More comments from the community

Simple suggestions, sent to legislators repeatedly. you know, the ones getting rewarded for keeping this chaos going? 1. eliminate all welfare and indigent patient programs, veterans admin ,shriners,etc. incorporate into the system 2. have the 47 million uninsured contribute what they can 3. eliminate the insurance cartel and the lobbyists (aka the 'new mafia') - allowing us to institute a sensible, well run, national health care program. it can be done. nothing will be perfect, but, algorithms , controls in place, it can be done. medicare is a national health care program! not perfect, but, it works, we can extend that to all health care. imagine the quality of life improvement. i see people devastated every day by the present system, from severe to aggravated degrees. just a travesty what is happening to our healthcare system in this wealthy country!
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I am a benefits consultant of 30 years. I have had the priviledge of witnessing the evolution of healthcare in the 80's, 90's and now upon the conclusion of the first decade of the 21st century. So much has changed, but like every industry, ours is reinventing its retro-self and taking on attributes of how health insurance plans were designed prior to the UCR era that began in the 80s. I recently developed a defined contribuion health plan strategy for a small employer client who, prior to implementing my idea, offered no health insurance benefits to his workforce of 14 employees for the past 17 years! What he did do was pay them $300 per month so that they could purchase individual coverage on their own. Some did, some did not, but most of them simply used the money to off-set their spouse's premium contributions under their employer plans. As the workforce aged,
however, their was a big push to adopt a more formal plan of comprehensive coverage. Taking the employer's PEPM budget of $300, I backed into an annual budget of approximately $60,000 and was able to provide a $2 million HDHP catastrophic plan and wrap an HRA/FSA plan around it. I further refined the SPD of the HRA/FSA arrangement to be somewhat specific of what and how the funds of each would apply. Further, I created an employer/employee contribution strategy that included a CPI limit on the employers annual PEPM budget.
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Why not just remove the providers all together and go back to the way it was before the "middle man" had to take his cut. Why not just socialize the medicine for everyone and those who choose to opt out of the universal care can get that money deducted from their taxes each year. This way the people who need the care get it and the people who are rich [deleted] and don't want to give back to their country can keep their filthy money. Health care companies are not needed. They act like the mafia in that they make you think you need them for protection or something. We don't need them at all. We need to pay the doctors directly. Health care should not be a political issue. Living off other people's misery should not be allowed ANYWHERE in this world!
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I have considerable relevant experience as as informatics-type executive at a major managed care organization.