DUMP THE MIDDLE MAN!

There's a commercial on TV where a cute young girl asks the question, "So what does the dishwasher do?" I ask a similar question, What do health insurance companies do? Oh, I know they repay some, key word 'some' of the money we lay out for our most expensive healthcare in the World but what do they actually do? For one thing they make fortunes for themselves and that's clear. Another thing they do is funnel a small amount of their ill-gained fortunes back to legislators who promise to continue the practice of allowing them to rape consumers. But unless and until our lawmakers change the entire system there is nothing we the people can do to stop the money drain on our savings. Without going back to the beginnings of the fraudulent laden healthcare insurance industry and pointing fingers at such evil uncaring creatures as Ronnie Reagan & friends we need to look at where we are now and see if there is a path back to sanity. One big question should start the ball rolling so that it trickles down to an end to the American frustration with our healthcare, How can we get rid of the useless middle man, aka the health insurance company? Not in any order here are a few areas we need to concentrate on: 1 - Government MUST negotiate drug pricing with WAY too big Big Pharma for our Medicare programs 2 - Congress should look into hospital pricing on all things from surgical and emergency services to billing for items such as aspirin. (In some cases they charge over $50 per pill plus extra added for the time an aide takes to administer it!) 3 - Aside from Medicare Congress must decide if it wants to allow the drug industry the luxury of charging Americans 40 times more than they do other countries such as Canada. 4 - Understanding the Research and Development costs are high Congress must allow the pharmaceutical industry some leeway on profits. That does not mean allowing them to gouge especially when a drug has been on the market for decades at a certain price and now it's being tripled or worse! 5 - Doctors should not be immune to the cost audits as some of them charge incredibly unreasonable rates for routine procedures. Those are the ones that currently appear on the "EOBs" (explanation of benefits) consumers receive from their health insurance companies. (When the initial charge submitted by the doctor is $2,760 but negotiated and agreed upon cost is noted as $175 and $20 is deducted for the original paid 'co-pay' then $100 is covered by the insurance plan and the balance of $55 going toward the year's deductible. And don't forget to pay your premiums on time or you may be liable for the entire $2,760 next time!) 6 - Stop allowing drug companies to flood the airways with commercials touting drugs whose benefits take up 15 seconds and the sped up reading of the warnings take the remaining 40 seconds. We banned cigarette ads as misleading and harmful - These should fall under the same heading! And what's up with, "Tell your doctor if you have …" SHOULDN'T HE/SHE KNOW? 7 - How about cutting back on expenditures for what Eisenhower called "The Vast Industrial Military Complex" and using those wasted billions on covering some of the costs consumers are hit with for their healthcare? 8 - Finally ban any member of Congress who has a say in our healthcare from benefitting from a personal or financial relationship WITH corporations in the healthcare industry! While this last point should be a 'no-brainer' it currently seems as though the opposite is a requirement!! (Do we really need to spend billions on more B-52 like bombers etc. for our armed forces when even the Pentagon says we don't?) 8a - END CITIZEN'S UNTED AND ALL CAMPAIGN DONATIONS FROM THE ENTIRE HEALTHCARE IDUSTRY! Getting the money out of campaigns and elections would go a long way toward fixing many of our problems in America! And because I realize none of the above will ever come to fruition or even be debated as long as the culprits have total control of Congress (one political party in particular) I ask that we at least tax the profits of the large corporations and remove their 'unfair to the rest of us' loopholes they get away with using to hide their illicit gains! Those of us at the bottom pay our fair share, why shouldn't they?