What Would You Do?

If I were "Queen" for a day here's what I'd do to help fix the system:

1. Deport all illegals and stop giving them free medical care.
2. Put a cap on the medical lawsuits.
3. Change the way our food supply is being handled and regulated--a big reason WHY people have health problems in the first place is because greedy companies have altered and contaminated our food supply. There are too many chemicals, additives, and "junk" being added to our food.
4. Round up these deadbeat men whose wives and girlfriends use our tax dollars to raise their kids. If they get a girl pregnant, make them pay, not the taxpayer.
5. Stop giving free healthcare to prison inmates.
6. And last but not least--I would require every single politician to have the same type of healthcare as everyone else. No more special treatment for the "elite!"

 

Not being an idealist, I don't live in a dream world. That's the way things are. That's what we have to deal with.

But you are correct. We don't have to do nothing or everything at once. Tell that to democrats. You are echoing the republican position.

In short, you may like the sound of your own voice as you rail against the supposed greed of the medical establishment and the insurance industry, but I haven't seen any different ideas out of you.

One thing I can tell you, it won't improve with this trashy piece of legislation. It will get worse.

 

A lot more than being dead. If you lose your home over medical expenses, it's because you are a fool, not because you paid medical bills that no one can make you pay.

No one has to lose their home over medical expenses. There has to be a lot more involved.

 

The first thing that needs to be done is to figure out where the money that is already being spent goes.

In the rush to reform it does not seem that there has been much analysis of the current system.

As I already pointed out - the profit margins are not really that high for any of the players.

So where is the money going?

Patients that don't pay?
Litigants?
Lawyers?
Unnecessary tests and procedures?
Duplication of services?

You can't fix anything if you don't know what is wrong to begin with.

 

These ideas - very nicely worded by abcgrad94 - are right in line what I would suggest as well.

I also think we, as a society, need to do more preventative care - eat, drink, work, and play right.

Aside from that medical care is expensive because it involves a lot of expensive talent, facilities, equipment, procedures, and medicines. Working on the human body can't be less expensive that working on the man made things we use every day. The body is a very complicated machine - perfectly designed by God but hopelessly corrupted by man. Life is worth at lot and it's going to cost a lot to fix things when they break no matter what we do.

As targus points out it isn't that service providers are making huge profits at the expense of the general public. That's what the purveyors of Obama's plan want us to believe as if their plan would really be any cheaper! I think that a lot of the money does go to cover the things targus lists! Those are harder to deal with politically and that's why they're not getting any attention. These things start to involve matters of justice and that's where the civil government should fulfill its responsibilities. It should not be involved in providing the care itself but should make sure all parties do so legally, fulfill their obligations, and not use the law to their own personal gain.

I also think we have to remember that there is no final solution to medical care that will keep us from our ultimate appointment with death. They say people live longer today because of better health care. Maybe but maybe not. The Bible notes that man once lived a lot longer and then his life was limited to around 70 or maybe a bit more if he was strong. The thing to note is that they didn't have the health care we have today and yet they didn't do too badly. I'm not knocking the advances in medicine - I think it has made a different perhaps mostly for infants - but I don't think we should put our hope in that. I certainly don't think we should put our hope in the federal government to provide it.

In spite of the better medical care we actually don't seem to take too good care of what we eat, drink, smoke, or do that have a lot to do with our health. Perhaps we lean on the doctors being able to fix what we mess up.

 

Our health is tied to many other aspects of life, and in order to "fix" the healthcare problem, we will need to fix the outside contributors that cause the problem.

Yes, we should eat, drink, exercise, etc. BUT it's extremely hard to do so when people must work hard to barely make ends meet. Most 2-parent households have both parents working. By the time the mom gets home, she's too tired to cook healthy meals--so she feeds the family some boxed dinner loaded with fat and salt, or the family eats fast food on the way to some school sports function. Mom doesn't have much time to grocery shop or garden, so she buys convenience foods loaded with sugar. The family gets cavities, diabetes, overweight. . .and then they have to pay out more money for medical bills which means working to earn more to cover the bills. . .so mom buys more "cheap" foods or skips dental appointments to make up the difference. . .it's a cycle.

Then you have the food companies who want the biggest yields for the lowest price, so they use harmful chemicals and genetically modified corn (all to gain a bigger profit) and we are eating and breathing the results of their greed.

It all boils down to greed, IMO, and because greed is a sin and we live in a sinful world, I doubt the problem can or will be corrected without us Christians doing what we are called to do--winning others to Christ.

I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but as much as I WANT to legislate morality, true "change" happens in the hearts of men, not in the passing of laws.

 

I see that politically conservative Christian compassion is alive and well on this board.

 

Thank you for not following through on your desire. I wish a lot of other conservatives, and liberals, would follow your lead on this and not try to use the force of government to impose their views on others.

 

It is certainly true that you cannot legislate what regeneration, sanctification, and glorification does. That change happens only by the power of Holy Spirit acting on man's "heart". On that we completely agree.

However, a duty of civil government - as defined in the Bible - is to restrain evil and punish the wicked. Therefore, legislation of general morality is within the desired scope of government and something we should not abdicate thinking it makes no difference. At the same time we must limit the extent to which morality is legislated knowing full well that man will corrupt that process just as he does all others. He will attempt to force his every will upon others in the name of good but, in fact, very likely in the name of evil. This is where the "do-gooders" get carried away thinking they can fix all the problems of mankind and, instead, just introduce more opportunities for abuse of power, corruption, and waste because, as you've noted, it does not change the "hearts" of men.

All we need is a reasonable framework that preserves general morality so as to "restrain evil" - not eliminate it - and "punishes the wicked" - not the "good". Hence the reasons the power of government - our American government - were wisely limited by the founders recognizing other institutions - the individual, the family, the church - had dominion over these things and hence what is not understood today.

 

With that way of thinking, they could charge $10,000,000 a day. After all, its my life.

Why don't we apply this to the automobile industry. What if they charged an extra $50,000 for better air bags and seat belts which would make the car safer. After all, how much is your life worth?

 

Maybe for non-emergency events a person should select a hospital as he might select a roofer. Get estimates in writing. If a website then displayed estimates vs. final bills it wouldn't take long to hash things out.

 

Well,I broke my left shoulder, broke eight ribs and punctured my left lung. When I first arrived at the hospital I was having trouble breathing and the emergency room doctor had to put a chest tube in my left lung. He did this while I was awake, and let me tell you, I thought I had been in pain before this, but having a large tube inserted into my chest brought new meaning to the word pain. Later they did emergency surgery on my lung. Because of this they were not able to repair my shoulder and it didn't heal correctly. Now I am doing fine except that the doctor wants to replace my shoulder with an artificial one. But, since I am doing pretty good, I am not going to allow this surgery, at least not now.

Thanks for asking! :wavey:

 

My thought exactly. You just said it better than I did. :thumbsup:

 

"They had eight years in the White House, and six years in Congress, (six years due to their own inept liberalism) and did nothing."

This idea has been expressed twice, though - were the republicans caring to deal with health care? Not that I recall. Healthcare has been a NEED only because the Demos have percieved it and wanted to do something monumental for their "ONE" and the Repubs are reacting to that with their "plans." The original comment seems rather off base and assumes the repubs wanted to do something and did not - not sure that is true.

 

That is not true, Republicans were mostly responsible for malpractice reform in Texas that brought health insurance rates down 17% on average for each citizen and has attracted thousands of doctors to Texas.

Here is an article from 2005, before Obama was around.

http://www.ibjonline.com/print_medical_malpractice_tort_reform.html

The Republicans have been putting forward many sensible ideas for Health Care Reform for years. These reforms actually work and have been proven so.

 

I don't think they had any DRIVING desire for widespread health care reform as the demos have for years.

 

The fact that most bankrutpcies are now caused by medical bills does not move a lot of conservatives in the GOP - even to offer a free market alternative to the existing system.