$aving Health care

Neither candidate gets it. Here are a few of the key points that neither one addressed:

1. 90% of health care is a loss. If you don't have something minor, you will spend lots of money and may never be productive enough in the future to repay the cost. Squeezing extra quality life out of our biology can be very expensive. We have a principle: all life is precious. That can be a very expensive principle in health care.
2. If you don't actually provide care, who needs you? Doctors, nurses, hospitals, pharmacists, therapists, pharma companies all provide care. Managed care workers, insurance workers, malpractice attorneys, government bureaucrats do not provide care, but cost you billions.
3. We have a one payor system. Look in the mirror. That is the payor. We have multiple administrators who accumulate and distribute money for a price. A very large price.
4. You do not have a right to choose any evaluation and treatment plan with your doctor without approval from an insurance company. There is no data that shows that this saves lives or money. Why aren't you, the patient, the center of the health care universe? Answer: big insurance, big government, and big law are taking your money and giving you nothing! There are better and cheaper solutions. Don't you deserve to keep more of your money and get better care?
5. Prevention and health maintenance are good theories, but require enforced penalties for lack of compliance, not just rewards for adherence. Are you ready for that loss of freedom?
6. Charity care for the uninsured is less expensive than social welfare care (medicaid) and is as effective. What does it say about us that we believe more in government than in charity?
7. Health care is highly regulated. Regulations are very expensive. Regulators and regulations provide little return on investment for the sick person. Less regulations and less regulators would produce no appreciable change in health care quality and would greatly reduce costs.
8. Micromanagement of doctor-patient interactions is not cost effective, does not improve your health care and actually exposes you to more risk. Time that could be spent with you is spent on paperwork.
9. Trust is the key issue in health care. Verifiable trust is now possible with greater diffusion of information. Managed care is passe, and we cannot afford passe.
10. The expansion of new ways of providing care (ie telemedicine, internet medicine) is being limited by insurance companies and big government, and yet would be a great benefit to most people.
11. Pharma is your friend. They provide the medicines of the future.

Those of us on the front lines of health care do not have time to drain the swamp. But, we do see the problem. You would be appalled at how little those who decide your health care finances know or care about you.