Problem Solved
I am sending out a second Health Alert this week because the news is so momentous. The Commonwealth Fund is claiming success where so many others have failed: Solving the triple problems of health care cost, quality and access [here].
IN THEIR OWN WORDS, the proposal would "ensure near universal coverage," cut insurance costs by "nearly one-third," and "potentially save $1.6 trillion over 10 years."
PLUS, no one has to make any hard choices between health care and other uses of money. No patient. No doctor. No nurse. No employer. No insurance company. No government agency.
AND no provider has to compete for patients based on price or quality. No doctor. No nurse. No hospital administrator. Nobody anywhere in the system.
UNBELIEVABLY, people can remain in the current "building blocks" – employer-sponsored plans, Medicaid, SCHIP, you name it. Also, there are connectors for small businesses and an optional Medicare plan for the under-age-65 set.
HOW DO THEY DO IT? Better bureaucracy.
Have a great day.
John
P.S. Why do I think we are looking at the blueprint for Obama's health plan?
If it is, I'll say more in the future.
Isn’t better bureaucracy an oxymoron???
John,
I am so greatly relieved that, finally, The Commonwealth Fund has taken care of our healthcare “crisis”. How can we ever thank them enough…and where have they been for the last 60 years?
CCC
The Commonwealth Fund has made an amazing discovery! Although (according to the press release), health insurance is in such dire straits that “families are feeling the strain on their wallets and their health,” the Commonwealth Fund proposal would increase spending by $15 billion (one percent) in the first year – a “minor” “net effect on national health spending.”
Get it? Although health insurance is too expensive for “families,” the families will be rescued by the “nation”, from whom the taxes will be extracted instead.
As always, this “reform” will tax and spend more in the short term, but save money in the medium and long term: $1.6 trillion over ten years. Hooray!
I propose a new financial innovation, in the wake of the sub-prime meltdown. We need a futures market in these health “reforms” that cost more now to save more later. Those policy analysts who promise these pots of gold at the end of the rainbow would be compelled, as a condition of publication, to go “long” their proposals.
I commit to always going “short” these proposals. I predict I’d retire richer than George Soros before the 10 years was up!
This was funny. I needed a good laugh.
Yeah right. I graduated from med school in Canada 20 years ago and have heard the same mantra over and over in that country, i.e. if we just manage it better, it will all work out. I am still waiting for that to happen. When I worked in Canada, the prevalent belief was that with just another meeting, another committee, another commission or another bureaucratic agency, everything will be just fine. And yet improvement in that system never happens. That is why I have been working in the somewhat free-enterprise U.S. for the last 6 years. Americans have no idea how good they actually have it here and it could be even better with HSA’s, high deductibles and a true marketplace.
Mr. Goodman:
You’re ahead of us. Can you give us an idea, or link, to what the Commonwealth Fund came up with?
It is this type of convoluted thinking by intellectual elitists that created the mess we have at present. Unless someone is willing to make a cogent argument against the 180 Degree Approach to Medical Benefits Reform I will continue to promote it as the most politically viable path. What concerns do you have with it? Your thoughts on ways to enhance it? Would you care to share them?
Give me a break…