health care hillary

hillary joined john edwards and mitt romney in crafting a "universal" health care plan.

problem is, the plans all have two things in common that keeps them from being truly revolutionary --

1. they are employer based health care plans
2. they are managed by private businesses that seek to increase profits not health

until we move away from these two things we will never have real change.

the worst part about all of this is that people get caught up on labels they don't understand. for instance, consider these two points:

1. people get all worked up about "socialized" medicine but if you say "universal" health care people are at least willing to talk

2. people have no idea how close we are to socialized medicine already and how well it actually does work -- medicare/medicaid/hillsborough county health care plan and the VA are great examples

well, i'm going to the physician's for national health care leadership conference on November 2 to learn more and work harder for a real alternative. in the meantime, i'm done apologizing to my colleagues for my support of health coverage for every person in this country.

the bottom line is that it is time to find a way to make it work - every other democratic, industrialized country handles this - we're the best country in the world, so why can't we?

now, just convince health care professionals that their salaries won't drop to minimum wage and we won't have to drive old beat up chevy's when the day comes that our patients can afford to see us and we can treat our patients based on medical decisions (of course that is half stuck in the muck of CYA medicine as well) not ways that maximize HMO profits.

Here is the Physician for a National Health Care Plan response to Clinton's plan:

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2007/september/hillary_clintons_a.php