Friday, May 21, 2010

Everyone's Got It

It seems to be all over the place, front pages, blogs, new media, old media, radio talk shows, TV talking heads, and politicians as well.

Everyone and their brother has an opinion and  is an expert on health care, policy and reform. 

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Health is something everyone has, excellent, good, bad or indifferent.  Despite our excellent technology good health is not guarranteed.   It takes careful planning, exercise, good nutrition and an attempt at leading a non-toxic life physically, and emotionally and for most people, spiritually.  Perhaps I should place spiritually first. 

Planning financially is now almost impossible for many people. The employer based funding is still a major issue one that the government only partially dealt with in health reform. A lot of people do not have employer based plans or lose them with career changes.  The current recession has made it more difficult.

The way the reform is structured if I was still an employer I would tell my employees to join a government sponsored health exchange.  It would be cheaper for me to pay the fine than to fund my own health benefit plan.  Not only would I have to pay part of my employees  premium I would have to support a human resources department to administer it.  Obama has no idea of how companies work.

Unlike the government I do not have to do multimillion dollar surveys or fund a think tank and/or foundation to make that decision.  It is pretty much common sense.

For patients and their doctors (as well as you, the taxpayer) there is no good news, however there is a little less bad news.

Committees Unveil Bill To Raise Medicare Payments Until 2013

On Thursday, Democratic leaders on the House Ways and Means and Senate Finance Committees released a summary and finalized legislative text of the so-called "extenders" bill (HR 4213), which would raise doctors' Medicare reimbursements by 1% to 2% annually through 2013, Politico reports (Haberkorn, Politico, 5/20).