Day #8 - Healthcare: Past and Present

Needless to say, this one's bound to be a doozie, right kids?

Now, we all know how things USED to be.  Whenever you'd call for an ambulance, and you didn't have health insurance, you were probably looking to be mailed a nice $700-800 bill to add to your portfolio of medical bills that you haven't had the money to pay off yet.  If you weren't on some social program of any type, your prescriptions would have ended up costing you anywhere from $30-$130 apiece to fill.  A night's stay in any local hospital?  $400-$1,000 a night/day.  Surgery could run you, depending on the level of its severity, upwards of $10,000 or better, probably averaging out to around $50,000, realistically, unless it was far more critical.  Then, I'm sure, surgeries topped $100,000 or better.  So that system was pretty unreasonable in it's demands on John Q. and Mary..  Even with health insurance, you still had to pay a deductible, and a pretty hefty bill.  This was, of course, due to the ridiculous rates in our hospitals, that doctors in private practice charge, and for the high salaries of nurses and other medical assistants...right down to the nifty cleaning crews they have mop and wax their floors at night.,  Manufacturers of medical equipment and supplies got to where they were putting a pretty stiff sticker price on the merchandise they sold to hospitals, mostly because they got a little greedy, after finding out what the hospitals were getting out of their clients......so why not lasso in on the profits they bring down?  In a lot of hospitals across the country, they were charging people $5.00 per aspirin. Wow.

Personally, I would think that, instead of changing the method, or the way we acquired the previously presented healthcare (as well as the rates we were charged for it), it really would have been much simpler to just cap prices.  We could have started by mandating that rates go down on tuition for those learning to be doctors and nurses in the medical field.  As soon as our universities realized just how much doctors were bringing in, I'm sure they huddled together in their boardrooms and said "Hey, we really need to gouge these guys!  They can afford it!!"  It's always about the damn money, isn't it, no matter what business you're in?  Then, with that accomplished, we would have had the means to say to our medical practitioners:  "Hey, you're charging just a little too much to care for your patients, aren't you??  Then, with those prices regulated down a little, quite possibly, the suppliers of medical goods may have thought about it a bit and maybe they would consider lowering the prices they charge private practices hospitals for their supplies.  Oh, and let's not forget the unreal money that health insurance companies charge us these days, thanks to people that are scamming the industry (of course, we shouldn't bring up that maybe these companies are scamming us though, should we?)...how about a little regulation on these people?  It's gotten to where some doctors are charging people sky high, or recommending surgeries and procedures because they know insurance companies will pay for it (albeit, at times, within reason.)  All in all, if we could accomplished these few things, tomorrow might just be a lot nicer day to wake up to.

But we didn't do any of these things.  I'm sure no one in congress even had these thoughts, let alone had the chance to either express or suppress them if they did.  Besides, the things listed in the paragraph previous don't make anyone any real money, do they?  Matter of fact, I see all those things taking money away...medical staff salaries going down, colleges losing money, the medical supply company would have less profits, and the insurance companies, well, they might have to tighten their belts somewhat too.  "GOD NO, we can't have THAT, now!!", I can hear someone on the Hill screaming, "No, I say, we come up with a good plan for unified healthcare, where everyone pretty much pays the same, lowering healthcare costs and showing people it's good to sign up for this..then when we get enough sign-ups, then we stick it to 'em...specially when we need to line our pockets.  If our citizens don't sign up for it, or don't like what we propose?  Fine the bastards a couple of thousand dollars!  Have the IRS be the enforcers in charge of collection.  That way we make some money out of the deal, and it gives the IRS something else more constructive to do besides bothering right-wing political groups."

One thing I did realize, though, was that the original healthcare bill presented to Congress was actually pretty damn fair.  The problem was, there were too many people left out of the mix.  Insurance companies were essentially left to fend for themselves...as well as others.  "How are we going to make any money out of this?" they asked.  Then when the bill originator came back with "Tough!!", well then they lobbied the members of congress that cared about money the most...the Republicans.  They poisoned their minds against the bill, and asked that they demand that the people who would lose out on this deal be written back into it.  And if they didn't, they threatened a deadlock over it...which would really translate to GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN!!  And not just one little one either!!  You don't want/need that, do you Mr. President?"  Sure.  A little blackmail never hurts anything, when you're trying to get your way, does it?

So our Commander in Chief had to concede and write all these losers back in.  They gave insurance companies, as well as others that shouldn't have had a damn thing to say about the healthcare industry, a way to make money on the deal too.  He had to give in!  If he didn't, it would have meant that it would have been buried in committee again, like it has been just about every time we write up such a bill.

And because of all the concessions...the changes to what we had in the beginning of this bill's existence, changes we were bullied into making, it all boils down to this...we The People get SCREWED....again!  And what did we do when it got passed, regardless of what we heard might hit us, as far as higher premiums, etc.?  We rolled over, just like we always do.  "It must be OK, surely our government wouldn't do us like that, would it???"  Never mind that there were little conditions that had to be made that we would have never gone for, had we but known, like that employees of government wouldn't have to abide by the new plan, or that they wouldn't be penalized for not getting it for themselves.  Yeesh.  And as always, when something like this gets implemented, it costs billions of dollars, even though saving money is always presented as the reason for the change. And when it costs government?  As usual, what that really means is that it's going to cost US, whether the bill shows up now, or further down the road.

Done right, this could have been a good thing.  But because all of the outsiders, who previously had made a killing on the former system, all wanted to dip their greedy little fingers in our newer one and make good, we, as citizens lose out again.  It'll not be much of an improvement to what it was before, I'll warrant.  It will be better in some ways, and worse in others, evening it out to pretty much equal to the former, just in different ways.  Healthy citizens will pay more, independent physicians will more than likely have to close up shop, and the line in to be seen will more than likely be long, noisy and crowded.  It'll will, more than likely, just represent (as well as revive the age of ) the age of the HMO, an acronym I was truly hoping to NOT hear again after our slow departure away from them in the 90's.  I shook my head when the bill was put into law.  Oh to be sure, It'll take some time for us Americans to fully realize just what we agreed to...it's not like any of us really had the time to open it up and read the whole thing, heck, i don't think we would have understood a word of it anyway, if we had tried.  I truly hope we acquire some sense in the near future, and work to get what was done repealed, before it all goes south, then try and get a different more efficient one drawn up...or at the very least get some really fast amendments implemented to the one that was voted in.  But I sincerely doubt that we will.  And even if we all gather together and ram down the doors of our Representatives and Senators' offices, getting them to change what's done, has, and always will be, one of the most complicated and truly fruitless things we Americans try to do.  Especially when they've made up their minds to keep things the way they are.

So much for Day #8.  Only 18 days to go.