Please share your reform health care stories, ideas and experiences (good or bad) with the blog for America community.

don'ts, but when I went to copy them, they hadn't copied.  From memory then,

I suggested that the drug company collusion with doctors and the medical profession ought to be stopped.  There are too many doctors who simply prescribe drugs, and too many patients who don't know any better.  There needs to be a clear separation between the drug companies and the medical practicioners, and patients need to know what the effects of the drugs will be.

The Food and Drug Administration must insist on testing and certification by independent agencies, not the drug companies.

Advantage type plans that substitute for Medicare ought to be disallowed.  They cost more money than Medicare, are less efficient, and take more taxpayer monies.  This results again in government and business collusion and is a cheat of the taxpayers.

Insurance companies like AARP ought to be fined for deceptive practices.  That they promoted themselves as advocates for senior citizens, but in reality colluded with Congress to prevent government from negotiating drug prices and they take government monies for their insurance plans is in my eyes a crime. 

Hospitals should be regulated or should be non-profit.  The prices they charge are exorbitant and inexcusable. 

Money is too great an incentive for doctors. Service, community, knowledge, status, and intrinisc rewards should be greater incentives than just money.  Medical school should be much more affordable and supported by government.

Communities should have clinics where people can get information, ordinary medical care that deals with non life threatening problems.  The fees should be low and affordable.

Government should institute a fund for catastrophic illnesses so that people are not driven into poverty when that occurs.

Ongoing education about health beginning at pre-school should be part of the culture.  As Obama has indicated, preventative health care is most important.

Feed lots, unsanitary conditions, hormones, inappropriate feed, fast food restaurants and other processed foods with unhealthy amounts of fats, sugars, starches, and salts should be regulated.

I have read that there are over 100,000 chemicals in foods, supplements, make-up, herbicides, and other items that are available to consumers.  The FDA must begin to regulate them.

People have responsibilities for their own health as well, and this should be part of the ongoing educaiton.

There are probably more suggestions, but these are what came to mind.

Thanks for your efforts, Susan.

and considering what's happening in my mouth, lol!, dental care needs to be included. Your mouth is actually a pretty big part of your health.

to health care.  They can be indicators of systemic problems.  When we returned to places we had lived overseas, many people had lost their teeth, and the condition of many people's teeth in China was very bad.

Insurers Seek Presence at Health Care Sessions

WASHINGTON — When supporters of President-elect Barack Obama hold house parties to discuss ways of fixing the health care system over the next two weeks, they may find some unexpected guests.
 
The health insurance industry is encouraging its employees and satisfied customers to attend. A trade group representing some of the nation’s largest health care businesses, including drug companies, is organizing several meetings. The American Medical Association and other medical societies are encouraging doctors to get involved.
 
The Maine Medical Association will convene a community discussion on Dec. 30. Group Health Cooperative of Seattle has sent e-mail messages to 35,000 subscribers encouraging their participation, and one of its doctors plans to lead a session next Tuesday.
 
The meetings, originally envisioned as a way to make good on Mr. Obama’s commitment to “health care reform that comes from the ground up,” could thus turn into living-room lobbying sessions involving some of the biggest stakeholders in the health care industry.
 
Stephanie Cutter, a spokeswoman for the Obama transition team, said that more than 4,200 meetings had been scheduled, and more are in the works. The first ones were held on Sunday. Attendance is expected to average at least a dozen people per meeting.
 
Those who attend are not required to disclose their employers or affiliations. Some Obama advisers have expressed concern that people from the health care industry may try to pack the neighborhood meetings. But Ms. Cutter said they were welcome to attend the gatherings. “These are listening sessions,” Ms. Cutter said. “We are trying to find people who share Obama’s goal of health care reform, even if they disagree on the specifics.”

Some of the people holding health care meetings were volunteers in Mr. Obama’s presidential campaign. Some come from consumer groups like Health Care for America Now or from the Service Employees International Union, a strong, early supporter of Mr. Obama.
 
Others come from the health care and insurance industries.
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Robert Zirkelbach, a spokesman for America’s Health Insurance Plans, the main lobby for insurance companies, said the group was “mobilizing our grass-roots coalitions and encouraging industry employees” to participate in meetings for the Obama transition team.
 
Mary R. Grealy, president of the Health Care Leadership Council, which represents large health care corporations, said her group intended to hold community meetings in California, Georgia and Oklahoma, among other states. The council is a coalition of chief executives from 40 companies including Aetna, Ascension Health, CVS Caremark, Eli Lilly, Medtronic, Merck and Pfizer. [...]

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GIVE AMERICA A GIFT

One Nation. One Plan.

NATIONAL CALL-IN DAY FOR HR 676, Single-Payer Healthcare

Monday, December 22, 2008

i'm posting here b/c 'join the discussion daschles healthcare response' on obama's website is inoperative.

nothing less than single payer insurance covers the universe of health care needs and scenarios for the entire population of americans.

here's my story............a family member was afflicted with a severe case of a common stomach virus four days after his 23rd birthday while working as an expat in asia after college graduation.  back on u.s. soil, he was no longer covered by that comprehensive, affordable health insurance and was ineligible for cobra b/c he had not worked for an american company overseas.  also, he was not eligible for medicaid b/c he had not accumulated the sufficient number of units, even though he had units from his pre-21 part-time and summer employment. 

even his physiological disability--myalgic encephalomyelitis / chronic fatigue syndrome--has only recently, and after a long fight by activists, been accepted as a disability by medicaid.  ME/CFS has an estimated prevalence of 4 million [cdc's atlanta study], less than 20% of whom have been diagnosed.  [that's b/c doctors are baffled by this syndrome.  remember gulf war syndrome, another chronic fatiguing syndrome?]  ME/CFS robs families of $20,000 in income, on average, and the nation of $80 billion in productivity per year.  ME/CFS is a disability endpoint for many infectious diseases, whether the agent is a virus, a bacterium, or a parasite.  finally, the links to emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases and to global travel and global warming become evident.

forgive this plug, but it's that time of the year for bell-ringing and tin cups, so here goes.  the cfs community is conducting its first-annual $1 million fundraiser for research so we're soliciting contributions of any amount you can afford to give.  two modes:

CFIDS Association of America, PO Box 220398, Charlotte, NC 28222-0398

www.cfids.org

thanks very much!  and have a joyous holiday season and a hopeful year ahead.

Seems pretty easy to me.  Optional stuff like boob implants and viagra not allowed.

Finance it thru a small payroll tax such as expanded medicare tax; which will be shifted to cover everyone.

Take away medical costs and business costs go down.

At the end of December a health care discussion meeting which I organized was held at a Presbyterian church on the Eastside.  We first addressed the framing of the health care issue as it related to the Transition Team's participant's guide and decided to start with the idea, ommitted in the guide, that health care was a human right.  We also noted the absence of a British or Canadian style health care plan from the discussion options.  Then we addressed the discussion questions that were provided.  The group members were very opposed to reliance on private insurance companies and were concerned that employer-based coverage was not providing people with continuity in coverage.  We generated a detailed report, which was submitted to the Transition Team.  So far we haven't heard the results of the meetings.

I share the concern that Howard Dean, after all of his brilliant work and leadership, has not received a cabinet appointment.  Many of us still consider him our primary leader.  I hope there is some way he can work with Move-On or write as a NY Times columnist on health care if he is not in the administration.