According to www.coruant.com, "George Siriotis, regional vice president of individual sales at Anthem, said rising health care costs, including what he called unnecessary testing, use of brand-name medication and the heavy use of diagnostic imaging have forced the rate increases."
Lawmakers are working hard on how to pay for health care but if Anthem can't keep up with paying for the reasons for rising health care costs, will the government be able to curb these problem areas? Will the government limit use of what the insurance companies deem unnecessarily like testing, medications, and diagnostic imaging that our doctors may recommend? Will the government tell us no, we can do these things? Everyone is concerned about how to pay for it but where is the talk about what medical limitations we may be forced into?
Effective medical insurance reform must encompass several areas: 1) Meaningful access to affordable health insurance; 2) The elimination of the pharmaceutical industry’s oligopoly; 3) The current practice of medical care as practiced in this country.
There Must Be Real & Meaningful Access To Health Insurance
This can only be done by forcing all U.S. residents to purchase a “basic plan” from the Federal Government. This will create the maximum purchasing power that is available in this country. Private insurance companies will still be able to offer boutique benefits to those who can afford it; but to say that these company’s executives and shareholders deserve some sort of break because their employees will be laid off is simply outrageous. What about their customers who bankrupted themselves because the industry refused to pay their claims? (the majority of people who filed for bankruptcy because of medical bills had medical insurance) The industry has had nothing but disdain for their customers.
Big Pharma’s Oligopoly Must Be Eliminated
Currently, the Federal Government is prohibited by law(!) from using its purchasing power to negotiate better drug deals with Big Pharma. This CANNOT be allowed to continue.
The Current Practice of Medicine In This Country Cannot Continue
The Federal Government needs to follow the lead of Kaiser Permanente and create for its health insurance customers a nationwide network of clinics staffed by salaried nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and physicians. A two-member team consisting of a nurse practitioner and a physician assistant would work with patients while under the supervision of a physician. Without any financial incentives to perform unnecessary tests/procedures, the number of such procedures done should crater. Doctors, of course, will complain that their incomes will suffer because of this. Too f—ing bad; if financial incentives were the reason that they joined the medical profession, then they entered the field for the wrong reasons — they should have gotten a masters in economics and joined their fellow leeches in Wall Street.
Conclusions
1) Only by forcing U.S. residents to purchase a “basic” health insurance plan will the Federal Government achieve the maximum purchasing power possible to achieve the lowest insurance rates possible in the U.S.
2) Big Pharma is raping the U.S. citizenry; therefore, its oligopoly must be eliminated.
3) Healthcare must be reformed by eliminating the fee-for-service model. The Federal Government must hire salaried employees to work in collegial teams for the purpose of treating patients that have purchased insurance through the Federal Government.