Washington Times - Uninsured Americans turn to mobile clinics »
Posted By epiphannyy 1 year, 2 months ago in NewsA mother holds her son as they wait to receive medical care during the Remote Area Medical (RAM) free health clinic in Wise, Va., on July 25-27, 2008. Once the patients got over the wait outside for their number to be called, there was an extensive wait inside due to the large amount of people who came to receive care. Over one weekend, RAM volunteer doctors, nurses, and others, served close to 3,000 people with free medical, dental, and vision needs. (Katie Falkenberg / The Washington Times)
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epiphannyy
"I will tell you, I am a liberal; I am a progressive. But, you know what I really am? I am a "bleeding-heart conservative." Yes ...
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epiphannyy1 year, 2 months ago
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From the article:
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"Health care in this country has become a privilege of the well-to-do and the well-insured," said RAM founder Stan Brock. His nonprofit organization, based in Knoxville, Tenn., has treated 10,563 uninsured and underinsured people free of charge in the past 12 months. The medical services RAM provided were valued at $3.6 million.
"I started RAM as a medical relief force for the Third World, but the need is so great in the United States that we do most of our work here now," Mr. Brock said. "It's hard to believe this is happening in America; it's depressing."
Yet there are still people who balk at the idea of across the board health care for our citizens. Even though doing things the way we are doing them make us even with a Third World country instead of the world leader that we keep insisting that we are. Its absolutely shameful, not to mention embarrassing, to realize this is the true reality of what has become of this great country of ours.
How is clinging to Third World standards in any way patriotic??? -
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Beeboppin711 year, 2 months ago
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Private insurance has proven itself to be an ineffective means of providing care. They waste money on outrageous executive salaries, they have to worry about profit margins for the stockholders, they maintain very expensive sales and marketing departments, and there is overhead to run the company. Private insurance knowingly drives up the cost for the consumer, while forcing the provider to lower the cost of their services, and pocketing the difference.
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Hospitals are forced to maintain a costly administrative staff to deal with the bureaucracy created by the insurance industry. All of these problems (and many more) are eating up a third of the money we spend on healthcare. We spend two times as much on our healthcare (about $7,000 per capita) than other developed nations. In short, the insurance industry is responsible for using up a whopping 30% of our healthcare dollars.
Private insurance has also created much of the mess that is associated with Medicare/aid. Healthy people use very little of the premiums that they pay in and that helps to pay for the sick people. Insurance companies cherry pick the healthy patients and provide them with coverage. Once they become sick, the patients’ premiums sky rocket and they drop out of the plan. This leaves programs like Medicare/aid to cover only the sick people and creates huge deficits in their budgets.
Single payer national insurance will solve these problems. Representatives Kucinich (D-OH), Conyers (D-MI), and McDermott (D-WA) are working on a bill, HR 676, which provides America with an intelligent solution to our health care crisis. The proposal provides all American citizens with a comprehensive medical plan which includes primary and preventative care, inpatient/outpatient services, ER services, prescription drugs, long term care, mental health services, dental coverage (excepting cosmetic), hearing, and vision coverage. It even provides for substance abuse treatments and chiropractic services. There are no deductibles, co-pays or other out of pocket expenses. This plan is also portable and will allow you to see any doctor anywhere in the United States.-
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Beeboppin711 year, 2 months ago
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It sounds good so far but many will raise the question of how we will pay for such a plan. We all know that nothing is free. The good news is that the majority of the funding is already there. Right now we pay 64% of healthcare costs through our taxes. Those funds cover citizens that are on Medicare/aid, the VA, public employees, and teachers, elected officials, the military, and tax subsidies to employers for offering insurance to employees. The citizens are currently paying 17% for healthcare out of their pockets. Employers that offer insurance pay 19% of the cost out of their profits. In fact, 25% of their payroll is dedicated to the cost of health care.
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Under a single payer system, we will be saving the $350 billion dollars wasted by the insurance industry per year. Along with those savings, the payroll taxes for employers will be reduced to about 7% saving them 12% of their profits. Citizens will contribute about 2% of their payroll taxes. The plan actually gives the average citizen a 10% raise. They will increase taxes on personal income for the top 5% of income earners, and place a small tax on stock and bond transactions to accommodate for any differences in funding.
The plan will not affect a doctor’s income. There will be reduced malpractice costs and overhead to run their offices. Licensed practitioners will be paid a fee based on the service that they provide. Some physicians will be paid a salary. Hospitals will be given a budget that will be determined by the regional, state, and national board. The plan will be managed by the National Board of Universal Quality and Access, and will be comprised of elected officials with extensive knowledge of the health care industry.
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epiphannyy1 year, 2 months ago
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In my opinion, health care should be non-profit and regulated as such. Other countries do this and, as a result, have far better health care success than we do. It's just a testament to the stupid stubborn streak that runs so deep in America that we can't step back and learn by others' examples on how things might be done better. We wait until we hit rock bottom before we even CONSIDER a change of thought or process.
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Look at science & technology or even our auto industry for two real world examples. Americans led the way toward the development of BOTH, yet today we're almost dead last in both. American electronics are crap and nearly every American chooses Asian built over anything else. The auto industry is no different. American cars are dinosaurs. They are gas guzzlers and technologically inferior to the European and Asian competition. Why? Because we're stubborn to the point of stupidity. We cling to our "traditions" (no one wants a small car when bigger is always better, for example) while the rest of the world advances by leaps and bounds, using the current world condition to dictate their business moves instead of sentimental whim and false pride.
Health care is no different. We cling to the old way because we fool ourselves into a false sense of superiority, even as the evidence mounts against our way in favor of the new way. It won't be until we hit rock bottom that we change. Just like it took the masses buying foreign built cars, allowing domestics to sit unsold, to get Detroit to finally take notice and start building more fuel efficient cars, it will take the country hitting rock bottom before we finally relent and accept that someone else came up with the better solution.
Stubborn to the point of stupidity....THAT should be the message that greets newcomers to America. Its a motto we work so hard to maintain, after all.....right?
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