Health care is an important issue for me. Right now, I'm in a temp to perm position at a law firm. It's a good job, but I have no health care at this time. The temp agency has some benefits, but they are not adaquate. For example, the plan allows for less than five doctor visits a year. Now, I don't go the doctor that much, but five is pretty low.
Anyway, as many of you know I suffer from clinical depression which means I have to take an antidepressant. For a 45-day supply of Celexa, the brand I take, I have to plunk down $120. Not cheap. There is another antidepressant that my doctor wants me to take in combination, but that would probably be another $100-plus which I can't afford.
I'm not crazy about single-payer health care, being a Republican and all that. However, we have a problem when 45 million people don't have access to health care. We have to find some kind of answer.
Former Republican Senator, David Durenburger believes that Senator Kerry has a better health plan than the President's. I would agree. The President keeps talking about Kerry's plan as "government run health care" as if the Senator were proposing something ala the British Health Service. Durenburger explains how the plan would work and it would maintain the choice we currently have in our health care system. He rightly sees Bush's plan as pretty pitiful to solving this problem.
Kerry's plan is not perfect, but it does expand the ranks of the insured and goes a long way towards making sure that Americans don't have to fear losing their health care when they change jobs or get laid off. We should try to instill the best parts of the free market in our health care system. However, we need government to make sure that the widest number (hopefully everyone) will have access to affordable health care. Kerry's plan does this. Bush's doesn't.
I'm glad that Durenburger had the courage to say this.
Posted by Dennis at October 27, 2004 12:13 AMhttp://nude.prisonrapelife.com/unjfupq/ bandsforcingright
Posted by: motorcyle at August 7, 2005 04:00 AMKerry has less chance of doing anything about health care than Bush.
I agree. But all that means is we're screwed either way. The system we have now is unsustainable and needs serious reform.
A health care delivery system guided solely by the invisible hand of the market (which is where the current leadership wishes to take us) won't produce the level of care those of us insured have come to expect.
I assume that Kerry's plan includes risk pooling for small businesses - I never bothered to checked. I do know that in Kerry's plan, the federal government serves as a reinsurer to the employer based plans to cover the cost of the high care patients which is one very significant premium cost driver.
The current employer based plans behave like other risk insurance products -- the healthy are paying to support those who need more care.
I have no problem with that in principle - insurance companies can't deliver affordable products without applying that principle
but in health care it really skews the mean.
Posted by: dorsano at October 28, 2004 09:55 PMI think we need to resolve the gaps in reality that hit the middle class. Medicaid covers the most poor, or those that work under the table. Medicair and Medicaid cover the old. If you actually work for an employer that doesnt provide coverage or if you have coverage and get laid off the government offers nothing but air.
Frankly, I dont think there is a single plan that will work, in this country.
I think Clinton, either one, has more talent and brainpower than Kerry or Bush and they couldnt tackle it because they tried to do it all.
The Bush idea of allowing for pooled rates for small business sounds ok. Anyone already in business knows that you can buy insurance at pooled rates through associations, employee leasing, or other mechanisms. It doesnt make it cheap but it does help.
Small business really does want to hire people. They do want to retain people. If health care was cheaper to provide, it may prove a more popular benefit offering.
In the end, someone is going to pay the freight. It isnt going to be free or even cheap.
Another bit of reality. Kerry has less chance of doing anything about health care than Bush. If you think the republican house is going to hand that one to him....
Posted by: mike at October 28, 2004 08:22 PMNeither party (and neither candidate) is addressing the root cause of the problems with the health care delivery system - if that's what you mean.
Durenburger's just saying that Bush taking us in the wrong direction (eliminate the role of government and leave it all up to the market - and Kerry's headed in the right direction: a public/private partnership and the opportunity for us to buy into FEHBP).
Posted by: dorsano at October 28, 2004 07:30 PMis the premise of this thread even correct? is Kerry's position that the government is going to provide prescription drug coverage also?
Posted by: mike at October 28, 2004 05:35 AMHe's 70 years old and graduated from St. John's University which is where I got my BA.
He made a case against the administration on national security also - in much the same tone - about a month ago.
Health Care and National Security is where much of his experience rests. He served on the Select Committee on Intelligence and Chaired of the Health Subcommittee of the Senate Finance Committee.
He improperly collected $3,825 in expense reimbursements for nights he spent in a Minneapolis condominium he owned, and he accepted more speaking fees than the Senate allowed and that ended his career as a Senator.
Posted by: dorsano at October 27, 2004 08:27 PM