Now that’s cynical… on my part!

I agree that healthcare administration classes should include teaching how good programs were crafted in such a political way that the rich get richer, and the poor get screwed.

Health administrators should be educated in how the system is gamed by corruption, and what kind of political corrections need to be made for it to work as it should, in my opinion.

I appreciate your contribution to the comments here.

It is so discouraging to want to help people with the programs you represent, but have your hands tied by regulations that often make no sense and too often leave the most vulnerable folks with the least assistance.

It was more than I could handle, and I empathize completely with your experiences.

Thank you very much for adding to this commentary!

To my way of thinking, this program was mismanaged, so one can only hope that working out a Universal Medical program would be better, having learned from mistakes of the past.

Maybe the Hope for Change pres-elect can pull it off. /snark

My primary hope for a Universal coverage plan would be for those who fall through the cracks of the current systems. It only takes a minor change in one’s income, or government regulations, for someone to suddenly lose their Medicaid, for example. My biggest objection to the Medicare Plan D, besides mismanagement, is that it decreased Medicaid funding, leaving many people without coverage that were previously covered. My hope is that a future plan will make sure that families without insurance because of low income will be able to get a modicum of reasonable healthcare without forcing them into living on the streets.

Obviously, there is no way that private sector companies are going to provide any relief for low income people in any meaningful way.

Again, that’s just my opinion, and I may very well be insane, but I’m not stoopid.

I appreciate your analysis!

I’m glad you are getting some benefit from it and I thank you for commenting!

Without the radical concept of universal care all attempts at “fixing” healthcare wind up being corporate welfare. The post Reagan mantra of privatization being the cure for government has been, I believe, demonstrated to be misplaced faith.

The way I see it is that some things cannot be part of a “free market” assuming such a thing exists. Suppose that air had to be purchased. People would pay any price, and therefore any equilibrium between supply and demand is hopeless. Offering to have government subsidize the purchase of air for those who cannot afford is basically the situation with healthcare today.

Making healthcare universal, seeing it as a public utility and not as a profit center, is the only solution even with its faults. I remember public utilities and I don’t think they were that bad as a model. Privatization does not automatically get rid of inefficiency and can make issues like corruption even worse.

Speaking of corruption, a recent PBS show on healthcare was discussing the costs of universal plans in other countries. Their costs are significantly lower than our corporate welfare program, and that doesn’t factor in the costs of the lives destroyed at its expense. We are spending about 22% in the management of our system while some countries expenditures are in the single digits. Now why is that when we are so competitive and competent and free market and all?

Just for reference, here is the only sentence where I referenced fiscal conservatives:

There is evidence that this budget discrepancy was deliberately hidden, in order to get the votes of fiscal conservatives.

In this context, they were fighting against the new benefit that Bush wanted, so the Bush White House lied to legislators about the cost of the program. The fiscal conservatives were trying to keep the benefit from happening at all. So they were the meanies, in that context. But they were trying to hold the line on expensive entitlement programs, which is to their credit as watchdogs of the budget.

The term was not meant to be perjoritive or accusatory; it was just the best description of what was happening in 2003, IMO.

Thanks for your comments!

The last 20 years have seen the Republicans destroying government in any way they can. They think that private enterprise is always more efficient, but USPS disproves this notion in every way. Private companies have as much or more waste built into them. Plus there is the profit tax that siphons off 10% or more of the income. USPS does not have this issue and uses 100% of it’s income to make it’s service better.

My daughter, who is 19 and has had 6 surgeries during our better (i.e. insured) years, is living on the edge. If she has another mastoid breech, which is always a possiblity for her, she will have to have surgery to repair it. She works, but has no insurance.

She got really ticked off once when a lady came into Macy’s and somehow started ranting about universal healthcare and why should she pay for lazy people who won’t get a job… my daughter held her tongue, but of course wanted to scream at her “I work!! I am in college, too - and I don’t have any health care”!

I have no health insurance, either. The choice for me is rent, or insurance. I choose rent. I’m on a monthly medication, and if it wasn’t for the Patient Assistance Program at Merck, where I can apply every year for free meds, I either wouldn’t be able to afford them or I’d have to hop over the border to Tijuana every few months and buy them cheap at the pharmacies there (which I did for many years before I found out about the P.A.P. program!).

I know all this is way more info than anybody needs to hear, but Congress should know that stories like my family’s are not rare or uncommon. Just think, if Ted Kennedy was in my mother’s shoes, he’d be dead now. Too bad none of them really care (well, except for Hillary, and now as SoS, she won’t be able to do much).

And like Bert said, if I get really sick….I die. Like so many others.