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CNN's Sanjay Gupta approached for Surgeon General
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  1. Daschle is not a lobbyist.
  2. Not recently I guess?
  3. I dont care where the ideas come from either but implementing them is something nobody has been able to do. Why do you think Daschle can when all he did was compile widely circulated ideas and written a book passing them off as his own?

    I would still like to know why you see him as an expert.

    While these ideas are great they still dont go far enough in controlling health care costs.

    Drug companies control all the bio-tech research funding. They actively recruit researchers and include them in profit plans on new drugs. How good do you think that research is? Think there is any ulterior motives? Some do.

    How about a salary cap for medical professionals and a cap on how they are paid? Nobody wants to touch this with a ten foot pole and its always defeated in congress. More and more doctors are getting into medicine for the money and those already in it see income potential for doing unnecessary care procedures. They are also choosing specialties because of the pay scale instead of the calling. These are both huge problems. There may not be many general practitioners in the future while specialists rake in ginormous dollars while expending a disproportionate share of costs.

    How about level billing for insured and non-insured patients? This happens in medical as well as dental. Go to a doctor without insurance and see what your bill would be for a simple procedure like say, removing some moles. He is going to quote you the same price he would submit to an insurance company of a covered patient. However, when he gets paid by the insurance company he doesnt get the full amount, only the covered amount. Same thing with Dentists. I dont have Dental insurance but my dentist agreed to bill me insurance company rates. I pay for my services when rendered. An uninsured patient with money is a gold mine for practitioners. They get double pay, cash on the spot. Something is very wrong with this.
  4. The link I pasted to you shows that the CMS data reports 35% of the healthcare dollar comes from private insurance. That's where the "third goes to private bureaucracy and profits" remark of the doctor comes from.

    His statement is only true if private insurance companies paid no claims and simply took people's premium money. THe government's own data shows it to be more like 5% going to administrative costs.
  5. Only if you want to bankrupt the country. Socialism never works.
  6. He's sponsored health legislation, he's researched the history of government health plans, he wrote a book on his ideas, he worked in the house and senate for 28 years voting on health-related bills. Moreover he knows how to get business done in Washington. You're really working hard to try to make him look unqualified.

    Most of that research is pretty damn good, it has to be or they will find a new boy. And drug companies don't control all medical research. Government funding of university research, like at Pennington, is doing a lot, too. Scientific research can't exist with "ulterior motives". Research findings have to be repeatable and problems will be found out eventually, forcing researchers to be very meticulous. It's the bio-tech administrators that are the profit problem, not their researchers, who usually don't get to hold the patents and copyrights.

    You want a salary cap put on your job? Physician pay is not the problem and people don't mind paying a doctor a high wage. It is administrative costs, corporate profits, and waste that eat up the money.

    Like they do with Medicare already? That's exactly what a universal health insurance plan would eliminate. Everyone would have coverage at negotiated and competitive rates.
  7. 1. It's not socialism and you know it.

    2. What's a better plan, then?
  8. Im not working hard at all, he just stole ides from other people and claims them as his own. Do you disagree that his ideas have already been proposed and covered by reputable sources? Just because someone works in the house and senate and votes on health bills doesn't make him an expert. In this arena, I would favor scholars and non-profit health care economists as experts. Not a career politician.



    Drug companies clearly control the VAST majority of research. The research may or may not be good but we dont exactly know, and wont ever know, how many dollars are wasted on manipulated results because of the drug companies motives. When you enlist and reward the bosses of those who perform research that is a mighty big temptation to influence findings.

    My job, and most jobs, are not a monopoly. My job is results oriented. I dont produce, I dont get paid. Health care providers are taking advantage of a need that everyone requires and milk the system for maximum profit regardless of performance. The salary cap should cover how they are paid based on recognized accepted procedures. Nobody minds that a doctor earns an upper level income but many of them perform unnecessary procedures that results in a bigger pay check and tremendous amounts of wasted dollars.

    It doesnt take a ROAD SCHOLAR to figure this one out. How come nobody in government has ever made this a number one priority on their agenda? The discrepancy of charges for insured vs uninsured is criminal.

    Bottom line IMHO, health care reform will never be resolved because those involved in making policy (like Daschle) serve the almighty lobby's who dont want their gravy train to run out. How can we ever reform a broken system when the same old stooges are running the show? If Obama wants to back up his "Change" mantra, get rid of the old guard and bring in fresh faces. Lifetime politicians are the worst ones to tackle issues like health care reform. They have been at it for 20 years with little to show for it.
  9. Obama seems to be doing the same old shyt, as McCain would have. Woop. We're a nation of pandas who won't F to save their species.
  10. So what? Secretary of HHR is not a nobel prize for innovative thinking. It's a job to make the health care system better and this is what he's proposing. You admit that his plan is basically good. You haven't read his book or his policies, yet you imagine that he has no credentials. :huh:

    Nonsense. They only control the research of the drugs that they have patents on or are working to get patented. Private drug studies have ranged from 26% to 57% of the total published in the last 15 years-- not a vast majority.

    That ain't how the research business operates, amigo. There are checks and balances, peer reviewers, editors, publishers, regulators, patent attorneys, etc. that all this research has to pass through. The only thing the companies have control over is whether or not to publish the information. But its a free country and they are in a proprietary business. You got something against free enterprize?

    Neither is a doctor. There are thousands of doctors, medical plans, clinics and hospitals to choose from

    It works the same way with doctors.

    That's an issue that the checks and balances of an insurance company help control. The waste isn't in doctor's pay, it is in duplication of administrative work, paperwork jungles that have still not gone completely digital, and wasteful spending procedures, especially involving medicare.

    However a Rhodes Scholar probably could.

    How naive. This is a political job! All of Obama's appointees are in political jobs. All of the candidates are politicians! It's a matter of finding the ones with the ideas we like and putting them in a position to try to change things. That's what Obama has done here. Clearly you don't like Daschle for some reason (political?), but you haven't made much of a case for him be incompetent for the job.
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