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The Universal Health Care Plan is Soooooo Wrong from Dr. Berglund's blog
Were you ever driving, and someone was trying to tell you that your rear lights were out – or you had a flat or almost flat tire – or were driving around with a gallon of milk on your car? I've had all the above situations happen to me. Now, I'm not a very good lip reader, so it's really difficult for me to keep driving the car safely while staring at this person as they are shouting at me and trying to help me. After a while, I've sometimes said, "Oh, ok, thanks!" even though I still have no idea of what they are trying to tell me.
I feel that way about the politician. There are some many of us that are saying, "No, don't go down that road. It's dangerous. It's a dead end." But they just smile and nod and say, "Oh, ok, thanks!" and continue down the road as if they never heard us say anything.
The health care issues are getting mixed up. The two main problems are polar opposites. Coverage? Costs? There are some people that would rate the number one problem with health care as having way too many people that aren't covered: the uninsured. Others say that health care is way too expensive, and with baby boomers as the largest segment of our population all in the 60+ range, we are destined for bankruptcy in this country.
Let's just be clear, if we try and solve the coverage issue with public funds (which you know we are going to do unless we mandate employers to buy into the public plan for ALL employees, in which case employers will lay off people and we'll be covering more people than we are now with taxes) it's going to cost the taxpayers more. If we try and deal with cost containment, people are going to continue getting lower levels of coverage, more limits, more rejected claims, less availability for medications, etc.
The answer is right in front of our faces. We need to INCREASE competition in health care. Let people go to ANYONE licensed in their state to provide health care. Let the midwives deliver babies. Let the acupuncturists try and lower blood pressure and help people with depression. Let the clinical nutritionists and naturopaths help patients with Crohn's disease and cancer. Let the alternative medical doctors and chiropractors change the diets of their patients to reduce heart disease and diabetes.
The more competition, the lower the costs are going to be. Alternative medicine requires more patient involvement and cheaper treatments than medical options. Plus, once you get patients on more natural diets, they require less surgery and no long term medication. Can we agree that once we put patients on high blood pressure meds, they never really get off them?