Health care bill
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| Thu, 01-22-2009 - 11:16pm |
Medicare for all....check it out and contact your legislators encouraging them to support it.
Today, January 22, 2009, the new, improved version of H.R. 676 is introduced to congress with four differences.
It will not be modeled after the Canadian plan. Instead will be similar to a Medicare for All (not socialized medicine, can pick own docs)
It will be administered by Health and Human Services
The plan is for ALL residents. H & HS will define resident.
2 years of salary up to $100K offered to displaced health insurance workers
Transition from profit hospitals to not-for profit hospitals will be accomplished in the private sector over 15 years.
http://pdamerica.org/misc/676%20Fact%20Sheet%20-%20FINAL.pdf < What the plan offers
Get the additional legislators needed to sponsor it right away. Can't wait until mid-session. Write a sentence or two supporting H.R. 676 and send to your congressional district's legislators. Spread the word. Congress.org - Congressional Directory Find and contact your federal, state, and local officials. www.congress.org/congressorg/directory/congdir.tt

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Drug makers spend more on marketing than research: study
http://www.hshsl.umaryland.edu/general/news/health/2008/01/drug-makers-spend-more-on-marketing-than-research-study.html
Last Updated: Thursday, January 3, 2008 | 10:15 AM ET
CBC News
U.S. drug companies spend almost twice as much on marketing and promoting medications than on research and development, a new Canadian study says.
"These numbers clearly show how promotion predominates over R&D in the pharmaceutical industry, contrary to the industry's claim," the authors write in this week's peer-reviewed journal Public Library of Science Medicine.
Using data from two market research companies, the University of Quebec's Marc-André Gagnon and York University's Joel Lexchin found U.S. drug companies spent $57.5 billion US on promotional activities in 2004 compared
Guild Member since 2009
You bring up a point. Costs for Medicare patients could go down. As you discovered with your 20 year old, the young subsidize the old if they are in the same pool.
A Medicare for all, would cost less per patient, but would require the young to subsidize health care costs of the old. This is a transfer of wealth from the young who have few assets to the old who have on average lots of assets.
Should the healthy young who are relatively asset poor really subsidize the less healthy old who are on average asset rich?
Which is less, $30,000 for 3 people covered by noble, loving, caring, Medicare ... or $12,000 covering 3 people from an evil, non-loving, for profit, private insurance company?
I'll just add, to the best of my understanding Medicare doesn't cover abortions. Are we ready for a national denial of coverage for abortions?>
Serious question, are you suggesting that if private insurance covered
That is a very good idea.
I could care less what drug companies spend on marketing. If it helps them profit from their investment, it will help drive new research.
Our concern should be with drug companies developing new drugs. Without significant profit to reward the significant risk, new drugs won't be developed, or they will be developed very slowly.
This could mean no significant treatment for Alzheimer's in our lifetime, no new treatments for cancer, and for a slew of other medical conditions.
As another poster indicated, people will die without new drug development, who would have lived if new drug development continued.
Medicare should have given her an explanation for the denial.
Should the healthy young who are relatively asset poor really subsidize the less healthy old who are on average asset rich?
My answer to this is "yes."
<If we want Medicare for All, abortions won't be covered.>
Abortion services are currently not included in many private health insurance
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