The hot topic for months has been universal healthcare in the US. Most of the arguments in favor of it are pretty far off the mark. There are lots of things the government could do to improve access & lower costs for all Americans, yet they’re not even entertaining such action. Our leaders choose to ignore all practical solutions, forego simple fixes & acknowledge their own role in the exponential rise of healthcare costs. There are intelligent, efficient, safe & sensible ways the government could make change to benefit everyone. They could increase funding for R&D, thereby limiting the ultimate costs to providers & consumers. They could increase the length of patents; Companies developing new drugs & technology have a very short time to recoup costs & profit from their hard work & investment before generics are allowed. If we lengthen that window, it will help to keep costs in check. Of course, lack of tort reform is a big part of the problem as well. The law can allow reasonable compensation for negligence without allowing unlimited damages but the legal lobby is apparently too generous to our politicians for this to be considered.
Then of course we have the problem of Medicare & Medicaid famously under-reimbursing providers, which drives up the costs for everyone else as providers charge private insurers more to lessen or recoup their losses from treating patients on the government plans. Maybe the most frightening aspect of the situation is the gross misappropriation of taxpayer funds awarded to criminals who perpetuate fraud nearly unchecked. Obama has said that reigning in the billions in fraud & cutting those losses could help to fund his proposed healthcare plan. I say, get your current house in order before building a new one, especially one that has the potential to ruin the whole neighborhood.
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