Wednesday, April 1, 2009

My electrifying health-reform plan

22,000 uninsured sentenced to die! | illinillinois.blogspot.com

Despite bills in the House, and now the Senate for a single-payer, government-run health-care system, such as is implemented in most other first-world countries, there's no evidence the Obama administration is taking the idea seriously. Sadly, the White House, seems bent on cozying up to stakeholders and distancing itself from meaningful reform efforts.

If we can't cut out the cancer of insurance companies as middlemen between patients and doctors, what's the best cure we can come up with?

My proposal
  • Everybody in. Nobody out. No one will be refused coverage.

  • No policy can be terminated for any health-related reason.

  • Full coverage for individuals at rates on a sliding scale no higher than Medicare's.

  • All care deemed necessary by a patient's doctor covered — no exclusions, no lifetime caps on expenses.

How to pay for it
  • Cap salaries for insurance executives at the default pay for a member of Congress ($174,000), with no bonuses and no health-care benefits allowed.

    Surely what we pay people to run our country ought to be enough for people who just crunch numbers and shuffle paperwork? Especially since it will be so much easier once they no longer have to devote their time to thinking up ways to deny claims and refuse applicants.

  • Require health insurance companies to be not-for-profits. No stockholders to pay removes one more layer of expense.

Timing

Obviously, implementing such drastic changes will take time. Yet some 22,000 Americans annually — more than 60 per day — die just for lack of health coverage. So to give the insurance industry an incentive not to drag their feet on taking action....
  • For every preventable death due to lack of health coverage until the plan is in place, an insurance executive goes to the electric chair.


Happy April Fool's Day!

1 comment:

  1. Now this was a well thought out plan. Bravo!!
    THINK ABOUT THIS! MOST MEMBERS OF CONGRESS ARE LAWYERS.

    Attorney: Do you recall the time that you examined the body?
    Witness: The autopsy started around 8:30 p.m.
    Attorney: And Mr. Denton was dead at the time?
    Witness: If not, he was by the time I finished.
    Attorney: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
    Witness: No.
    Attorney: Did you check for blood pressure?
    Witness: No.
    Attorney: Did you check for breathing?
    Witness: No.
    Attorney: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
    Witness: No.
    Attorney: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
    Witness: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
    Attorney: I see, but could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?

    Witness: YES, IT IS POSSIBLE THAT HE COULD HAVE BEEN ALIVE AND PRACTICING LAW JUST LIKE YOU SIR.

    NOW REMEMBER MOST MEMBERS OF CONGRESS ARE LAWYERS. IF YOU EXPECT HEALTH REFORM ANY TIME SOON, PLEASE, PLEASE, DON'T HOLD YOUR BREATH!

    ReplyDelete

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