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August 20th, 2009
11:19 AM ET
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Welcome to the American Morning blog where you can get daily news updates from American Morning's reporters and producers. Join us for "the most news in the morning," weekdays from 6-9 a.m. ET, only on CNN.
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I have to laugh that all the people that are supporting a government run health plan for all USA. If they have ever used the governments current programs. Medicaid and Medicare they would not even suggest an government health plan would be effective. I have disabled children who currently are under a privite insurrence and medicaid. If we did not have our private insurence my children would have the worst coverage you could ever think of. Recently when they became adults I added them onto SSI. They were approved and their medicaid was to continue wihtout a gap in coverage. Three months later because Medicaid forgot to enter her name in the system. I was calling everyone, at least 150 phone calls later trying to get medicaid to talk to SSI and find out she was covered. She was without coverage for three months. The government can't even handle the little programs they have now. Do you think they are going to be able to handle a program that serves a biger population of people? The cuts to medicaid mean my children have the cheapest of all equiptment and services provided. Medicaitions they need to live on wrapped in red tape of preauthorizations to be de3nied after three months and resubmitted. Thank God they are dull covered! The Government is crazy!. Let the president or congress, or our representives be forces to use Medicaid or Medicare for on month and you would never hear about any Government controlled health care again.
Christina,
If health care in the US is so bad, then you would think that that the US would be the 37th choice, instead of the 1st choice for wealthy people from all over the world come to the US when they need the best treatment. As for Doctors leaving the practice, mine IS leaving. He's considered the best one in the area and he is only 48 years old. My sister is also a doctor , age 43, and she is going to quit in 2 years once her student loans are paid off. My Dad is a surgeon. He is 73 years old and too old to quit, but he would not start over again today if he was young. He still works and he still visits patients at their homes without charging them a dime. You see, he, like my doctor and my sister, practice medicine for the pursuit of excellence in patient care. Sure they get paid a lot. I want my doctor to get paid a lot. With health care – like everything else in the real world, you get what you pay for.
Like you, I believe that women should be free to choose what they do about their reproductive decisions without the government or any other person telling them what they can and can't do. I also think that I should be free to make choices about my own health care as well. That's precisely why a non-profit government run health care program will destroy the quality of care that we all enjoy. Think of it this way – if the government decided to go into the grocery business and sell groceries for no profit, how long do you think your favorite grocery store would be able to stay in business? You would not lose your ability to shop at your favorite store in a direct fashion, but as a practical matter, you would lose choices as other businesses closed up.
For some reason, people have this fascination with other parts of the world – especially Europe. I bet they (and probably you) have never lived in Europe or in any other country other than the US. I've spent about 6 years of my life living abroad, most of that in Europe and some of it in France – and it ain't all it's cracked up to be. You can be sure that it's not quaint streets full of happy smart people, great food, beautiful scenery, peace and love. The truth is that the United States is the greatest, cleanest, most decent country on the planet. Nothing would convince of that more than living in France for about 6 months.
Noel, you are seriously off the mark of in this argument. The United States is not ranked the best in the world, not even close. 37 is the number the country is ranked not 1st. France is actually first, a country surprisingly that provides for its citizens when they are ill and injured, a country also surprisingly that supports women in their reproductive choices.
Further profit is not a bad word and it never will be, but obscene greed and selfishness wrongly labeled as profit is. Also your doctor isn't going to leave, this is the same threat that you often hear when a new president is about to be elected. Why if this were true Canada would have a much bigger population. Your doctor isn't going to leave, his/her home is in the town he/she works in, her/his family is there. Additionally, your doctor truly is not going to want to take a a drastic pay cut because she/he dislikes public options and what job is he/she going to get in a recession?
there are some real christian folks on this comment line."We should'nt have to pay for other people's lives". "if GOD saw this awful plan he'd surely think our country is going bankrupt" . Here's a question: When you people face GOD and he asks " Why didn't you want to help 46 million of your fellow americans get insurance and got to the doctor when they are sick?" what are you gonna tell him? "Well the our budget deficit was so high we couldn't afford to help people if they get sick? ". "well there were some Mexicans in that group so they don't count" Do you think that answer will work? Real Christian of you guys.
Is Doctor's work is to Safe life/To make profit
Well, for those physicians who are planning to quit or move to another countries because of this health care reform. You might start packing your bags because this bill is going to passed. History will remember you as a profiters not a savior. Remember, nothing constant but change. When you moved to another country, and the change comes. Where are you going to move to? Maybe heaven. Becareful what you ask for..... Thanks to those physicians who are ready to save life and strongly believed in what they can do for their country not what their country is going to do for them. I mean those who are ready for health care reform. Is gonna happen! It shall come to past. Believed it.
I have always been a minority among my friends and some of my family when it comes to my political views. The biggest factor that differentiates us seems to be the source of our information. Why are so many Americans willing to base their often heated arguments on second hand information, biased "news" sources and commentators opinions? People need to seek out the facts. I think President Obama is being unfairly targeted on the health care issue because he is African American. People are using it as an avenue to vent their prejudice. What makes it obvious is the fact they are basing their distain for him and his health care plan on false information they have heard about this health care plan. It seems they want to believe the worst.
My brother is a dentist in California. He was willing to treat Medical patients so long as the payment covered his variable costs. This means that he would not make a profit but at least the cost of staff and materials would be covered. Medical does not even cover that.
He told me at the current payment levels, he is better off sitting in his chair reading the paper than treating someone at a lot.
I have friend who was pre-med, but went into computers because his doctor dad told him to avoid the profession. Smart guy, would have been a great doctor.
Sneak preview of ObamaCare.
As long as their is healthcare, there will be doctors. As long as there are doctors, there will be healthcare. As long as there is insurance there will be profit, as long as there is profit, claims will be denied, have a nice day, 1,000's will die today, because of a lack, or no healthcare.
The President has too much to tackle with war in two fronts, immigration, health care and education. These are not easy issues that can be solved in matter of days or weeks. They are all of high importance for our society because it deeply effects our pockets one way or another, but also realize weather we want instead results, this is not the democratic government way. This president has taken initiative to solve some of toughest problems, which we have not seen in the past 8 years. At times I feel as if his is trying to make a quick change, I would much rather see slow but THOROUGH progress towards a brighter future for this country rather than fast yet insufficient policy that would be left for interpretation. If every page is not turned, debated, rewritten and done over again, we will face even greater problem. After all I would not want my health care to be left for interpretation when needed.
I have an idea that would cut the one trillion for Health Care to
one-third of that and solve many problems in our society:
Limit the health care to those that are NOT obese;
NOT on over consumption of alcohol; NOT on drugs that are
not prescribed by a physician; NOT on regular tobacco;
NOT on marijuana, etc.
This would either cause those individuals to get back on track
or pass on. This would save lives (more people are killed in one year
from automobiles than all the world wars).
It is not right for us to be charged for the problems in other peoples'
lives. Let them straighten up or pass on. But not continue costing
other people.
President Obama says you can keep your doctor but what if your doctor won't keep you. If the 21.5% Medicare cut goes into effect for 2010, Medicare patients will find fewer doctors who can afford to care for them.
Gramssci3000-
I think my doctor is the best in our community and I am not alone. He would rather just treat the uninsured for free rather than process Mediciad paperwork at his expense in order to be reimbured a fraction of what he gets paid for the same treatment rendered to an insured person. "Profit" seems to have become a dirty word in the last few years after 8 years of an administration that most of us were frustrated with and in the wake of the scandalous actions of a handful of Wall Street insiders. But profit isn't the enemy of the state. It's what gave us the highest quality health care in the world; and the ability to profit is what made this country the freest, safest and greatest country in world. Yes, Docs make a lot of money, but they also spend a lot more time and money than most of us to start a career. It's very obvious that the quickest way to cut health care costs would be to reduce payments to doctors, and that will be the effect of any "public option". A public option would basically be an expansion of the Medicaid and Medicare programs; and that expansion would mean less pay for doctors. What would you do if someone told you that your pay was going to be cut? No one would call you a "profiteer" for being angry – and no one would blame you for looking for a new job.
Noel– I agree that medicare and medicaid are notoriously bad at reimbursing specialists, but honestly, you if you believe that a doctor will stop practicing medicine because of this plan, chances are that he or she isn't a "good doctor" anyway. I know plenty of truly good doctors who are begging for reform because they treat underserved, uninsured citizens and they cannot get them the help that they truly need to be healthy. Any doctor who would quit the profession because of reform isn't a doctor, but is a profiteer.
What the heck is the right answer? Most say that everyone agrees that our current health care system is screwed up and needs change.
NO ONE, other than Clinton, has tried to tackle this subject & you can see why. EVERYONE can not & will not be satisfied, so rewrite the system to cover the majority, of LEGAL citizens. If it takes 6-12months of rewriting, that would be OK, IF the final bill was well writen & addressed the right problems.
My doctor (and several others) have already told me that they are starting to look at other careers. As it is, they already have to pay enough to staff to fill out forms and beg the gov't for the rediculously low payments for medicare and medicaid patients. The good doctors won't tolerate answering to the gov't, so they'll just quit. In effect, we'll lose the choice to keep our current docs because they will do doing something else for a living!
I suggest we all be careful with what we believe this bill will and wont cover. In my opinion, if a bill has such vague language that it could be left up to so much interpretation then it was not well crafted and should not pass. No matter what is promised the administration could always go back on their word because of the ambiguity of the bill itself. This is another example of him trying to rush things to approval because of the Dem's super majority, but we see how that strategy failed America in the Stimulus.
Obama plans to pay for 2/3rds of this 1.3 trillion dollar entitlement with 500 billion re-allocated from medicare than “prevention” counselling. In his mind he believes that if he can convince people to stop eating m and m’s that will save people from getting there foot amputated from diabetes, seriously this is how he plans to save 400 billion dollars. To not listen to more of a reallity based solution would be ignorance at best..
Now even though he has not affilliated with a church since the “REV.” Wright’s rooster pen, he is turning to GOD to spread this awfull plan.. Well MR. PRESIDENT, GOD himself couldn’t make your numbers add up to anything but a bankruptcy of our nation…