Health Care? Or Health $
the money that is currently being paid as premiums to the Insurance companies, along with the co-pays and the deductibles (I know that if my wife or I have any medical problems, we have to pay an enormous amount up front, plus 20% of the rest, plus we are cut off at a million dollars lifetime which is chicken feed these days with the expensive technologies), and then what if we cut out the 30% of health care costs nationally which is paper work (it's unbelievable) caused by the 1500 different insurance companies and the endless haggling over who will pay for what which entails a gazillion hours of manpower and more paper work and stress for the patient, and then what if we forced everyone to pay into health care (like social security) so that they can't bop into an emergency room for free treatment, which eventually costs us all more, and then what if we had a single payer system that negotiated with the drug companies so that we would pay the same as everyone else in the world (which is a lot less than we pay in the United States), and then what if we had the clout of a single payer system to stop the insidious “the more tests I order and the more procedures I do, the more money I make, and the more I can operate, even when it's not necessary, the more money I make – because I have to make a lot of money as a doctor because I have to hire an entire staff to argue with the insurance companies and do all the stupid paper work, and then what if we all had a card that we simply presented to our doctor and hospitals and we wouldn't be involved in any haggling or paper work that you almost have to hire an attorney for, or a “health care arbitrator! And what if we could be assured that we wouldn't lose our life savings because of a whim of a fly by night insurance company?
I could think of a lot more; tort reform .etc., and how it would work with socialized medicine, which I support , but this is getting a bit long. Please reply so that we could have a good, unemotional discussion on these points. If our system continues as it is going, only a few of us common folk will have health insurance in the future. Many firms can't afford it anymore and are either hiring part timers whom they don't have to cover, or dropping insurance all together, or raising rates so that there low paid employees can't afford it. (We all don't work for IBM!)
Something quite radical has to be done, but will it? My upcoming article, “Can We Save Our Democracy?” addresses some of these issues at a deeper level. Also, key in “Sick and Wrong : Rolling Stone” for a great, in depth opinion on where health care is now, and where it might be heading.
Anagarika eddie is a meditation teacher at the Dhammabucha Rocksprings Meditation Retreat Sanctuary and author of A Year to Enlightenment. His 30 years of meditation experience has taken him across four continents including two stopovers in Thailand where he practiced in the remote northeast forests as an ordained Thervada Buddhist monk. He livedatWatPah Nanachat under AjahnChah, at WatPah Baan Taad under AjahnMaha Boowa,and at Wat Pah Daan Wi Weg under Ajahn Tui. He had been a postulant at ShastaAbbey,a Zen Buddhist monastery in northern California under RoshiKennett; and a Theravada Buddhist anagarikaat both AmaravatiMonastery in the UK and BodhinyanaramaMonastery in New Zealand, both under AjahnSumedho.The author has meditated with the Korean MasterSuengSahnSunim; with BhanteGunaratana at the Bhavana Society in West Virginia; and with the Tibetan Master TrungpaRinpoche in Boulder, Colorado. He has also practiced at the InsightMeditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, and the ZenCenterin San Francisco.
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