It is no surprise to me that John Stossel has been picked up by the Fox Network. Since I was in college, I have admired his work, gravitated toward his logic and set my internal Sunday evening clock to the channel of 20/20. I noted, long before I became aware of media bias in the mainstream, that his award-winning pieces left a dull silence among his fellow anchors. His pieces were always well researched, cutting edge pieces which did not sit well amongst Bawbwa, et al, though they couldn’t muster much of a counter-insurgency against his efforts. In my opinion, NO one journalist is as brave as Stossel. His Libertarian principles buck the system of party and call upon the establishment to look a little deeper. No one issue, therefore, has needed his brand of logic like health care. Here, if you will indulge me, you will find his best pieces, my mind on health care and following that, you will find my answer.
First, this piece uncovers the principles within the Obama method for change which will leave us cold if we implement it’s policies:
Indeed, the method of the Republican party is to look past the problem, and project future inadequacies. In the meantime, there is still a problem. Here, Stossel sums up with brilliance how Insurance Companies cause the problem:
Why then can’t the Congress come up with a solution to the problem?
Because both parties are in bed with the insurance lobby.
The Obama administration has been vocal in demonstrating their disdain for corporate insurance and their hold on the system. This causes the Republicans to pander to the insurance companies, exploiting the lobby, climbing on board their power influence train to try to defeat the Administration’s efforts. Both parties play games to dumb down this system to a level where the American people will find favor with one side or the other. So, in case you are still reading at this point: Do you want facts to be hidden from you in a misrepresentation which may cause you to make a quick decision? Do you buy a Ford after going only to the Ford dealership and learning that it is better than Honda and Toyota?
The only way you can change this cyclical dumbing down is to engage at a level which brings the conversation “up.” If you engage on the level of understanding it takes to talk intelligently about health care, your elected officials will have no choice to demonstrate that level of knowledge, perhaps even reading the bill themselves, to gain your trust and vote in 2010 and 2012.
Ready for my take?
Principles for good reform:
1. Reforming a system by adding another intermediary {government would qualify in the “public option” debate as standing between a doctor and a patient} will compound the problem that Insurance Companies have caused. Because of this fact, we must disregard all efforts, beginning anew with the following prescription:
2. Insurance should be therefore:
a. Bought and sold across state lines.
b. Used only for catastrophic illnesses defined by diagnosis. (Diagnosis shifts the responsibility for determining “pre-existing illness” from the profitable insurance company, back to the physician.)
c. Allowed, in part, to be invested in the market, shifting the performance of the funds to scrutiny by the insured, rather than the stockholder of the company. This would also allow the consumer or insured to directly determine the usage of the funds as long as they are defined under the act as being for “health” related activities or interventions.
2. We must shift away from insurance as the catch-all for wellness, well-care and minor medical interventions. Think: doctors visits, shots, stitches, sore throats. We must use this model.
a. We can make care affordable, transparent and accessible if we reign in cost. This method not only helps families to budget for their care, it provides a constant dollar figure for government to balance as they intervene, paying the same as those in the market, for the indigent and poor. It is a system that works. Unlike the experiments large (Canda) and small (Massachusetts) which have varying success but at a price in reality or figuratively, this model has proven success in a small test market.
b. We must drive down costs, as the Obama administration notes, by promoting wellness and care – both through the easy access to doctors and accessibility to funds for the purpose of wellness. We can achieve this through patient choice NOT government choice.
3. We must provide incentives to doctors clinics that implement the above billing procedure to encourage this fundamental shift.
4. We must provide loan pay-offs for student loans to doctors who prefer to change their practices to ones that manage in this way.
5. We must provide low-interest loans to doctors that participate in moving their records online.
6. We must be willing to lower overhead for doctors by readdressing tort reform.
President Obama and the democrats in Congress have made it clear that their Public Option will lead to their preferred choice: Single payer.
We must put forward ideas in this effort. Engage. Inform. Be Positive.
