Now, it’s time to look at McCain’s ideas. Remember, I am a conservative, so I’ll probably agree with more of McCain’s ideas.

For John McCain, I deleted his explanation and just save in my comments. View the entire paragraphs at his website. Again the quotes are from the website and everything else is my comment.

“Making Health Insurance Innovative, Portable and Affordable

John McCain Will Reform Health Care Making It Easier For Individuals And Families To Pick Up Insurance.”

McCain wants to consume competition and eliminate situation lines for health coverage. This is going to tick (I changed to tick at the last minute) off some state insurance commissioners. Insurance is governed by the state. They do need to create universal policies, as they did with Medicare supplements. This is a lot of work and I’m not sure it can be done.

“John McCain Will Reform The Tax Code To Offer More Choices Beyond Employer-Based Health Insurance Coverage.”

Here, you decide your conception and the government pays the premium to the company. This makes sense, because if they sent the money to all individuals to pay their plan, you all know someone’s not going to do it. This section is what the commercial Obama runs that says, “and the money goes to the insurance companies.” (This is said in an ominous hiss.) Of course it does, it pays the premiums. You can also choose your employers plan. It also allows for those that are frugal and don’t utilize all the money, to have it put in a Health Savings Account.

“John McCain Proposes Making Insurance More Portable.”

This is not just Cobra or coverage for preexisting conditions, but the ability to hold the insurance even if you retire early or become a stay at home parent.

“John McCain Will Encourage And Expand The Benefits Of Health Savings Accounts (HSA) For Families.”

A Health Savings Account is like an IRA for medical costs. The money is yours and it goes to your children. It combines with a high deductible and if the money isn’t needed, you can get a higher deductible the next year. The cost of the catastrophic view (the high deductible insurance) is low and much of the premium goes into the Health Savings Account. This plan has been around a while be he’s expanding it and I’VE ALWAYS Adore THE Belief! It’s super neat and puts the consumer in charge of his medical expenses.

“Health Care Costs.”

This part is rhetoric and of no value.

“CHEAPER DRUGS: Lowering Drug Prices.”

I hadn’t read the entire thought prior but am doing it as I write the article. I’m glad to see that this is also in McCain’s plan, just as it was in Obama’s.

“CHRONIC DISEASE: Providing Quality, Cheaper Care For Chronic Disease.”

Okay, I made fun of something like this on Obama’s plan but McCain went on to explain that emphasis would be placed on early prevention, and building up the health care industry by focusing on preventive medicine. John isn’t planning on sitting by anyone’s bedside either.

“COORDINATED CARE: Promoting Coordinated Care.”

I had to use McCain’s bear words for this. For anyone that has ever had any treatment of any kind from a hospital, this is heaven sent. I drove myself in to the emergency room when my heart raced over 250 bpm. The doctor slapped an ice pack on my neck and it cost me $3000, I think. I kept getting so many bills and there really weren’t that many people that saw me. If you’ve ever found yourself wondering what the heck you’re paying for, this should be your highlight. Here’s the direct quote.

“We should pay a single bill for high-quality disease care which will make every single provider accountable and responsive to the patients’ needs. “

ONE bill!!! It’s about time.

“GREATER ACCESS AND CONVENIENCE”

Government promoted walk-in clinics in retail outlets.

“INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY”

Use more Internet services, which allow doctors to cross state lines to practice.

“MEDICAID AND MEDICARE”

McCain’s own words

“We must reform the payment systems in Medicaid and Medicare to compensate providers for diagnosis, prevention and care coordination. Medicaid and Medicare should not pay for preventable medical errors or mismanagement.”

“SMOKING”

Offer free smoking end programs. (Yeah, like I’m going to lift him up on it)

“Residence FLEXIBILITY: Encouraging States To Lower Costs”

This gives the states the right to net alternative ways to insure members under Medicaid.

“TORT REFORM”

Again, I’ll use McCain’s words.

“Passing Medical Liability Reform. We must pass medical liability reform that eliminates lawsuits directed at doctors who follow clinical guidelines and adhere to safety protocols. Every patient should have access to legal remedies in cases of bad medical practice but that should not be an invitation to endless, frivolous lawsuits.”

“TRANSPARENCY”

Give the patient more information. If you go to a good doctor, you already should have this. If you don’t, find another doctor.

“Confronting the Long-Term Challenge

John McCain Will Develop A Strategy For Meeting The Challenge Of A Population Needing Greater Long-Term Care.”

McCain opened the subject but had nothing definitive. He wants to find alternatives to the system before its too late. Babes and younguns’ we baby boomers are soon to be a huge group of senile citizens. Daily, I demand whether I’ve crossed the line yet. I’m disappointed there was no firm idea, but glad at least it was mentioned.

Halt at the candidate’s websites and see what the platforms are yourself. This is my interpretation. You need to read and decide it for yourself.

Barack Obama on Health Care:

http://www.barackobama.com/issues/healthcare/#make_health_insurance_work

John McCain on Health Care: http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/19ba2f1c-c03f-4ac2-8cd5-5cf2edb527cf.htm

When you hear numbers about the 40 million uninsured Americans, or those whose are in bankruptcy due to their medical illness, the obvious solution is for the government to offer a public option for health care insurance. Surely, the private insurance industry would hate this as they would be bound to lose paying customers, and thus the struggle between the haves and the have-nots continues in Washington. Will a health care bill be passed in 2009?

Perhaps, perhaps not.

But I think that taking a page from the late senator Ted Kennedy’s playbook could improve health care access while the economic environment improves: neighborhood community health clinics. After all, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and it will take considerably longer to reform the health care, pharmaceutical and insurance industries which employee a large number of Americans and have significant lobbying power.

Undeniably, there are areas of the country where there exists a severe shortage of doctors, and areas of the country where poverty is rampant and access to health care is almost non-existent. While the government can talk about providing loans for doctors to work a couple of years with underserved patients, or provide grants for studies of such disparities, why can’t the government build hospitals and clinics as a non-profit organization, and offer trial government sponsored health care to those who live in these underserved communities?

The late Senator Kennedy worked to establish community health care clinics during his 47 years in the United States Senate, and undoubtedly this has provided health care to hundreds of thousands of people who would not otherwise have health care.

For most successful huge academic or scientific endeavors, a prototype was built before the final product was offered. If the government could on a small scale prove that a government run health care program could be both less expensive than other health care plans and offer good medical care then this might provide the political support for nationalization of such programs.

Take a rural community that has only a few primary care physicians, and has a substantial number of unemployed people, or people who would be classified as the working poor in that they don’t make enough to buy private health insurance, but don’t qualify for medicaid. The government could give funds for a health care clinic, or even hospital, to be built which would operate on a non-profit scheme, and which would exercise an experimental government health care view, perhaps based on medicare, would strive to offer excellent health care, and keep costs down.

The mere construction of such a government funded hospital or clinic would probably boost the local economy of the community as well, in addition to providing jobs. Of course it would be an expensive investment, but if preventive health care was focused upon, it could end up saving dollars spent on health care later on due to obesity related diseases.

Currently, the only way to test a public health insurance option would be to pass federal regulations and start funding programs that nobody knows what the full effects would be. A public option might be very successful and help a large number of Americans obtain health care, it is the unknown factor that has frightened a large number of Americans. While there are many models for what a public option might watch like, such as a the Indian Health Services health care system which provides health care to Native Americans, to Medicare and Medicaid; until a real world prototype is tested, hysteria and fear radiating from constituents may lead politicians to forgo passage of healthcare this year.

Even politicians in Congress are looking for real world tested health care insurance prototypes such as community Co-Ops. Funding a small scale prototype public option, ideally at a prototype hospital of the future which focuses on keeping costs down while providing grand care, would give distinguished data about how a public or non-profit insurance option could back expand regular health care services to the millions of Americans without it.

Source: Kennedy’s Legacy Lives At Dorchester Health Clinic, http://www.wbur.org/2009/08/26/kennedy-uphams-corner

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