In this clip Hillary addresses the value of the money that we are spending on health care. She says--
"...if this were a comodity other than health care that you were spending so much money on and getting so little in return that you would never put up with it."
This issue has been discussed in our blog previously, but this statement gives you an idea of the way that Hillary feels about the value of the money spent on health care. She also believes the there is the problem with the way that health care is structered. Our health care system concentrates on treating illness instead of preventing it. This causes problems like rising health care costs and worse health outcomes.
On Universal health insurance: Hillary makes the point that many countries that spend much less than us already offer care to all citizens and have better quality care. Is the money already available? Could Universal health care coverage be accomplished without any additional capital?
Monday, October 8, 2007
Hillary Clinton on Healthcare
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5 comments:
I question the notion of "quality" that the authors suggest when they refer to care outside of the United States. I know that quality as well as timeliness of care decrease significantly when you leave the US.
I do not have a narrow minded view that the US is better than everyone else, but while our delivery system my be flawed, we do have the best healthcare.
The issue of quality is significantly called into question in the Emergency Department. This is where a majority of the payment problems in the US arise. Medicaid, Medicare, and other government payers significantly UNDERFUND hospitals. On top of that, there are those who can't pay because of documentation status and those who refuse to sign up for programs like SCHIP. To think that we could fix the issue with quality by just going social is totally irresponsible.
She is right to say that we should be mad at how much we are putting in for what we are getting out.
We should be mad at the taxes that we pay so that people other than the poor can receive SCHIP funds. We should be mad that we, as citizens, don't take care of ourselves better. We should be mad that many third party payers are for-profit, thus looking to cash in on healthcare.
Socialization is not the answer. Not-for-profit HMOs, personal and governmental accountability is the step in the right direction.
I would agree that if you can afford care in the US then it is as good as (if not better than) anywhere else in the world. The problem is that nearly 1/3 of the country is unable to afford care.
I would argue that accessibility is a dimension of quality. Unaccessable care can never be considered high quality.
Although quality is a very difficult word with so many dimensions, it would be hard for anyone to argue that the quality of US health care is twice as good as any other country. Shouldn't this be the case if we are spending twice as much?
To go a step further... (all information from the commonwealth fund May 2007 Report on International Performance).. Timeliness of care in the US is very poor compared to other countries.
Some examples: besdies Canada the US has the highest rate of patients that have to wait 6 or more days when they needed medical attention. The countries with better rates include: England, Germany, Australia, New Zealand.
What do you think should be done to improve the payment systems in place for Emergency Departments?
I wish I knew more about this topic...so this site is very helpful for people like me.
But I'm going to say that I agree with aspects of Universal health insurance like helping those who cannot afford it.
How much money do we put into education and what do we get out of it?
How much money do we put into governement leaders and what do we get out of them?
How much money do we put into government pet projects and what do we get out of those?
Physician HEAL THYSELF!
I have seen more than my fair share of the inside of a hospital in the past 12 months, and I am horrified at the quality of care patients receive. A woman in the next bed asked for a bedpan three times; when someone finally came, it was too late. Dozens of staff are busy at computers, but the amount of time they spend with patients is perhaps ten minutes out of an hour - and any given patient is lucky if they get one of those minutes! The staff who spend the most time in the room is the cleaning staff. Doctors think that a conversation in the hallway is sufficient and billable. Nurses spend inordinate amounts of time completing paperwork for the insurance companies, documenting what exactly I don't know since they actually spend very little time at all of the patients' bedsides.
I'd also like to see a cost benefit analysis on how much insurance companies spend trying to get out of paying for care instead of actually paying for care.
Republiscams tell us that the free market is going to handle health care, and interference from big bad government will ruin everything, ruin our awesome quality. That sure seems to be working with the mortgage industry. Keep up the good work boys!
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