Health Care Reform -- I want Fair-care

The President is fond of saying that if your happy with your health care insurance or provider you can keep what you have. The problem is that the employer decides what health insurance an employee has not the employee unless a person is self employed or paying for it themselves. A caller on CNN asked a very important question that both the Republican and Democratic response skirted around answering directly because it is the core issue that divides Americans and politicians currently.

The question was: How is the current health care bill going to protect the free market while creating a health care exchange?

First of all lets put aside, for a moment, the 40 million or so uninsured that the media likes zeroing in on. Americans, all of them, want to know how the bottom line is going to effect their wallet.

The issue here is that an employer will choose the cheaper government plan over the more expensive private plans. After all, one would think that the government run health care plan or government option will have to run better than Medicare and Medicaid currently operate. The problem is that President Obama is not answering how other private insurance plans would be worth purchasing or keeping if a government competitor is offering a worth while plan.

I know cable TV is not health insurance but for the sake of argument just suppose the state of California was offering cable TV at competitive rates and quality for a set price. The private cable TV companies would have to offer the same services or better at a cheaper if not competitive price set by the government. In this scenario the Obama plan makes sense because the price of cable TV stays down, is universal and creates a standard. By standard I mean the quality of service.

But cable TV is not health insurance because everyone needs health insurance not cable TV. A government run option means the standard will be set or the floor for health care is created by the government just like it sets a standard for those who use Medicare. Medicare is a sort of government health insurance that very few doctors want to accept because of problems getting them to pay for treatment that doctors and the patients feel are necessary or they pay 80 cents on the dollar.

Since everyone needs health care that means it must be affordable but also offer quality for the price. As of now what Medicare will pay for, when they pay at all, can best be defined as adequacy. The adequate treatment and adequate care that is just enough to get the patient stable and living at home. They pay for the adequate wheelchair or adequate durable medical equipment not the latest equipment that can get the job done better. For example, there are many individuals that use a wheelchair for everything they do which includes recreation. They do not have a workout wheelchair.

To many people a workout wheelchair may sound like opulence but it would go along way towards saving the wear and tear of the patients daily wheelchair. The patient would workout or stay active and not be concerned that they could only get a new one every five years which is the standard set by Medicare. It is a preventative measure to pay for a workout wheelchair but the current government plan will not pay for such a thing. What about the latest cancer treatment? How long will it take for the government plan to authorize payment for a new treatment as apposed to the standard adequate treatment? It is not enough to simply say that the current private health care insurance companies do not offer to pay for the current cutting edge treatment for cancer. The reform we need is an insurance plan that will seek out and authorize new and out of the box treatments for our ailments.

The President says that he will find the money for his reform in the waste and fraud found in Medicare but maybe he should have found the fraud and waste first and showed America the money he saved us all. As of now Americans just see a bunch of numbers on a teleprompter. Maybe the president should have reformed Medicare and insisted that Americans take a look at what his administration can accomplish so that we could give him the green light to reform the health insurance industry.

However, the president has his momentum and his ego is preventing him from slowing down. There are millions of people that currently need health insurance. What they need is insurance not a debate.

The quality of that insurance needs to be articulated and so does the price per individual and per month if the democrats are to succeed. If they do not articulate these concerns in fifteen days or at the very least before Christmas they will lose this debate.

I would have preferred a single payer plan but since it looks like I must compromise I have made some suggestions.

So lets start off by being upfront with what people want. While there are many people that would prefer not to pay a cent for health care most people want to pay a fair rate or want fair-care.

What is Fair-Care?

1. It is unfair that a family pays hundreds of dollars per months for health care only to find out later that their coverage leaves them paying for too much of the costs associated with the family actually having to use their plan: the under insured. Health insurance should mean that the insurance company pays for everything the doctor and patient say they need to heal associated with their ailment.

2. The price of insurance for a family where the household income is less than one hundred and fifty thousand ($150,000.00) per year should have health care monthly payments (their premiums) capped at $200.00 two hundred dollars per months. Those making less than 120k but more than 90k should pay $125.00 per month.

3. For American families earning less than Ninety-thousand per year (90K) the cap should be lowered to $95.00 per month. For Americans earning less than (40K) forty thousand per year the cost per month for insurance should be lowered to fifty five ($55) dollars per month. Individuals that have very low income (20K) should fall under current health care programs.

4. There should be no costs a patient pays which includes hospital visits or stays except for that annoying $10.00 co-pay. There should be no costs for durable medical equipment that doctors find necessary.

5. Digitize medical records

6 . Keep the paper work down for doctors and nurses. Do not cut costs by cutting administrative staff because that always leads to doctors and nurses having to do paper work.

7. Concentrate on preventative medicine and paying for those upfront costs for treatments that will save money in the lone run. Consider the workout or exercises equipment that the severely disabled need because there are no disabled gyms.

8. The Safeway plan is worth including into the reform plan as an addition not as an alternative. In fact consider incorporating many of the Republican suggestions as additions to the reform plan Obama is suggesting.

9. Take your time to put together an insurance plan for America -- after all you want to do it right --- but pass an emergency recession health care coverage plane that covers the unemployed, under insured and those that have no insurance until a long term plan can be worked out between the parties. After a plan is put together then transfer all the clients over to the new plan.

10. more mediation less lawsuits.

11. preexisting conditions should not be a barrier to being insured.

Press the following link for a side by side comparison of all the health care proposals currently under debate. Not one proposal explains what an individual will pay per month just a confusing formula.

I would like to quote a famous American named ET who once said "be good."

Rafael Buelna