BTW...The Kaiser system is much different today. They save money on efficiency and preventative care. Keep in mind I work in the Health Care Environment and I've seen the inner workings of the system. There is a lot wrong with the system and most of it has to do with inefficiency, redundancy and sky rocketing malpractice costs.

You can thank the lawyers for a large part of the mess we are experiencing in health care...That said there is a lot of blame to go around.

The corruption does not originate in the govenrment, it is because of the private industry. The problem is that when you have a government agency regulate private industry (such as the FDA regulating the drug industry), you end up with corruption. It is the nature of the system.

Does it suprise you that the congressman who wrote the Medicaid bill a couple of years ago was later hired to become the president of the pharma lobby at a salary of seven figures per year?

Or does it surprise you when you look at the FDA and find out that most of the people running the FDA are former board members of the companies that they are in charge of regulating?

That would be like hiring former convicts to regulate the prison system.

That is what you get when you mix private industry with government. The solution is to not mix the two. Get rid of the money, because that is what the corruption is all about -- Money. I say that you pay the doctors, nurses and research people very well. But there is no need for profit to enter the equation. Doctors, Nurses and Scientists will do just as well of a job if they are working for a big corporations or if they are working for the government.

You mentioned the VA. The reason the VA has problems is not because of lack of effort from the doctors or other medical staff. The reason is because they are underfunded and lack enough doctors and staff. Instead, they have a shortage of doctors, shortage of facilities (there are long wait lists), and an overall lack of proper funding. It has nothing to do with being government run. The lack of funding is because congress and the president have chosen to cut their budget year after year. The lack of funding is not some oversight or mistake due to lazy government employees.

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my experience on X5world when I spend too much
time posting in political threads in the lounge...

So you want the GOVERNMENT to dictate what operations you can and can't have? Man have you ever been sick? A close family member of mine had cancer and was refused a drug, legal in Germany, because the FDA didn't approve of it yet. The drug stopped all symptoms from chemotherapy that cause skin ulcers. Yeah, go government...love to have them involved with their religious methodologies in medicine. You can NOT open that door. A government is not a cure-all for societies problems. I can't figure if you are exceptionally pro-government or full heartedly against it In some cases you want powers taken away, others you want drastically increased....

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An unwavering defender of those I see worth protecting.

"promote the general welfare, not provide the general welfare"

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

No Eric...It originates in Man. If you eliminate all the private industry you will still have corruption. If you eliminate all the money in the world you will still have corruption. Man will continue to use whatever means possible to gain power and win influence.

Next you will want the government to develop a drug which takes the drive out of man so we can all live in peace and harmony.

Your world is frightening.

Yes. We live in a democracy and we elect our leaders, so yes I feel comfortable with our leaders dictating that more than some insurance company who obviously makes more of a profit by providing less care to me -- a sure sign that they will decide on not providing enough care, as was the case with this girl who died.

Obviously someone has to decide, unless you are wealthy enough to pay for your own health care out of pocket and then you can obviously do whatever you want.



I don't want someone making decisions who benefits financially from making the decision one way or the other. I want someone making the decision who does not have a personal stake in the outcome. It does not matter whether the issue is going to war or deciding on health care. If private industry (i.e. "special interests" as John McCain like to call them) has the ability to influence this person or group of people, then I don't want them making the decision.

If our election system is going to stay the same as it currently is, then it doesn't matter who makes the decision as the government are just puppets of private industry anyway. Whether the insurance company decides or some government body, the outcome will be the same.

We need to reform our democracy and have publicly funded elections, and eliminate the influence that the lobbies have on our elected officials. If we do that, we will eliminate much of the corruption in government, and then I will be comfortable with the government making more decisions.

Until then, you might as well have Haliburton and Lockheed decide when we should go to war, and have Pfizer and Merck decide on what drugs get approved by the FDA, because those companies are making the decisions anyway. Why not just make it more obvious to everyone.

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my experience on X5world when I spend too much
time posting in political threads in the lounge...

You guys got to stop listening to the news media. Who is to decide whether a surgery is experimental? Sure, liver transplant is relatively new compared to lung and heart transplants, but still have been around for years. The doctors themselves said in the released statement that the liver transplant is NOT experimental. Researched have shown that the success rate for liver transplant is between 70% to 95% depending on the hospital that performed the surgery. This was measured on survival rate of 1 year or longer post-operation. Would you take that chance when put in that situation? The fact of the matter is NOT the initial cost of the $250,000 liver transplant procedure, but the associated costs of the aftercares which can run into the millions and the insurance company took this into account on deciding the life and death of an individual. I definitely agree with Eric that it should be left to the doctors to decide in the patient's best interest, NOT some bean counter sitting thousands of miles away running a cost/investment analysis.

Before, you say I'm full of it; my mom just went through the entire liver transplant operation ordeal, so we've done some research on the topic. Luckily for my mom, she was poor enough to have both medi-cal and medi-care, which beared the brunt of most of the bills. The doctors specifically told her to NOT do anything stupid like enrolling into any medical supplemental insurance prior to the transplant knowing that similar fiasco with the insurance company would occured had she enrolled. I know that government run agencies isn't the solution to this complex health issue, but it definitely beats any HMO plans out there at the moment. During my mom's ordeal, never once, did we had to get permission from medi-care or medi-cal to do anything. The doctors need to perform a procedure, we sign the consent, and the procedure gets done. That's it and that's the way it should be with HMOs - get out of the way and just let the doctors do their job. Afterall, there's no time to waste when you're dealing with a life and death situation.

dkl...Sorry to hear about your mom's ordeal and I'm glad she made it through the surgery. My comment about experimental surgeries was not meant to include liver transplants. It was a general comment about drawing the line somewhere and having health insurance. Little do you know Medi-Care and Medi-Cal also limit services so the fact that you were able to get the procedure was pretty lucky. That does not happen all the time with everyone. It has more to do with government oversight which sometimes allows and sometimes doesn't. Unfortunately it becomes a lucky roll of the dice.

What should happen here is when people come up for open enrollment they should avoid choosing Cigna. If enough people move away from Cigna due to this publicity Cigna will lose money and change their policy. That is how the free market works.

I didn't focus on "why" they deemed it experimental, that is a whole other issue. And I didn't attempt to answer why. The fact is it was deemed experimental.

__________________

An unwavering defender of those I see worth protecting.

"promote the general welfare, not provide the general welfare"

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.