti]

I think we should start a new party, the "Anybody but Clinton or Bush, and that includes wannabees" party.
So that leaves Obama

[kathyp]

mick, most of us don't consider the opposition party the enemy.  we have different ideas about how thing should be done.  most of us do not choose our candidate by race or gender.  we (i hope) want the best person for the job.  this time around, all of our choices suck.

a lot of us have been trying to tell folks about the clintons for many years.  don't know why you should be so surprised.  i was first told about their lying and scheming before he was prez.  i was serving with some people from Arkansas and they gave us the heads up on him.  you get what is fed to you by the press, just as we do.  to find the truth, you must look beyond what they are shoveling.

NEWS FLASH:  bush is not running for president.

[Jerrymac]

Vote for Jeb Bush 

I am going to run for prez. "Vote for me and I'll set you free."

Acceptance speech......   "You're on your own. Good night."