It’s not a “perfect” health care bill … no more than the original Constitution was “perfect.” It will be changed. It will be improved.

But it does this: it finally removes the insurance man from his position between the patient and his/her physician.

Now … on to immigration reform.
I call that progressive reform.

Physicians want reform, but not this reform
by Danza Johnson/NEMS Daily Journal1 hr 44 mins ago | 221 views | 0 | 2 | | TUPELO – Dr. Ed Hill, former president of the American Medical Association, and Jason Dees, a family physician, agree that something needs to be done to reform health care, but neither feels the bill passed by the House of Representatives on Sunday is the answer.

“Now that it’s passed, nobody knows what it means and that’s the problem,” said Hill. “No one knows how it will affect them personally and we all are worried about how we are going to pay for it. There are just so many questions to be answered.”

Hill said it reminds him of when Medicare was passed in 1965. He said the Medicare program has done a lot of good things for people, but it has been unable to sustain itself financially.

“This bill is disgraceful and dysfunctional, in my opinion,” Hill said. “I don’t know what’s going on with it and I’m in the business. I’m all for reforming health care, but in a responsible, affordable manner and this isn’t it.”

Dees echoed many of Hill’s points, saying he agrees the system needs reform, but he wasn’t sure if this bill is what’s needed.

“The bill currently being passed in the U.S. House fails to fix the largest problem facing Mississippi’s seniors,” said Dees. “There is a very real possibility that in coming months, those people covered by Medicare will not be able to find a doctor to care for them. The reason is that the SGR formula will result in a 21 percent decrease in reimbursement to health care providers for caring for our nation’s elderly and disabled. This is simply an unsustainable business model. Therefore, seniors may face long wait times if they are able at all to find someone to care for them.”

The SGR formula determines the amount physicians are paid for caring for seniors.

Dees also said people must not forget that many of the supposed benefits of the current health care reform law do not begin until 2013-2014, yet taxes will increase within the next few months.

Look, if you’re against the bank bailout I get it (though Republicans paved the road for it by deregulation and loosening of bank rules, and they’d do it again I’m sure) – let them fail, but this was our chance to save American healthcare and American families: no more uninsurable children because they were born with a chronic affliction, no more women uninsurable because they fought cancer and won, no more Medicare holes. Another side effect: economic stimulation. For me the key to more jobs and more spending is freeing up the money of American families. Though I never darken their door, many of us have to go to Wal-Mart to buy our supplies; have you ever tried to find anything made in the USA in Wa-Mart? I’ll give you a hint, it’s hard to do. If I spent less than 20% on my income on providing insurance for my family of four, or is more of us could spend half of what we do now on insurance, we could afford to make the choice to buy American, to pay the higher price for the superior product and to provide American jobs. But until the money is there to buy the products, the middle-class in this country, the large part of America that lives of manufacturing and other similar jobs, will continue to disappear for lack of jobs and with it, the American economy.

On a final note: $900 billion on Iraq to this date, 900 Billion dollars. Half our national debt on a bullshit war that, like Republicans see healthcare, I was dragged into, more than half of us were dragged into, without any say whatsoever. What did we get for that? Dead American soldiers, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians dead, and proof that the Iraqis had no ties to bin Laden whatsoever.