SUSAN wrote on July 26, 2009 07:17 AM: I WOULD JUST LIKE TO ASK CONGRESSMAN WATTS IF HE TOOK ANY OF THIS INTO CONSIDERSATION WHEN HE SUPPORTED MR. OBAMA FOR PRESIDENT??

Joe B wrote on July 21, 2009 12:56 PM: J.C. is right on the mark. The only way to control cost is to standardize and fix/control cost. This is not the solution iof we want to maintain our high standard of care in this country.

The insurance industry however is not to blame for rising cost. It is Medicare and it's reimbursement rates along with the care of uninsured individuals. This is the root of the problem. Not the 47 million so called un-insured that is just another red herring. Saving from this program redirected to that are more red herrings. The government is not fixing the problem just making it different. The only article I have found that proposes real, viable, sound, and FAIR solutions can be found at Healthcare Compromise
Good reading but it is a few pages long.

Michelle wrote on July 20, 2009 09:58 AM: Oncologist you are right on the mark! I don't want to see our specialists "step down" to GP's. If the health insurance industry got a complete overhaul and more oversight health insurance would be affordable and everyone would get great care. Have you ever LOOKED at an Explanation of Benefits after you go to a doctor and your insurance is billed? The doctor will bill about $100 for the appointment, the insurance company will say they're only contracted to get paid $75, the insurance company will pay them $20 and then under many plans tell you you're responsible for the other $55. What are we paying our monthly health insurance premiums for (mine are higher than my rent for 2 healthy, youngish people)? I work in property and casualty insurance not health but I read the industry publications and the problem is not the doctors it is the big health insurance companies. One carrier in Michigan made a profit in 2006. They are a mutual company and therefore have to distribute profits among the insureds when they have a surplus in any given year. Instead of doing that they bought a work comp carrier in another state. When the DOI of Michigan brought them up on it and investigated and fined them one of the execs claimed to not understand that they were a mutual company. Really? I am a liberal democrat and I do agree that we need to do something to make health insurance accessible to all but I am afraid Obama's plan might be a failure. I don't understand why they didn't go after the big insurance carriers. They are the reason we are in this mess.

Carol Barash wrote on July 20, 2009 09:40 AM: I just read your aticle in the Las Vegas Review Journal. I thoughly agree with your article. We must have specialists that know their field. If this is taken out of the Medicial scene We will have Jack of all trades master of none. I have friends and family members who would not be alive today if a specialist did not take control of their problems. The President MUST NOT stop specialists from being in the medicial scene in his nationalized health care plan. The public must be aware of this instead of only being told of the cost of our medicial programs.Our lives are at stake here. All must do something to stop this.Write to all who have a say in passing the nationalized health care plan.SAY NO

Carol Barash

Wayne wrote on July 20, 2009 08:38 AM: While this sounds true, where are the facts to back up the claims? Where is the proof that any of this look into the future is true? You will have one neighborhood doctor? How so? Americans have the best health carein the world? Then why don't we live the longest? This article is long on opinion but short on facts.

oncologist wrote on July 20, 2009 06:30 AM: Nobody has addressed the issue I posed yesterday: namely, how will you convince current physicians to participate or even practice, and how will you convince talented college students to even bother going to medical school?
Somehow, superior pay for superior performance has been turned into a shameful concept. Nobody's going to volunteer to give away a decade of their life to train for a field that doesn't pay them back. They'll become personal injury lawyers or bankers instead---because Lord knows we need more of both---while the lines outside the remaining physician offices get longer.
The only physician I've seen comment works at "a top ten medical center"---and consequently already receives a check drawn on the public dole. He could care less about Obamacare, or likely favors it, as so many of those pesky private practitioners will be pushed out: leaving all the more people to be forced into academic centers with their impersonal service and hellish inefficiency.
Like national healthcare? Try a VA hospital sometime. Quite a few of my patients have: before they leave, and come to see me instead. Because treatment is personal, state of the art, timely, and delivered with the individual patient's needs and goals in mind. Expect that to be yet another casualty of Obamacare.

Gene44 wrote on July 20, 2009 03:28 AM: People have not been afforded the opportunity to read the full bill and understand what is going to happen and this article states it fully. Not only that, but, Obama stated it out loud when asked about older people getting operations - maybe they will have to take more pain killers.

Fair and Balanced Fred wrote on July 20, 2009 02:04 AM: It's interesting that someone brings up "Bureau of Indian Affairs style health-care."

Now, probably nobody here knows anything about the Bureau of Indian Affairs health-care, but it sure SOUNDS scary, doesn't it?

Notice that instead of talking about Medicare, which is much more logical, the writer talks about the Bureau of Indian affairs.

The cons can't lead so they consistently mislead.

The question wrote on July 19, 2009 08:09 PM: Why do so many idiots fall for the Kenya syndrome? That's where you vote for an authoritarian socialist for president. Brilliant Larry.You're smart! I sure hope Obama forces everyone to pay for my Bureau of Indian Affairs style health care.

Jason wrote on July 19, 2009 06:35 PM: It's actually Stockholm morons. I am black and liberal policies have done nothing but keep the black community right where it is. Blacks can do it without help from government, and I am insulted Larry at being called an Uncle Tom becasue I believe in individual freedom and don't wnat charity from elitist white liberals who think they are smarter than me. Welfare has set us back generations Larry, and you keep voting for more of it. Who is the real Uncle Tom here? Who has Stockholm (not Helsynki) Syndrome here Larry?

Read All Comments