Healthcare, The Right Way

The United States has the best healthcare system in the world. All it needs is fine tuning with an attack on the root causes of cost and the reduction in bureaucratic paperwork. What it DOESN"T need is a massive ongoing trillion dollar federal takeover of healthcare, that would be a disaster.

Misleading numbers have been used. The claim is that there are 47 million people are without healthcare coverage. Out of that number 9.1 million people who earn $75,000 a year or more chose not to have healthcare insurance, even though they can afford it. The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that 59% of the nations illegal immigrants are uninsured, or about 7.1 million people. This means that effectively 90% of Americans, who want it, have health insurance. Further, for the most part, these 90% are very satisfied with their coverage. These are the real facts.

We need to attack the root cause of costs. First there needs to be a limit on medical malpractice dollar awards and correspondingly a significant reduction in medical insurance payments necessary by doctors. The cost of pharmaceutical products, drugs, have skyrocketed. This needs to be addressed, the current excuses for high cost should be questioned and action taken to reduce the high cost of drugs. Hospital and medical center management needs to be improved significantly so that these costs can be significantly reduced. It is nothing short of ridiculous to pay up to $25 for the dispensing of 2 aspirins and there are many other similar charges to patients and medical insurance companies.

Bureaucratic paperwork needs to be significantly reduced and streamlined. This paperwork costs a significant amount of money, better ways are available to reduce these costs. Finally and very importantly the healthcare and pharmaceutical lobbies in Washington need to be placed under control. Billions upon billions of dollars are heaped upon the nations healthcare costs due to these lobbies, which serve to drive up the total costs of healthcare in the United States.

With an attack on costs we can then address the issues with our current healthcare system and fix them, including providing for those who cannot afford healthcare. It is possible to be compassionate toward taking care of the medical needs of all Americans, while at the same time being both cost effective and smart on how we do it.

The current direction toward a massive, extremely high cost, and what surely will amount to an ineffective national healthcare system is the wrong one. We need to do things right for a change.