I agree with Kristin that 70% of bankruptcies are due to health care costs and that nearly 1,000 people die every week because they don't have health insurance. What is the purpose of paying for health care insurance if it doesn't even guarantee you affordable care when you are actually sick?

As Tami mentioned, reforming our health care system will require an entire overhaul since you can't just implement one piece at a time. For example, as brought up at LA Care, you can't implement a health insurance mandate without offering subsidies to those who can't afford coverage. I think using examples from the Massachusetts system or from the international community would help give a better example of how universal coverage can actually work.

Also, I'm not sure if the Republicans ever mentioned exactly what they would want instead of the currently proposed bill. If they were able to start from scratch, what would they write as a reasonable solution to covering the 40 million plus uninsured Americans and to control costs and rising insurance premiums and deductibles? I would like to see a draft version of their proposals...

Too bad Democrats couldn't unite together faster while Kennedy was still around...

Honestly, I found the health care summit somewhat discouraging. Seven hours and some memorable sound bites later, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell continued to suggest starting from scratch; that's not the best suggestion at the end of a meeting, nor does it seem time-efficient. While I admire President Obama's efforts to set the health care reform agenda, and develop themes for the summit (cost control, deficit reduction, insurance regulation, and expansion of coverage), it seemed to me that the summit served as a platform for long-winded talking points with few results at the end of the day. In his closing remarks, President Obama said that both sides agree that there is a need for health care reform; he outlined that both sides agree that there's a need for insurance market reforms, as well as for some aspects of interstate insurance. However, I feel there should have been progress towards how to reach consensus on these issues. Without willingness from both sides to work with each other, and to put politics aside, I feel the prospects of health care reform are grim.

I think President Obama said it best when he asked, "Is there enough serious effort that in a month's time, or a few week's time, or six month's time, we could actually decide something?" Health care reform is necessary, and I think Congress needs to get a move on it.

Also, here's a link to a somewhat lengthy transcript of summit highlights. It's fun to read through when you have the time.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/02/25/health.care.summit.updates/index.html

Unfortunately, it does not look like there will be a consensus for how to carry out health care reform. Although Obama claims that there "is a significant agreement on a host of issues" the agreements are based on the need for reform rather than how to take steps forward in improving the health care system. Everyone seems to agree that healthcare costs need to be reduced but there is no agreement on how to do that. There are even disagreements about what are the reasons for soring health care prices. I did my policy paper on malpractice and defensive medicine costs and while some, mainly the repblican party, believe that reducing medical malpractice lawsuit pressure could siginificantly reduce costs, others don't believe that it would impact costs. Both sides are able to quote studies and statistics to support their argument since there are mixed findings among research studies and the concept of defensive medicine is hard to quantify.

Also, like Senator Tom Harkin said, it's hard to focus on certain aspects of reform that both parties agree on when everything "hangs together". I believe it was mentioned that there was some agreement on opening competition across state lines but like discussed in class, doing that without a mandate could cause additional problems. At this point starting from scratch seems like it would be a waste of time and may still not lead to any agreement. Nonetheless, at this point in time there does not appear to be any bipartisan unity on how to move forward.

I found it interesting that President Obama is considering four republican proposals to add to his updated healthcare bill. The one I found most entertaining was proposed by Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, and it calls for the use of fraud investigators disguised as patients to uncover abuse in federal programs like Medicaid. It seems like a very creative idea, and perhaps a step in a good direction, but at the same time the concept of trained fraud professionals disguised as patients also seems ridiculous.

As I was reading news this morning, I came up on one USA Today blogger who had the following thing to say about Obama's revamped healthcare bill:

"I work hard for my money. I studied, went to school and got a great job. I did not attend the parties that my friends did and lived for the day like they did. I planned my future and am now secure. So.. Obama is asking me to pay for my old friends health care who failed to plan properly because they did not have the foresite and just wanted to have a good time at the moment. Obama wants me to work hard again to pay their bill? Is this what he is telling me???

Exactly right. For all of us who have worked all of our lives to provide for our families, Obama is asking us to do it for the families that don't know how to work...or just won't work."

Obviously this person's statement is skewed and doesn't apply to nearly everyone - I think it's fair to say that for those people who work, the reason they can't afford health insurance isn't because they don't work hard enough for their money.

Let's hear what the R house minority leader John Boehner had to say at the summit...

Now, while I don't think Boehner (pronounced Bayner) really speaks for the entire republican party, he's a pretty powerful guy and one of the biggest opponents to Obama's reform plans. So of course, when he goes into the summit, he declines his opening statement, stays silent through six hours of some meaningful debate, and then says the same unproductive thing he's been saying for the past month: to scrap the bill. If you didn't watch the video, a commenter provided a transcript:

"Hey guys, I know you're the majority party and have spent an entire year hashing this bill out while Americans continue to lose coverage and face skyrocketing premiums, and we had eight years to pass some form of meaningful healthcare legislation, but let's just scrap the entire bill that we have been violently against since before it existed and start over with things that we agree on, which is nothing, so that you lose in 2010, the American public loses, and Republicans can get back into power to lower taxes on our broke government."

Anyway, to add some levity, here's a joke Obama made about Boehner and his orange skin color:

Oh, and one last thing. And this is almost completely unrelated so I won't embed it, but here's a super fun video this random guy made when he was in quarantine in a hospital for 2+ months because he had a TB infection. My favorite part is at 2:20.

Life in Quarantine - Fully Sick Rapper

Now, while watching this, I end up wondering how much keeping someone in quarantine for that long costs and whether the guy has to pay for it...but then I realize he's in Australia and their government program (called Medicare) pays almost all in-hospital costs.

There seems to be an increasing number of people losing their jobs lately due to our poor economy. With the loss of job come the loss of health insurance. People can not afford COBRA or any private insurance because there is no money. I think the government needs to consider the fact that something needs to be done to help its own citizens. It is quite embarassing to know that so many Americans are going bankrupt and do not have health insurance. Our nation should not be falling behind. We should be moving upstream and trying to fix the current now. One of our main problems is the cost of health care. I would like to see what new ideas Obama and health care reform supporters have for the reform. If we start from scratch and try to rewrite another bill then that would set us back even more.

I agree "America in this world is where you get hurt you have to file for bankruptcy". We can not afford health care. I pray everyday that my family stays healthy so we do not have to worry about the hospital bill because I don't know how we would pay for it.

Obama said by 2020 every American should be able to attend school and get an education. With no employment available now and I'm not sure about later, that education can also lead to bankruptcy and loan delinquency.

The comment that stuck out most to me during the clips was that 45,000 people die every year because of a lack of health insurance and that 70% of bankruptcies are due to medical costs. These are embarrassing statistics to a nation who continues to run to the aide of other countries. I am all for helping out other countries who are in need, but we also need to spend a little bit of time to fix our own issues, like health care.

There were several comments providing ideas on how to best approach the health care reform, one was to completely rewrite the entire bill which would seem to set us back, and another, made by President Obama, to fix the broken system before we begin to add more people to it. I would be interested in hearing what kind ideas President Obama or other members of Congress have for fixing our health care system?

I think that we absolutely need a health care system that everyone in the U.S. can access at a price that won't send so many into bankruptcy. Our nation is on the forefront of so many technologies, however we seem to fall behind in things that are equally or more important. It is very easy as an outsider to say that we need to cut the politics and come together to focus on a solution, but I'm sure that will never happen.

Please view the following links from CSPAN

http://tinyurl.com/yaqybbh

http://tinyurl.com/y9d22jv

These short clips show highlights from the health care summit from last week.

Cheers,
Craig