HEALTH COST INCREASES...shhhhh...dont talk about that hardly, not truthfully ..shhhhhh

Larry Mantle on KPCC on 1/5/10 discussed opinions and reactions to health care as it is being congressionally 
voted and promoted.  My comments could not get in on time but...here they are anyhow !



“ Why is the actual Increase -  yearly - in health costs, stated as supposedly "necessary  and unavoidable:..
un huh...but that is not continually discussed, investigated, explored, exposed to do direct actions to keep
COSTS DOWN instead of just agreeing to keep spending more and more again,   in just another way to
the benefit of those who provide medical services [mostly writing prescriptions by # of services provided]
 ... and then  passing andtransferring all costs that still keep on RISING continually every single year to
the average American.

note that Kaiser- which is a non-profit  - has yet again for 2010  the premium has increased by 10%
...and they claimno profits ....yet have that increase every single year ? cumulatively it becomes double
 or more in a short span of time. And this is not discussed. Why is this so ?

Why does the AMA, and all the medical doctors & health staff who  not get reductions in their high fees
and salaries-their benefits mostly that  provides only another increase in costs...and this is with or w/o
the usual general public  yearly CPI  inflation ?

Why is the discussion about whether it is govt [= all of us who earn anything at all paying it ] or private plans
[some pay more, others dont, and it is 'privatized' as most businesses are too ]...why is the discussion stuck in
one place ...? rather than  explore and admit why the costs are so extremely elevated...           and why most
people dont get much healthier from Medical treatment..  We stay the same or improve, from ::::

1- improved and cheaper hygiene, and appliances and chemicals that keep our waters, foods, safe   [sometimes] 

2 -better work conditions & safety concerns

3-  technology and machines taking over body movements work

4- and no longer do many chores that could injure or cause body harm, poorer health
  
5- we have  job losses, especially the manual work [mfg] ones, vs office 'sitting'  in the so-called "service" sector
      
6-  dangerous manual labor has been diminishing in USA and has been outsourced 'over there'
   
7- and medical treatment  outsourcing when our medical prices are prohibitive and other places like
India, Indonesia, etc do it as well, cheaper  but with similar results ?

8- and other factors that can be pulled up and looked at, reviewed, improved, negotiated, shifted too....   huh ?

why is all the talk continually about one aspect only - as if that was the Only and most Important part of why and what we need to VOTE on, to change How we do which
medicine ...and how / why we pay for it and why we pay so much for ....oh, whatever?


That is the real problem as I look at it. Most news and commentators and then the
public too just repeat the 1 2-sided issue, as if that is all the problem entailed...


while some of us then just dismiss the repetitious arguments about a closed minded
Dem-Rep 2-party ltd stuck country...that does not allow any alternate voices or questions either. but yet, I still chose to live in this USA and then use it's medical system as rarely
as is possible.



please DISCUSS THE ACTUAL $$$ COSTS AND WHY THEY ARE AS HIGH AS THEY ARE, even if the reparations and improvements that could reduce the cost, to individuals,
groups, even companies are then ultimately ignored with "we can't do thaaaaaat !"


it is not the right questions being repeated, thus limiting any good answers.


(c) MARYJANIE 2010

Health Care is again returning to profitable ins. companies. So ...write someone quick !

This is a letter written to my Congressional Representatives today. The Prez is not clearly moving in the directions he promised [so what's different about this one, huh??]

Moveon.org initiates some petitions with which I agree. This is one I chose to write my own words and express my own thoughts and strong feelings... If you too want to write any blog, newspaper, letter, AND your govt representatives, take off from here on your own or quote [please use " marks] for attribution and not plagiarize, tho you don't have to state where the source comes from this time]

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - here it is : - - - - - - - - -

Dear MY-Representatives:

Please take our public citizen concerns in consideration when you vote.

We need to significantly change how health care is delivered in USA. We spend too much on end of life and guilt of family issues without concern for cost, which benefits the medical & health ins. industry more than any human beings who received excessive medical services.

Please start counting up how much it costs each of us for excessive lab tests [to cover malpractice and pay tort attorneys and cover costs of those who practice poorly ]and account for how much goes into for technology that is way beyond the reasonable and necessary for the medical condition as we have assumed [ like with financial debt and housing bubbles and toxic assets] that we "need" more when it is not cost effective nor actually helpful to better or good enough health.

Notice how much insurance companies & their affiliates are profiting from the premium /cost raises [every year over 6-12% so far, every year, way above the CPI too!] with easy excuses as to why they continually have increased annual fees and premiums for less and ineffective services...to pay their shareholders and accrue more $$$ holdings [to make them safe, not the saving the patients paying them ].

Be aware of how our health coverages have be paying for much 'middle managers /& clerks' bureaucrats and they are not-all-needed to provide good health services ....the corporations are cleverly covering-their-bottoms-paperwork-about- illegalities-unethicalities-siphoning -off-money-from-direct-treatment-funds... and the extra created organizations, the MCO red-taped bureaucracies that are not helping the patients or payees but covering the insurances instead. So much focus goes into their corporate workings instead of money utilized for direct treatments and interventions.

With managed care not being all it was suppose to "save" everyone, not just pay the corporations & agents thru profits and employments. Most medical providers did NOT want to move into managed care but were forced into being supervised by non-medical staffers in far away places who limited services, set reimbursement rates, required more and more malpractice insurance and made sure all negative responsibility was finally not theirs, but landed on the provider again.

And the MCO's have kept their hold over the medical field even tho it is not ever clear who benefits from these extra costs - certainly not the paying public or patients, maybe the practitioners who formed 'groups' to gain access to more per "captitation" [paid by number of patients in a group if or not they utilize services, hoping not to give away services if possible to profit more themselves]. "Most often, the physicians are paid on a basis of capitation, which in this context means a set amount for each enrolled person assigned to that physician or group of physicians, whether or not that person seeks care." [Wikipedia] A frustrating, delaying, stealing from us all system has become standard practice, to the dismay and disservice of patients and many medical professionals also.

Be sure to read the MoveOn.org petitions, as well, which focuses not on these specifics as much but may also show the multitudes that are concerned in different way that we are being - and have been for a long time now - pushed out of plain simple helpful medical care and into more and more fancy expensive "newest" technological and pharmaceutically-profitable maneuvers instead of given helpful & necessary direct treatment.

Some of the older fashioned healing [medicine in many forms] versions did as well or better in many cases,than what we pay for so dearly now, tho not all. Ask anyone, including yourself please, how much your/their DEMAND for increased novelty, insisting on the latest, style="font-style:italic;"> nnewest, fanciest,expensive treatments and services are expected, of course ! - not that the basic help that is actually required has even been tried... but all the advertising is effectively believed, advertising that is done for upgrading, up-costing medical drugs & equipment and hospitals and such, all this is based mostly on FEAR OF DEATH & DYING.

And also families fear of being guilty of 'not doing enough" when they don't know how much they are actually paying indirectly for all that fake reassurance of their "caring". The patient suffering from excessive, short-lived if effective, painful and distressful treatments [costly too] is not the focus, the family guilt is. huh ? But often so.

All the FEAR MONGERING that is daily urgently stressed in our devoted media - focusing on any and all dangers anywhere - shown with great & exaggerated bloody pictures and each tear caught on millions of screens - all add to the desire & demand & then insistence for more and more Expensive medical aids - that so many hope will save them from suffering - to not be one of those that they see on the "news" .

Fear is definitely driving up our health costs along with all the paid advertising and public relations [costs are then included in our premiums and charges, of course, trickle down, it is called] all done to profit those who say they only insure the USA public.

And as 'good consumers' and fools, many have agreed that we "need" those "recommended by my doctor" tests or mis-directed treatments is so that all those expenses land back on those who pay - YOU, me, us passive consumers. Yes,it is we who fall prey to those business predators.

Insurance and health corporations are mostly not healers. They are "providers of services" but that means computer-paper-work, price-management, administrative, or all that claimed as extra 'needed' part of providing medicine or treatment. That also includes the advertising to us, the public, to doctors, to each other and the high costs of public relations to help those same corporation look good, that insurance be purchased and known, all that is included in the final 'health care costs' and premiums set for us. Huh? No wonder premiums are excessive and ridiculous.

And note what is not openly revealed: the increased selection of increasing our medical costs just because of who they chose to ally with to then contract for that increase their profits or businesses...instead of improving our actual services. And the corporations are also "lobbied" by their trade-favors-giving friends and profit-selected-alliances. So where can costs be cut ? It has long ago been obvious but also difficult to change.

Dont ask because the actual collusions and corruptions are well hidden, tho PUBLIC CITIZEN, CONSUMER REPORTS UNION, and some other watch groups are slowing leaking out some true stats and information. Search it out.
Share it with everyone you know, everywhere. We need to be our own public & relations.

The disease is in the system, more than in any patient. Question: how much can that entrenched system be changed ? Now.

It is time to open our eyes, minds and accounting practices to see what has been our mainline health care services and who gets the most out of it...not the ordinary citizen patient, not the burdened care-giving family...not the paying for high fees employer or employee...but whom ?????

yep, you already know and so do I.

Please make CHANGE OF MINDS and cost effective medical services a reality NOW

thank you

this was also on

http://pol.moveon.org/pac/popetition/comments.html?registered=1&petition_id=706&redirect
_url=%2Fpac%2Fpopetition%2Fcomments.html&id=16294-9179597-_Mna5Mxmy

(c) maryjanie 2009