IT DEPENDS ON WHO YOU TALK TO!

IT DEPENDS ON WHO YOU TALK TO!

(National Center for Policy Analysis/Frazer Chronicle)

I had an interesting and vigorous conversation with my doctor this morning about, first my own personal health,  then about the state of the health insurance industry and finally about how many doctors today,  are preforming. It was an education for me to say the least, and sadly, not so much for my doctor.

First and foremost, my doctor is a flaming conservative, a dyed in the wool "less government is better" kind of guy. I think that my doctor is one of the very best in the entire Green Bay area, with his "down home," personal approach to doctoring, I look forward to my visits every 3 to 6 months, depending on what my blood work dictates.

My doctor is engaging, always informative, and comes directly to the point with regards to my condition, what I need to do, and what will happen if I don't. He has been "on point" with every aspect of my health and my wife's as well, we are lucky to have him for our health needs.

As most of us know, our health system is in big trouble, not so much for the services offered, but how payments are made, and how easily we can get these services. I have blogged before about how a health clinic sees us as we walk through the door, whether we have insurance or not and to what extent our injury or condition will add to their coffers.

It's okay, I understand, health care is a business, and they have a bottom line the same as a super market, a cafe or a foundry. There are expenses that are generated through their services and they have every right to regain them and to make a profit as well. People in need of medical treatment or health maintenance, in the final analysis are the "life-blood" of a medical clinic and the doctors that work there.

What my doctor told me created questions.....not answers, and to me, seemed to make the subject way more complicated then it needed to be. I do not feel that things are as complicated as people make them out to be. Most of what we need in our everyday world is basic, boring and easy to see and understand.

Each and every one of us needs "3 hots and a cot," that's it, everything else is window dressing, and actually unnecessary.....for life. We are born, we live and we die, can it be any simpler then that, what we acquire along the way is baggage, isn't ours and we can't keep.

My dad, when informed that he "couldn't take his money with him when he died" responded, "then I'm not going." Poor silly father, we buried him when he was 74, and divided his money amongst us kids.

Health care and how we pay for it is quite like my father, a misunderstood subject, with all sorts of illusions. Doctors want their share, clinics want theirs, hospitals and insurance companies also want their "slice of the pie."

The real worry here isn't for the patient, rather for each person's wallet who provide services, and again, it's okay. However, $25 dollars for an aspirin, $140,000 for a hearing procedure, $5,000,00 to inject a liquid into a person's back.....come on, "get off my back."

Want to fix the system, here's the easy answer.....as well as the complicated one, I can sum it up in exactly one word.....schedule. That's right, for each and every medical procedure, there is one scheduled cost, band aids and aspirin included.

Who makes up the cost schedule, and how can the schedule be safeguarded against ramped fraud, aha.....again, easy. You appoint a panel of doctors, health care workers, insurance reps and concerned citizens and they meet....."in a public forum" and decide the costs of all medical procedures.

A doctor doesn't want to abide by the schedule, a clinic, or a hospital won't work within the established system.....again easy, they lose their licences, they are no longer allowed to practice, or offer services in the United States.

Does this solution sound like socialized medicine.....I don't care, where we are going with the system that is in place today in the United States is breaking well over 50% of the citizenry. Doctors, clinics, hospitals and even insurance companies can make a comfortable living under the system I am proposing, and it only took me an hour to think it up.

Oh how does my plan get paid for, again easy, a tax on (everybody), anybody that works for a living, gets unemployment, is on relief, anybody who generates an income, they pay their health care tax 1st. that's it, uncomplicated as hell.