Jan
15
Health care reform meeting set
Readers have been requesting a thread about one of the biggest issues of recent years — health care reform — and I finally have a local angle to tie it to.
Docs 4 Patient Care, a politically neutral, grassroots coalition of physicians, will sponsor a town hall meeting to discuss health care reform at 6:30 p.m., Thursday, Jan. 21 at the Doubletree Guest Suites and Conference Center, 2111 Butterfield Road. The meeting is slated to run about three hours.
With the U.S. Senate set to reconvene next Tuesday, the issue of health care reform is likely to once again heat up,” wrote a DGreport reader and Docs 4 Patient Care associate.
“As you know, these bills did not go the conventional route of going to conference. Rather, these negotiations are being held behind closed doors. With this in mind, we want to do our best to inform the public of the implications of the proposed health care reform measures on their health care.”
The reader, who attended the organization’s Chicago rally, described it as a “passionate, but loosely organized group — because they are busy treating patients — that has grown across the country.
“It is so incongruous to see physicians in lab coats speaking into bullhorns.”
The reader’s recommendation: Ask your doc how they think health care reform should be accomplished. “None I’ve spoken to think the current bill has any useful components.”
University of Chicago physician Dr. Mark G. Neerhoff , a Docs 4 Patient Care member, shared his views in an OpEd piece in yesterday’s Washington Times.
Feel free to share your own thoughts here — or at the town meeting. A second Chicago area meeting is slated for the North Shore.
Just looking at their web site I’d doubt the “politically neutral” moniker. Sounds more like the tea party folks in white lab coats.
I have asked my physicians and they’re not negative on most of the proposed reforms.
Sure there are a lot of details to criticize, but as a senior on medicare, I’ve got to say the system works pretty well.
Politics are irrelevant. It seems obvious to anyone, Red, Blue or Purple that the House and Senate bills are a hot mess. All Americans lost here. Any opportunity to control costs, increase access and competition was squandered with skeevy backroom deals and payouts to special interests.
It is no surprise that folks like their Medicare. Enjoy. It will be bankrupt in a few short years.
More and more providers and practitioners are opting out of Medicare treatment like the Mayo clinic in Glendale, AZ. They just can’t afford the fractional payment that might, maybe, come months,or years, after the date of service. Could your business operate that way?
On the local front Loyola had to restructure it’s hospital and med school and layed off hundreds last year largely due to Medicaid non-payment. What happens to jobs, related services and quality of care when Good Sam can no longer handle the burden?
To cite the Washington Times and Heritage Foundation is that really a fair perspective on the Health Care Debate? Or is there no such thing as fair journalism when it comes to such a debatable issue as goverenment health care reform?
Instead of the above ad hominem attacks it might be valuable to consider the bullet points listed on the site detailing how professionals feel responsible reform might occur.
As one who has attended an event I can vouch that none of the group’s MD s ,DOs, RNs, PTs, etc. spout any one political ideology. But all are invited to attend and inform themselves as best they can.
I guess the We can take a lead from Massachusetts…. The current healthcare bill is out of control and the CENTER of the country doesn’t like it…. Kennedy is rolling in his grave!
Cancel that meeting, no need. Scott Brown wins in the bluest state in the union tonight!! Guess the Presidents coat tails aren’t what they used to be after only 1 year…bummer…
Keep the meeting. The hoi polloi have spoken: we don’t want what Nancy Pelosi thinks is best, but health care insurance, health care costs are still too high, and there’s still lots of politics in the mix..
(Fact information)
All members of the Massachusetts GOP/Republican Party
Willard Mitt Romney Governor of Massachusetts 2003-2007
Jane Maria Swift Governor of Massachusetts April 2001 to January 2003
JArgeo Paul Cellucci Governor of Massachusetts anuary 7, 1999 – April 10, 2001
William Floyd Weld GovernorMassachusetts from 1991 to 1997
“Democratic Presidential candidate Michael Dukakis was the governor of Massachusetts at the time of Horton’s release, and while he did not start the furlough program. The State inmate furlough program was actually signed into law by Republican Governor Francis W. Sargent in 1972 (Wikipedia).”
The debate still continues… health for all Americans!!!
What I meant to say was health care for all Americans!! This informative meeting with health care workers should also include health care workers from Canada, Great Britain, Sweden and other modern nations that are providing quality health care for all its citizens. Let’s not have some major corporate cable/TV/radio stations mouth pieces spin decide our future health care system. We our Americans, we think for ourselves; we don’t need mouth piece telling what books to read and how to interpret them. Progressive according to the Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary means. “1 a: of, relating to, or characterized by progress b: making use of or interested in new ideas, findings, or opportunities.” Progressive is not an under-cover, dirty word for communism or socialism.
I so want to comment…..But I can not do what I want to say justice in the written form.. I knew I should have paid more attention at SIU
Your source is Wikipedia, nice the online encyclopedia anyone can edit! Sweet!
No problem Earl. Here is a partial CV for one of the speakers- Victoria Harris, M.D.
Emergency Medicine, Rogue Valley Medical Center, Medford, OR
Masters Degree in business, focus on Healthcare Economics, Stanford University,
Focus: Socialized medicine, healthcare in the UK and Canada
Having worked and studied in those countries she can well expound on the “quality” of the health care there.
Massachusetts is more of a referendum on “politics as usual” than it is about people’s rights to affordable healthcare. Massachusetts voters don’t want to pay for Nebraska’s Medicare in perpetuity (that is how the NE Senator’s vote was purchased in the healthcare reform process). Most US voters don’t think that union members with “Cadillac” healthcare plans should be exempt from taxes payed by nonunion members. And voters object to one party (the Dems in this case) excluding the other party in the reconciliation of House and Senate versions of healthcare reform.
The healthcare reform process has taken on the look of old fashioned back-room politics — part of a sordid tradition that persists in Chicago, Springfield, the White House (with an IL flavor) and the US Congress. I hope that the voters of Illinois follow the Massachusetts lead and make the next election a referendum on politics as usual. The current Administration came in a year ago as an agent of change — but a funny thing happened on the way to the White House.
The legislation currently coming out of Washington could have been healthcare reform, immigration policy, banking reform, or whatever. Still, the voters of Massachusetts would have rejected the behaviors of the scoundrels for creating bad legislation by blatantly giving certain special interests consideration over others — and they would have rejected the back room exclusionary practices of the current Washington scoundrels. The issue is not healthcare — it is about badly-behaved elected officials who prevent good legislation from happening for all of us.