No Government in Governemnt Reform

Go Senator Lieberman! http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/11/01/no_reform_is_better_than_a_pub.html?hpid=moreheadlines
is the website for the Washington Post, and where one can read the article expressing the opinion of Senator Lieberman concerning government run health care. It is a short article, but pretty to the point. I agree with Senator Lieberman that no health care reform would be better than the public option which is managed by the government. Any person who has been in the military would agree, I think, that whenever the government gets involved things go from simple to complex. Two plus two no longer equals four, and if it does you have to come back to four by way of twenty-seven.

When discussing this point with my husband he asked, "How can we hope for the government to have a practical health care plan when there are all the ( I can say exactly what he said, so I'll say inefficiencies ) in Medicaid and Medicare?" He does have a point. His experience of being in the Army as well as working at the Veteran's Administration Hospital, and now going to the medical center at Wright Patterson Air Force Base has given him a great deal of insight into the system. I know of many people who say to carry your records with you always or it will take months to retrieve them, if they are to be found at all. A military establishment is not the most efficient place to receive treatment because of all of the disorganization. "The right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. They have a dozen committees, each committee deciding if they need a committee to decide if they need to do something." (personal communication, 11-1-09)

We all know the hassle we have to go through any time we need to deal with the government, do we really want to go through that when we're trying to get health care?

There was another comment that concerns me, that the insurance and pharmaceutical companies are on-board with this plan. That makes me VERY nervous, as a matter of fact. When Hilary Clinton suggested health care reform they were against her, but now they are behind President Obama? Yes, it makes me very concerned about what's in it for them.

There are several things which drive up health care costs. One is the money a hospital loses because they charge $9 for an aspirin. People without insurance can't, or don't, pay the hospital bill because it's $1,000 to go to the emergency room and get a Band-Aid. True, if you just need a Band-Aid you should not be in the emergency room, however the charges for any treatment at the hospital are outrageous. Some of the charges are what is passed on to others because of the people who can't or don't pay their bill, however if the bill weren't so high, it would be more likely to get paid.

My personal opinion is there is no need for a federally run health care system. As my husband pointed out the government has a hard time taking care of the plans it's already managing. What I believe needs to be done is health care reform on a more personal level.

In California there were very high auto emissions so the government said we need cars with lower emissions and a certain number of people to drive those cars. It's up to the car manufacturers to make sure it happens, and it happened, and emissions levels dropped. If the government were to say the same things to the insurance companies, this is what needs to be done and this is when it needs to be done by, it would happen. The same is true in lawsuits against doctors. As I have stated before, doctors are not infallible and should be able to make a certain degree of mistakes. The mentality of the population of this country that somebody made a mistake so somebody must pay through the nose for it is another factor driving health costs up, and something that should be examined closely and dealt with to help bring the cost down.

I am all for lower health care costs, and for every person having health care, however I don't believe leaving it to the Federal government is the way to achieve those goals.