The whole healthcare system needs a complete overhaul. Healthcare has become more and more unobtainable due to the cost of expensive treatments and modalities. Drug companies and others that sell healthcare products are the ones that pay for research and developing new treatments to bring to market. As corporations, they are interested in the MOST PROFITABLE treatments and not the most effective treatments. Furthermore, these companies make billions on selling products that treat disease and would end up going bankrupt if cures were actually discovered. What would happen to Eli Lily if diabetes was cured? They would go under. Do you think Eli Lily is interested in finding a cure that would put them out of business? Of course not. Too much money in insulin, infusion pumps, glucometers and strips, etc.

Insurance companies also are in it for the money. They contract with doctors to pay them highly discounted and reduced fees and they are taking higher and higher premiums from their insured to basically transfer the discounted rates to their insured. With higher deductibles and co-pays, the insurance company hardly has to pay out anything. For example, an insurance company will pay a maximum of $40 as a per diem for therapy regardless of how many therapies are done. The doctor will get $40 dollars no matter what he does. If the insured has a $40 co-pay which is quite common, then the insurance company doesn’t have to pay a penny. The insured pays the doctor directly.

Money needs to be spent on independent research to discover and bring to the public the most effective and least costly treatments in order to get the costs under control. We rely way to heavily on private corporations to do this research which leads to more and more expensive treatments. Research is extremely expensive but well worth it in order to contain health costs.

The general public should be afforded the same health care discounts that are negotiated by insurance companies with doctors and hospitals. The government can negotiate a fair price and it does not have to be made mandatory. However, if docs are willing to provide care at these discounted rates already, I would be surprised if they chose not to participate in this plan. I am sure that plenty will.

The government should start or encourage non-profit or co-op insurance companies to compete with the existing companies. This should also go a long way in knocking down costs. CEOs of insurance companies should not be making hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation while hard working people are being denied even basic healthcare.

There is no question that any attempt to provide good healthcare for everyone in our great nation within the existing framework will be so prohibitively expensive as to either bankrupt this country, deny health services based on subjectively based criteria (so called death panels) or both. Fundamental change is required or this nightmare will never end.