In our country today, the healthcare costs are insane.   For many people without insurance, they end up depending on the emergency room for their medical needs, which can cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars each time. 

The last time I was uninsured and had to visit the ER due to a lung infection that caused me to pass out from coughing, the physician charged over $300 for the two to three minutes he took to prescribe a $70+ bottle of cough syrup that did not even work.  That one trip cost me over $1,200 to sit on a gurney in the hallway of the ER.  Over the next four months, I continued visiting doctors at $60 per visit and tried all their different treatments.  Nothing seemed to help and I continued coughing every few minutes, day and night 24/7 for those four months while spending more than $4,600 on visits and prescriptions.  In the end, a pulmonary specialist (costing $650 for a single visit),  took about two minutes to diagnose my condition as simply a lung infection and prescribed a bottle of Prednisone costing $15 which cleared up the condition in two weeks.

In another example, my friend, who had health insurance, had gallbladder problems.  His ultrasound cost almost double what mine did (I had to have one a few months before he had this problem).  They only answer we could come up with is that he had insurance at that time and I did not.  Maybe it was a price-gouging situation since it was covered by insurance, we do not really know for sure.

My friend went in for laparoscopic surgery which was suppose to be under $10,000, but they said they could not do it once they started and had to perform the full operation.  They doctors made some mistakes and after several months of lying in a hospital bed, feed through a tube, his bill was over $140,000, which even with insurance, cost him more than the full cost of the original surgery.  While price-gouging may not be in every medical center, it appears this happens in many of them.

Yes, I think healthcare costs are completely out of touch with reality!  So, what is the answer?  Well, you know from my blog that I am very opinionated and sure enough, I have one about this issue :)

I personally believe that our country needs a national healthcare system.  My plan calls for a national healthcare insurance along with national healthcare services. 

National Healthcare Services:

It is silly to consider any national healthcare services that utilize our current overly inflated healthcare systems.   Costs would be too great for everyone to support.  We need to build full medical centers around the nation where people can obtain medical services at cost.  All services and salaries would require review to make sure costs are kept at a minimum while still providing decent services.

The National Healthcare centers are not meant to replace medical centers of today, but to provide an optional path for those in need.  Many public medical centers may find this plan could increase their profits since they would not be forced to service those that are not able to pay.   Most centers would be considered “premium” services catering to the affluent.

National Healthcare Insurance:

Healthcare insurance is crippling businesses costing $700-$1,400 per employee per month.  Individuals without coverage face devastating bills should they ever become ill.  I have seen families lose everything they own due to illness.   With the high cost of medical services today, there is no real avenue for the government to provide national healthcare insurance.

The only method to provide insurance nationally is to restrict services to the government owned and operated medical centers.  This would keep costs to a minimum while providing services people require.  The national healthcare insurance would not apply to any services outside their own centers.

In this plan, the government would provide healthcare insurance to any citizen based on their income level.   If you were under the poverty level, you would receive coverage at no cost, fore everyone else, rates would follow a sliding scale based on household income.   This means, the more you make the more you are expected to take care of your share of the insurance, while still providing coverage for those that cannot afford it.

Summary:

While I do not think the government should pay (since we all pay) for everyone’s medical costs, I do think that anyone in this country should be able to obtain medical services even if they cannot afford them.  This country is blessed and has been for ages, we need to take care of our people and not allow the corruption that plagues our current medical systems to flourish.

As a side note, I also think the accreditation process should be changed so that doctors do not have to spend so much time on education.   If a person wants to become a podiatrist, they should be able to study in just that area, not spend a decade learning things they do not plan to use.  In today’s system, it would be like someone wanting to operate a tire store to sell tires having to know about how to build the engine, they should only have to study about tires and areas that would effect them such as suspension, alignments, etc.

It would be criminal to use tax money to pay for medical services from out currently corrupt medical system.  Two aspirins should not cost five dollars just because you are in a hospital bed!