28 June 2009
Changes For Health Care Reform
I think this is my third or fourth post about changing the absence of a national health care plan in the US. As legislation is beginning to surface in Congress, you may want to send your representative in the House and your senators part or all of the bullet point opinions and recommendations.
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I copied these from a letter I just faxed to Nancy-Ann DeParle, Counselor to the President and Director of the White House Office of Health Reform. I wrote to the President some weeks ago. I found Ms. DeParle's resume gave some insight into the several roles she has had that involve health care. She is Obama's advisor on these matters and her corporate, federal agency, private law practice, and investment firm experience and network are extensive. This can all be found by googling her name. The Business Week report of connections and the fact that she once headed HICFA, the predessor of CMS for Medicare. I think I have an inkling about the absence of public lobby organizations "at the table." And, yes, she is another lawyer in the White House.
Here is my input to her today:
HEALTH CARE REFORM
- We desperately need a federal, single-payer health care system, not a federal insurance program among private insurer plans based on employer-based procurement.
- We in this country do not have to reinvent the wheel for a national health service plan.
- The "donut hole" must go, entirely. Pharmacists should play a larger role in matters of policy and practice.
- All federal health care programs should be able to negotiate and receive the lowest prices for all procurement.
VETERANS HEALTH CARE
- Establish the Veterans Health Services (VHS) as a Medicare/Medicaid HMO to enable VHS to receive cost reimbursement and other financial payments the same as Medicare/Medicaid would to private HMOs.
- All veterans receiving Medicare and Medicaid would have the choice, without any means test, to enroll in VHS or in any other qualified HMO like Kaiser Permanente.
ENTITLEMENT PROGRAMS AND POVERTY
- The irony of Congress' requiring means tests, for limiting eligibility for federal programs, is that long-term, future federal entitlement expenditures will increase. We need a new paradigm not based on employment status or a means test.
- Create or require an operational auditing function for health care and entitlement program management of all public and private, public-funded providers.
FUNDING SOURCES
- Look into procurement activities while Cheney and Rumsfeld were in office. A governmental procurement activity deserves the lowest price of all customers. We have to raise taxes plus rearrange some budgets within the Administration.
I hope the current tweaking of the health care system's most visible injustices is only the beginning of full reform. Public health should include the means to keep the public healthy. We deserve better than what we have allowed to accrete into the current, complicated, complex fiefdoms of providers and insurers.
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