A Voice from the Past

[Guest]

If you have 10 minutes, listen to what Ronald Reagan had to say about socialized medicine...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRdLpem-AAs

[Guest]

Operation Coffee Cup was a campaign conducted by the American Medical Association (AMA) during the late 1950s and early 1960s in opposition to the Democrats' plans to extend Social Security to include health insurance for the elderly, later known as Medicare. Ronald Reagan was hired to record this LP in 1961 as part of a campaign to undermine support for the creation of Medicare and Medicaid.

[Guest]

Operation Coffee Cup was a campaign conducted by the American Medical Association (AMA) during the late 1950s and early 1960s in opposition to the Democrats' plans to extend Social Security to include health insurance for the elderly, later known as Medicare. Ronald Reagan was hired to record this LP in 1961 as part of a campaign to undermine support for the creation of Medicare and Medicaid.
Did you listen to it or just google it to find a link that fits your criteria?
I listened to the whole thing and had this eerie feeling this man was telling the future from so far back in time. In the beginning he was talking about 19,000 government businesses that constituted about 1/5th of our economy. If he could see what is happening today..he would be shocked. He even mentioned the auto workers...how spooky is that?

I would recommend that people listen to the whole thing and think of what the government (Obamanomics) is trying to do today.:22yikes:.

[Guest]

...that the Gipper, speaking as a hired gun for the AMA at the time, was unsuccessful in getting the Medicare bill defeated.

But I found one thig that he said quite interesting. Ronnie asserted that if Medicare was passed--the equivalent of socialized medicine--that it would only be a short step until doctors couldn't control the patients they saw, the treatment they thought best, and how much they would be paid for their services. Medicine these days isn't "free market" at all. American healthcare, for better or worse, is dictated by profit-motivated insurance companies, certainly not the doctors or hospitals.

Medicare only applies to people over 65. Most other Americans, other than those that have no healthcare insurance, have private "free market" insurance. I wonder what those same doctors would say today about how they are able to practice their profession? Do they have complete authority to prescribe the treatment they deem best? Is their income fundamentally controlled by someone else? Is someone else "suggesting" that one form of treatment is better than another and that they must follow that recommendation if they are to be paid anything? We all know the answer. We get whatever care is authorized by some clerk looking at a computer screen at an insurance company.

C'mon folks, the free market has brought us pretty much over the brink of socialized medicine already. How many of you can only afford, or are only authorized to use an HMO, where you have to see whatever doctor is on duty? How many of you have to get a referral from a primary care doctor before you can see a specialist? Even then, does the specialist you select have to be on an "approved" or "in network" list? Someone tell me how this is a whole lot different from "socialized medicine".

I'm certainly not proposing that we have national health care. But there would be one big advantage to it that no one has mentioned so far. If the doctors were all employees of the federal government, we could stop flapping our gums about the need for tort reform, the extraordinary expense of malpractice insurance, and how much that has to do with escalating healthcare costs. The malpractice insurance companies and the PI lawyers might not like it, but the number of malpractice cases would drop like a rock--without any tort reform legislation! How many sleazy lawyers do you think would take on the U.S. government with spurious claims by people who may or may not have suffered pain and suffering? How many cases would be brought in federal courts, with their standards of evidence and procedure? And how often do you think the Justice Department would settle out of court, just to get the case off their "cases pending" list? Not many, methinks.

Just a thought.

[Guest]

:agree::agree::agree:

And how many TOTVer's use that for health care. Has anyone in TV turned done the drug benefit?

[Guest]

...that the Gipper, speaking as a hired gun for the AMA at the time, was unsuccessful in getting the Medicare bill defeated.

But I found one thig that he said quite interesting. Ronnie asserted that if Medicare was passed--the equivalent of socialized medicine--that it would only be a short step until doctors couldn't control the patients they saw, the treatment they thought best, and how much they would be paid for their services. Medicine these days isn't "free market" at all. American healthcare, for better or worse, is dictated by profit-motivated insurance companies, certainly not the doctors or hospitals.

Medicare only applies to people over 65. Most other Americans, other than those that have no healthcare insurance, have private "free market" insurance. I wonder what those same doctors would say today about how they are able to practice their profession? Do they have complete authority to prescribe the treatment they deem best? Is their income fundamentally controlled by someone else? Is someone else "suggesting" that one form of treatment is better than another and that they must follow that recommendation if they are to be paid anything? We all know the answer. We get whatever care is authorized by some clerk looking at a computer screen at an insurance company.

C'mon folks, the free market has brought us pretty much over the brink of socialized medicine already. How many of you can only afford, or are only authorized to use an HMO, where you have to see whatever doctor is on duty? How many of you have to get a referral from a primary care doctor before you can see a specialist? Even then, does the specialist you select have to be on an "approved" or "in network" list? Someone tell me how this is a whole lot different from "socialized medicine".

I'm certainly not proposing that we have national health care. But there would be one big advantage to it that no one has mentioned so far. If the doctors were all employees of the federal government, we could stop flapping our gums about the need for tort reform, the extraordinary expense of malpractice insurance, and how much that has to do with escalating healthcare costs. The malpractice insurance companies and the PI lawyers might not like it, but the number of malpractice cases would drop like a rock--without any tort reform legislation! How many sleazy lawyers do you think would take on the U.S. government with spurious claims by people who may or may not have suffered pain and suffering? How many cases would be brought in federal courts, with their standards of evidence and procedure? And how often do you think the Justice Department would settle out of court, just to get the case off their "cases pending" list? Not many, methinks.

Just a thought.
Are you saying we should put the doctors on the Federal payroll? Will the feds determine who should be a doctor? Will the feds determine the courses the doctors should take in private colleges? Will the incentive to be a doctor still be there if the Feds control the standards? Should the feds now take over all the Colleges and have everything standardized to federal standards?Who determines the standards for the feds?

[Guest]

it might affect the caliber, quality over time? Of course it will. Where or what would be the incentive to excel? They would be held to guidelines of how many patients, how long to spend with them, what to treat or not, whether to refer or not. I would not hesitate to say over time we would look back to when nurse practitioners would have had more savvy than the federated doctors. In my opinion.
I would hope there would still be the private sector for those who could afford it and I hope I am able to partake.

I still am some what surprised there is not much discussion by the over 65 crowd of what they could lose in the deal. I keep asking if anybody thinks you get to keep what you get from Medicare today when the add 20,000,000 more to the list? It is just not going to happen. There will be the leveling of what is offered to the masses. Your current coverage will become a memory. Here again I hope I am able to afford to go with the private sector and not be subject to the herding.

btk

[Guest]

...that the Gipper, speaking as a hired gun for the AMA at the time, was unsuccessful in getting the Medicare bill defeated.

But I found one thig that he said quite interesting. Ronnie asserted that if Medicare was passed--the equivalent of socialized medicine--that it would only be a short step until doctors couldn't control the patients they saw, the treatment they thought best, and how much they would be paid for their services. Medicine these days isn't "free market" at all. American healthcare, for better or worse, is dictated by profit-motivated insurance companies, certainly not the doctors or hospitals.

Medicare only applies to people over 65. Most other Americans, other than those that have no healthcare insurance, have private "free market" insurance. I wonder what those same doctors would say today about how they are able to practice their profession? Do they have complete authority to prescribe the treatment they deem best? Is their income fundamentally controlled by someone else? Is someone else "suggesting" that one form of treatment is better than another and that they must follow that recommendation if they are to be paid anything? We all know the answer. We get whatever care is authorized by some clerk looking at a computer screen at an insurance company.

C'mon folks, the free market has brought us pretty much over the brink of socialized medicine already. How many of you can only afford, or are only authorized to use an HMO, where you have to see whatever doctor is on duty? How many of you have to get a referral from a primary care doctor before you can see a specialist? Even then, does the specialist you select have to be on an "approved" or "in network" list? Someone tell me how this is a whole lot different from "socialized medicine".

I'm certainly not proposing that we have national health care. But there would be one big advantage to it that no one has mentioned so far. If the doctors were all employees of the federal government, we could stop flapping our gums about the need for tort reform, the extraordinary expense of malpractice insurance, and how much that has to do with escalating healthcare costs. The malpractice insurance companies and the PI lawyers might not like it, but the number of malpractice cases would drop like a rock--without any tort reform legislation! How many sleazy lawyers do you think would take on the U.S. government with spurious claims by people who may or may not have suffered pain and suffering? How many cases would be brought in federal courts, with their standards of evidence and procedure? And how often do you think the Justice Department would settle out of court, just to get the case off their "cases pending" list? Not many, methinks.

Just a thought.

Medical malpractice claims would indeed drop if all physicians were considered federal employees, because if there is a national system run by the federal government, then medical malpractice lawsuits would end up in federal court, most likely following the same (or quite similar) procedure a veteran goes through with medical malpractice claims against the Veterans Administration.

Suing the VA for medical malpractice must be done according to the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA). There are no punitive damages. A claimant must first file a claim with the VA for the entire total of the claim. The VA then has 6 months to pay the claim, settle it for a negotiated amount, or deny the claim in actuality (with written notice) or de facto (just doesn't respond during the 6 month time frame). The next stop is filing the lawsuit in US District Court and dealing with the US Attorney's Office. Very few attorneys are willing to take these cases for two reasons: 1) the procedures for FTCA lawsuits are unique, and not that many lawyers are familiar with them; and 2) since the FTCA limits contingency case fees to over a third less than non-FTCA cases.

The "sleazy lawyers" generalization was uncalled for, as would a "thieving bankers" or "quack sawbones" be. It's convenient to take potshots at personal injury attorneys, but to tag them for lawsuits being frivolous is factually off-base (see http://www.justice.org/pressroom/facts/frivolous/ ). And with the health care delivery system in place in the USA now, preventable medical errors are the sixth leading cause of death in the USA, ahead of diabetes and Alzheimer's. (see http://www.justice.org/cps/rde/xchg/justice/hs.xsl/8677.htm) Does anybody really believe that a federally managed health care establishment taking care of the entire population will better that situation?

[Guest]

You folks read what you want to read into anything someone writes here. Obviously, your minds are made up. Why bother with any sort of discourse that might possibly cause one to think about the situation?

First sentence, fifth paragraph of my reply..."I'm certainly not proposing that we have national health care."

What I did say, if you chose to read what I wrote, is that for all intents and purposes from the doctor's perspective, we already have many of the disadvantages associated with national health care, socialized medicine, or whatever else you might wish to call such a system. Doctors and hospitals no longer have the authority to prescribe what they believe is proper treatment. Their ability to make a profit is tightly controlled by a table of prescribed payments that is declining each year. The attractiveness of a career in medicine IS declining, as is reflected in medical school enrollments and the closure of medical schools themselves. There is a growing, dramatic shortage of internal medicine and family practice physicians. There is a shortage of medical doctors of any specialty in exurban and rural areas.

Healthcare in the U.S. is controlled by the insurance companies and the corporations, unions or other organizations that engage them to administer healthcare benefits. While one might call it the "free market", the results are very much the same as if healthcare was provided by a single payor, like the government. I went on to say that if the federal government was that single payor, the issue of tort reform needed to control runaway malpractice litigation and the skyrocketing malpractice premiums, would be essentially resolved.

Please READ what I said. I'm not necessarily recommending government sponsored healthcare. What I am saying is that we already are experiencing many of the disadvantages under our current system that many of you resist with knee-jerk precision.

Don't just read what people write with the thought that you will automatically post a critical response. Think about it sometimes...please.

P.S. Thanks, Steve, for the amplification of why medical malpractice litigation would likely decline precipitously if cases had to be adjudicated in federal courts. And I apologize for using the "sleazy lawyer" term. You were correct in calling me out for that.

While the frequency of preventable medical errors is alarming, I wonder if they would be so frequently identified identified were it not for the escalating number of malpractice litigations? Were they always there, but we're just finding out about them because of the lawsuits? Or, I wonder how many would be preventable if doctors were able to prescribe treatment and tests without the stringent oversight of an insurance company administrator? Or whether the problems and recidivism of patients might decline if insurance companies didn't essentially "kick patients out" of hospitals earlier than medically desirable?

Again, what I'm saying is that we might already be experiencing those same disadvantages that critics associate with socialized medicine, national healthcare, or the like.

[Guest]

You folks read what you want to read into anything someone writes here. Obviously, your minds are made up. Why bother with any sort of discourse that might possibly cause one to think about the situation?

First sentence, fifth paragraph of my reply..."I'm certainly not proposing that we have national health care."

What I did say, if you chose to read what I wrote, is that for all intents and purposes from the doctor's perspective, we already have many of the disadvantages associated with national health care, socialized medicine, or whatever else you might wish to call such a system. Doctors and hospitals no longer have the authority to prescribe what they believe is proper treatment. Their ability to make a living is tightly controlled by a table of prescribed payments that is declining each year. The attractiveness of a career in medicine IS declining, as is reflected in medical school enrollments and the closure of medical schools themselves.

Healthcare in the U.S. is controlled by the insurance companies and the corporations, unions or other organizations that engage them to administer healthcare benefits. While one might call it the "free market", the results are very much the same as if healthcare was provided by a single payor, like the government. I went on to say that if the federal government was that single payor, the issue of tort reform needed to control runaway malpractice litigation and the skyrocketing malpractice premiums, would be essentially resolved.

Please READ what I said. I'm not necessarily recommending government sponsored healthcare. What I am saying is that we already are experiencing many of the disadvantages under our current system that many of you resist with knee-jerk precision.

Don't just read what people write with the thought that you will automatically post a critical response. Think about it sometimes...please.

P.S. Thanks, Steve, for the amplification of why medical malpractice litigation would likely decline precipitously if cases had to be adjudicated in federal courts. And I apologize for using the "sleazy lawyer" term. You were correct in calling me out for that.

No apology necessary, as I too (and probably have) can also get caught up in the moment, and that's all that really happened.

We are in agreement that nationalizing the medical occupations is the sure road to disaster for the medical profession and those it services.

Funny, but no one has yet to bring up the role of state licensing authorities and medical disciplinary boards, and how well (or not) they actually police the medical profession. If these authorities/boards were more vigorous, I wonder whether there would be fewer preventable medical errors and subsequently fewer medical malpractice suits?

[Guest]

...but when the term "personal injury attorney" comes up, I almost always think of John Edwards. Maybe he has cast a shadow on my mental image of his profession.

[Guest]

You folks read what you want to read into anything someone writes here. Obviously, your minds are made up. Why bother with any sort of discourse that might possibly cause one to think about the situation?

Hmmmm You folks, huh? You know something, I come here to relax and converse with the nice people here. When I want to read a long convoluted article...I file it and read it at my own convenience. There is one thread here that is controlled basically by two people. I have nothing against that and it seemed these two people really knew what they were talking about and enjoyed each others company. Now it is being carried over into this thread.
It is really hard to comment on a bill that the republicans are still trying to get their hands on it and make heads or tails.
There I said it and my rant is over ( that is your cue to clap your hands and yell hallelujah)
Now back to your regularly scheduled talk on a bill that I know absolutely nothing about.:jester: