A Healthcare Contract With America

Obama needs to make a "Healthcare Contract with America". That is the only way that this idiotic healthcare debate can make any headway.

The current debate is idiotic, because Obama and the Democrats have not clearly defined WTF their healthcare bill IS. They have thrown a 1400-page boogger at the American People.

Here is how it SHOULD be done:

1. Make up a ONE PAGE Healthcare Contract With America. This document should say PRECISELY what the Healthcare bill is going to do. This CAN be done. It should also be ELECTRONIC and contain HYPERLINKS to additional sections that describe the full detail of how and why this should happen, including funding.

2. They can then have 1400 pages of supporting documentation and detail, but ALL of the 1400 pages must be tied into the outline defined on the ONE PAGE Healthcare Contract with America.

For example, the one page document would probably have the following statements with Outline numbers. Statements would be UNAMBIGUOUS:

I. Policy on Prescription drugs
II. Policy on Hospitalization
III. Policy on Public Option insurance (whatever THAT means)
IV. Policy on Choice of doctors
V. Policy on end of life counseling
VI. Policy on testing
VII. Funding requirements and where the money will come from.

If you were to click on any of the above hyperlinks, it would give you either additional information, or a selection of sub-hyperlinks.

When this one page, electronic, Healthcare Contract With America was complete, it would be made accessible to all Americans, along with some blog where comments could be recorded.

Of course, the Healthcare Contract With America would be a FIRST DRAFT. This would NOT by any means be the final version of the bill to be passed.

In truth, this is the approach that Obama SAID that he wanted. Obama repeatedly stated, during the campaign, that it is not what Obama wants that is important, but rather what YOU THE PEOPLE want that is important.

If the above approach is not adopted, then the 1400-page turd that is currently in Congress will almost certainly not pass. And if it does, it will the downfall of the Democrats. Hello 1994. Deja Vu all over again.

Draft 1: 8/26/09

Things to do on the Glide Path

Obama now says that we're on the glide path to Universal Healthcare. Well, here's some things to do while were on it.

As I see it, healthcare is a simple supply and demand situation, like any other business. Prices are very high for two reasons: First, there is a scarcity of resources, which means that supply is low. Second, demand for healthcare is extremely high since it is frequently non-deferrable and of life-and-death importance.

Therefore, you have very high, non-deferrable demand, and relative low supply, due to very high educational requirements and very expensive equipment.

How to fix the problem? Giving EVERYBODY insurance is totally INSANE. That is the equivalent of simply printing more money (an Obama favorite solution). It is particularly INSANE because it adds another 48 million people to the demand side and adds nothing to the supply side.

What we must do on the glide path is to add to the supply side. Here's a few ideas:

1. Build more hospitals. Hospitals are ENORMOUSLY expensive and represent a very large percentage of medical care costs. This is also an excellent economic stimulous.

2. Build more free clinics.

3. Bring in the military to assist in training medical workers (other than doctors and highly trained nurses). During World War II, the military trained tens of thousands of medics and hospital orderlies and even nurses to deal with the tens of thousands of casualties of war.

Free clinics would not be as good as private care, but you get what you pay for.

4. Build more medical schools and nursing schools.

5. Re-evaluate the educational requirements of both doctors and nurses. Is it really NECESSARY for doctors to go thru 4 years of college before entering medical school? Could there be new categories of less-qualified semi-doctors to deal with less critical problems in free clinics and free hospitals?

6. The federal government needs to take a more active role in testing pharmaceuticals. Drug companies claim that their high prices are justified because of all the testing that they do.

So get the Federal Government more involved in drug testing so that prices can be reduced.

7. Put more pressure on for the production of generic drugs.

8. Have government subsidize the manufacture of high-tech medical equipment. The more equipment that is available, the lower the cost.

Further, this is an EXCELLENT economic stimulus. Encouraging the manufacture of high-tech medical equipment would help to rebuild the American manufacturing and technology sectors.

Additional, these are EXPORTABLE products, so they help the balance of trade.

To sum up, if enough work was done on the SUPPLY SIDE of healthcare, we would not need ObamaCare, because there would be plenty of healthcare to go around.

Draft 2: 8/4/09

Save BIG Money! Exterminate ALL Undesirables!

This was in response to a post in Salon advocating throwing end-of-life people into hospices, rather than wasting money on hospitals.

This was a rather painful elaboration of the obvious. Please, give me some morphine so I don't feel the pain.

This silly article is filled with ridiculous generalizations. Does she not realize that MANY people ALREADY choose, or have chosen hospice over hospital when it is clear that death is a certainty?

But WHEN is it an absolute certainty? I know a lady who got lung cancer and was given 6 months to live. Guess what? She lived 2 1/2 more years.

And where do you draw the line? There are A LOT of younger people whose lives are pretty much worthless: Homeless people, drug addicts, alcholics, crazy people, the chronically unemployed, mental retards, career criminals, why not exterminate THEM?

Heck, you have 2 million people in jail. Most of them are worthless losers, but yet they get free healthcare. But yet hardworking senior citizens, reaching the end of their lives, should be just left to rot slowly and helplessly in hospices.

I just LOVE the way this DIMWIT paints a picture of how wonderful hospice is. You just sit there and watch a loved one die without helping them because it's CHEAPER that way. Well maybe if your parents had been so concerned about how much cheaper it was, they would have thrown you in the river at birth. Look at how much money THEY could have saved on healthcare!

And how about getting rid of prison hospitals and just replacing them with hospices? Or better yet, just replace them with gas chambers. Just THINK of the money that we could save!

Matter of fact, it wouldn't be a bad idea to exterminate bloggers. All they do is sit around and blog all day. What makes them any better than old farts who have worked hard all their lives?

But I think this article gives you a clue about what medical care would be like under ObamaCare, since this lady is obviously an ObaMoron. Under ObamaCare, you would have to make your case for survival to some ObaMoron Burocrat, and if you didn't have black skin, and if you weren't a Liberal, then it would be time for you to die.

Sure, we all know how HONEST government burocrats are. Wouldn't you just LOVE to have your fate in their greasy little hands? Just make sure you got a hundred-dollar bill folded up in your palm. Otherwise, you go to the hospice, cracker sucka!!!

Draft 1: 8/4/09