National Health Care

[fluffhead]

I am generally the only one in the house to read the countless journals and magazines that come in for my wife...(that's how starved I get for something other than dirty diapers...)
Anyway, did anybody read the JAMA article that came in today's issue about the physician's working group's report on National Health Care?
I'm curious to know what you think of it.
It would put those of you doing medical billing completely out of business, but it would also get rid of lots of middlemen, simplify corporate benefits offices, etc.
Of course if government can screw anything up, they'll screw this up. big time.

I didn't read the article in JAMA but I did read an article about it on the Reuters health section. It sounds really interesting. Unfortunately, we don't get JAMA at home anymore.
I think there is a difference between: 1)"single payer" (eliminating insurance companies and having the govt pay directly), and 2) "single purchaser" where purchasing would be consolidated through govt (preferably state govt, IMO) but private insurance products would be purchased. Medicare HMO coverage would sort of be an example of single purchaser.
I'm preparing information on this topic for a conference I am consulting on and just starting to research it. The JAMA article couldn't have come out at a better time.

I just re-read the Reuters article and looked at the website of the group responsible for the JAMA article (http://www.pnhp.org) and they are definitely endorsing a single-payer system (rather than single-purchaser). While I don't agree with much of what they say on the website, but I still think this is a great article to have in JAMA to get people talking about it and thinking about other options and solutions to health care inequities.

[fluffhead]

There's a major problem of paralysis here - any solution, no matter how enlightened, is going to put SOMEBODY out of business. The people who stand to lose the most money will be lobbying their congressmen, and somehow it will be voted down. There's just so much money on the table that can be sneaked into the right pockets.
So although debate is healthy, and it's great that JAMA had this article, I don't hold out great hope for any movement in a positive direction until lobbying laws are radically changed.
It has to be hugely frustrating for people who spend loads of time addressing this issue to be shot down by some cigar smoking congressman with well-lined pockets. Whether or not you like Hillary, lots of work went into that plan, and I can't imagine how demoralizing it is to be casually dismissed.

[SueC]

That's interesting--I've never even heard of it! As far as I know, billing companies aren't getting nervous about it. I'll have to read up on it a bit!