I’ll be in Hudson tomorrow morning. Should be lots of fun. Here are some questions I’d love to hear answered:
One word answer, yes or no: Is health care a human right?
Several of you mentioned the Massachusetts health care plan as a model to the nation. But it’s not truly universal. Those left out are of modest incomes — precisely those who are most vulnerable to financial ruin in the event of illness. If you try to take this plan national, do you also plan to leave those folks behind?
To Eldridge: Even many people who support single-payer health care on the merits doubt its political feasibility. You voted for the new Massachusetts health care law in the legislature. If a Massachusetts-style plan were seen to be politically possible nationwide, would you vote for it?
The current Massachusetts law does nothing to control health care costs. What specific measures would you endorse to control health care costs?
- Bulk purchasing of drugs? Are you willing to take on PhRMA?
- Providing better information on quality of care to the marketplace? How would you do that?
- Regulate the insurance industry quite heavily — requiring community rating nationwide; outlaw refusal of coverage for pre-existing conditions; require a particular percentage of premiums to actually be spent on care?
Do you think Massachusetts’ $295 assessment on employers who don’t offer insurance to their employees is adequate? In a federal plan, would you require a greater employer role? Or — since major employers are plainly suffering under the weight of health care costs — would you release employers from that responsibility, and put the onus on individuals and the government, as Sen. Wyden’s plan would do?
Are you willing to raise taxes to pay for universal health coverage? How much? What tax?
(Background: Obama’s plan envisions ending Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy, and spending $50-$65 billion on achieving near-universal coverage; Edwards’ plan anticipates $90-120 billion.)
Do we need health insurers at all? Why don’t we simplify and pay for health care through our tax dollars?
Do you support allowing people to buy into Medicare (or “Medicare-based system”, like Edwards)? Do you think the government could and should provide an alternative insurance product, in competition with those currently on the market?
Without much hard evidence, everyone seems to agree that Electronic Medical Records are the way to go, for the sake of both cost and quality. But changing over is fraught with difficulty, and the Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative estimates that getting a system going in MA alone will cost $500 million over five years. Is switching to EMR a real cost savings or a mirage?
Some still think we have “the best health care in the world”, in spite of abundant evidence to the contrary;: Is there anything we can learn from other countries?
Some quality problems are totally avoidable: hospital infections, medication errors, and so forth. What do you propose to ensure better results?
If we’re going to make rational decisions in purchasing health care, we need good information. How do you propose that we compare care and cost among providers?
Any candidate who can adequately understand, nevermind answer, most of those questions, has done their homework indeed and deserves to be our Congressperson.
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I think tomorrow is shaping up to be a real good debate.
Here’s one more:
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In Britain, April 2007 polling data shows that just 17% of the populace say they trust (pdf) National Health Service hospital managers “a great deal” (1%) or “a fair amount” (16%).
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Does that suggest to you that as much as we complain about private health care insurers, trust is even lower among the citizens if health care is gov’t run? Or something else?
What country in the world has healthcare practioners that are as good as or surpass those in USA? What country holds their healthcare practioners to a higher standard? What country has a pharmacy system where everything is USP quality.
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People who have little or no knowledge of healthcare are about to throw a monkey wrench into our system.
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Just great. Everyone in USA will have (eventually) the same mediocre to poor care. Everyone will be reuired to wait weeks for simple tasks such as blood work or chemistries, MTI’s, CT’s. This is mind boggling. Because you feel guilty about whatever, you want to screw 350 million people. Gotta love the progressives.
They’re real progressive. All the way back to the stoneage.
wait, we’ll have to wait weeks for simple test results if we give health care to everyone? OK, then forget it, I didn’t know that.
I respectfully submit that EVERY SINGLE PERSON who has ever received healthcare has “knowledge” of healthcare. MCRD, it’s thinking like yours that, in part, has gotten us into and keeps us in this mess.
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I ask that you please spend an hour on the Resources Page of the Alliance’s website (a group started by physicians, nurses, and other health professional 10 years ago to work for fundamental health system reform that puts people before profits) reading thru materials there. Maybe it will help you to gain a more rationale and compassionate understanding of the issue before us.
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btw Alex Simon from NPR said he learned a great deal after spending 90 minutes on our website and stated “I wished I’d known about it long ago” — so I hope that MCRD and others might find it useful, too.
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For a deeper understanding of the political dynamics at play with regard to healthcare reform, folks might want to check this out
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I wish I could be at the forum in Hudson but both my little kids have high fevers (negative strep cultures, thank heavens) so I’ll be home.
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Healthcare needs to be established and guaranteed as a human right.
… had a great article comparing other national healthcare systems called “The Health of Nations”. Its on American Prospect and is now behind a registration firewall, but if you can get to it I highly recommend it. MCRD, you might find it edifying as well.
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http://www.prospect….
… should be ‘Klein’, obviously
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Follow-up question: if yes, then should health-care workers be conscripts who provide the service when it’s demanded?
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Do you support a draft?
… I have a right to a speedy trial but the DOJ is not made up of conscripts.
You believe right to a speedy trial and resulting justice is delivered by DOJ?! Lol, you’ve never met DOJ lawyers. Justice is delivered by jurors.
I often say “I’m going to get in shape.”
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But then I never do. In fact, I’ve upped my intake of Cheetos fairly steadily over the past ten years.
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Is there a health care policy which can help me?
Answer: No
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People can never have the right to the products and services of other people. Otherwise the receiveers would be treated inherently superior and the givers inherently slavish.
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… to all the necessary efforts and services of other people when I partake of my right for due process? How about my right to vote?
voting and due process are both provided by the government whereas hospitals are ostensibly private institutions.
with Medicare, that horse has left the barn. It’s the payer that we’re talking about, not the service-provider, anyway.
Where did you get that one? Doesn’t exist at the federal level. Let’s add that one to the list (not to get too far off topic here…).
i can stop letting black people sleep in my hotel and eat in my diner?
It identifies both sides of the ‘right’.
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Is that what you want from voting individual health care to be a Constitutional right–a framework of statutes that requires a physician, nurse, social worker….to medically treat any person who walks into his office, regardless of ability to pay.
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That’s the reasonable discussion.
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To pay for these new customers, with their new right, will either require higher taxes (cue the single payer harpies, 3, 2, 1…), or else conscription of healthcare workers.
…it might be prudent to allow for the provision of health care as widely as possible, as efficiently as possible, and with a cost that people can afford.
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Perhaps you have heard of Typhoid Mary. Her case in the early 1900s gave rise to the modern public health movement.
Charley, nice job! I’ll be attending, and am very much looking forward to seeing what all the candidates have to say about these queries.
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Do you suppose their answers will have an impact on the Inkling Market?