Ladies and Gentlemen,
1. My thanks to all those who participated in drafting the act.
2. The act should be edited by intelligent and literate lay people so as to make its language clearer and to correct obvious mistakes – cf. “he” instead of “the” in the paragraph entitled, “The Affordable Health Care for All Oregon Fund.” Critical lay editors might question the drafters about certain matters, cf. “the collateral source” in the paragraph entitled, “Reimbursement.” Might not some definitions be needed for clarity and specificity? If the writing of the act is arcane, it will be all the harder to get it understood and passed by legislators.
3. The title of the act is awkwardly long and so might be changed to “Health Care for Oregon Act.” “Affordable” in the title is superfluous in that if it isn’t affordable it won’t be passed or preserved if passed.
4. In order to promote the act to the public and to legislators we will need to identify how it can be afforded. Hence, we will need to detail just how the Board will control costs. I myself can not find in the act as written any information as to how they will do so. If drugs can’t be bought from abroad, say Canada, how can costs of drugs be controlled? If there are local monopolies or oligopolies by hospitals, how can their costs be controlled? If physicians hold monopolistic power, if they reject patients because they are not reimbursed ad libitum, the plan won’t provide the service. I just don’t understand how costs can be controlled when providers are private parties. Finally, how are frivolous or unneeded demands of consumers controlled. Every component of the health care system will seek to maximize its benefits and to externalize its costs. We have a lot of work to do.
Yours sincerely,
Stanton Cook
Worth taking a look at what looks like an early draft of the proposed bill. The devil, as usual, will be in the details such as how “evidence based” protocols will define the scope of medical coverage and the sources for paying for it. But it does propose a “single payer” system that delivers care through existing private providers and allows for profit health insurance to cover what it excludes. Opponents will immediately scream “rationing” although that’s what our current for-profit health care already does.
You are not listening. We don’t want ObamaCare and we don’t want an Oregon version either. I will be forced to leave the state if this bill passes. I want to get good medical care and this bill will drive all of the good doctors out of the state.
[...] bill establishing such a system is ready to roll for the 2011 legislative session (read the draft here). Just how this bill will fare in a tied House, a bare Democratic majority in the Senate, and a [...]
Fantastic! Oregon has a real opportunity to lead the nation toward more humane care of all of her inhabitants, as well as bring the state budget out of crisis due to the cost saving measures. As a medical student, I believe that a single payer system is the only way.
I like it!
This is the method that was used in Canada to get their medical system enacted – the provinces went first, followed by the national government. Since the will to do this does not exist in Washington, DC, we have to do it here in the individual states first. Let’s have Oregon lead the way!
I heard you on Carl’s show on Thursday and am very interested in single payer happening. I haven’t had a chance to read your proposal but would like to be involved.
Thank you the opportunity.
Question–with regard to the provision about private health insurers, how will this affect an insurer that runs their own facilities, most specifically, Kaiser? The Kaiser model is one to consider, but how would the insurance/facilities pieces of Kaiser be separated under this bill (especially since it is multi-state)?
This kind of thing has been tried in many countries and many states of the united states and NONE of them worked like the PLANNERS plan it. The costs skyrocketed in ALL cases because the plan does NOT make the cost of even a single cancer case the responsibility of the entire states insurance providers. This raises the cost to everybody a HUGE amount. Also without any co-pay everybody will visit the doctors for every sneeze and every head ache which will also increase the cost because YOU can NOT have ALL of these doctors visits at NO cost. These visits WILL at least double and could triple or MORE in frequency or more. Some people will be in the doctors office every week and for some it could be every DAY, because they have no incentive to NOT go to the doctor if they do not need the doctor.
I am an Oregon attorney. This issue is very important to me. I would like to help, especially if you need legal services. I don’t know how much time I can donate but we can work that out. Contact me.
LUNACY!
Do you think your plan will work any better than the plans of the now defunct Soviet Union? If so, welcome to the Soviet Socialist Republic of Oregon.
No Board will ever determine my health care. Adoption of your plan, an unlikely event even with incoming recycled Gov. Kitzhaber, will cause doctors to flee and patients to leave this state. You cannot order quality health care by decree. All individual choices are eliminated by this monstrosity. For example, I do not want Chiropractic “care” in my medical plan. But I would be forced to take it, increasing my costs. Your ridiculous caps on administrative costs are really hilarious. Don’t you realize that research has shown that in spite of the usual 4% administrative costs usually attributed to medicare by the ignorant, the costs are merely shifted to doctors, and administrative costs of Medicare are slightly HIGHER than private insurance?
A question on this proposal- how does HCAO intend to address cost control, that is reduce the rate of growth in medical spending? Is there an intention to adopt Medicare style fixed reimbursement rates? The context for the question is a recent posting by Michael Dembrow on Blue Oregon, and the discussions that followed. Any clarification is appreciated.
1) Funding should include a sales tax in order to cover the unemployed, retired and illegals.
2) Fee for service should be eliminated and providers paid a pre negotiated salary. This would save a great deal on justification costs and fraud
This looks so sensible to me. I just can’t stand the idea of insuring the insurance companies. This would bring things into balance and cost a lot less. I like it. Wish we all had this. We have the power. We just aren’t using it.
I think this is a great way for Oregon to lead the way towards nation-wide single payer health care. Please take me off your snail-mail list (to save money) and update me via email.
Looks good! Perhaps this web site could include a simple devise to make it easier for supporters to send messages to their legislators, differentiating those who have cosponsored and deserve thanks from others who still need to be nudged.
I am 110% behind this effort. I would be so proud to have Oregon be the State that exhibits common sense and humane health care coverage. Whatever I can do to help with this effort, sign me up.
Lorraine Devlin
Portland
To the naysayers:
Our first naysayer called for no Obama care, probably also called to “read the bill”. If you had taken ten minutes of your time to look through the 2000+ page bill or any of those that came before it, you would have noticed the authors of the bill or various portions that were cut and pasted together to create the bill were in fact John McCain and Max Baucus. President Obama did not write any portion of the bill and you should henceforth call it McCain/Baucus Care or RepubliCare since the individual mandate was championed by the RCN for over a decade now.
The second naysayer states if we all have access to health care that will make us all hypochondriacs who will inevitably overwork the system. Hypochondriacs are already in the system and those with out health insurance, simply don’t pay their bill moving from doctor to doctor. Those with insurance are their insurance agency’s dream. A perfect client who overpays to every test imaginable looking for illness that doesn’t exist, ready and willing to take all the new pharmaceuticals out there. In your disaster scenario, you leave out the fact there are those who also dread the doctors office or don’t make any plans to go because they are too busy doing what they do. The truth of the matter is that people will still be individuals whether or not heath care is made available to them. There will be those who take advantage, those that use it wisely and those who never bother, but at least with some coverage there will not be those who loose their homes when a family member is diagnosed with cancer and the overwhelming cost of care bankrupts them.
And finally, my favorite naysayer, the one truly living in a parallel universe. To the person comparing this plan to the soviet union and stating “no board will ever decide my care”: A board of directors currently does not decide your care. It’s actually many boards of many companies. There is a board of Directors at the hospital, a board at every insurance agency, a board at each of the pharmaceutical companies, at the American Doctors Assoc., at the FDA. There is a board of directors calling the shots at every single angle and they do not always see eye to eye. While your so focused on the wording the board of directors clause, you missed the part where your medical care gets put back into the place it belongs: “patients and their physicians will determine specific treatments which are medically necessary.”
Yes, it’s such a fascist thought. Health care decisions being made by you and your doctor.
Make sure to show up to the anti-socialist program rallies after you collecting your social security benefits as well.
I consumer dominated review board, informed consent reform, inclusion of alternatives to allopathic care, limiting the power of the A.M.A. and big pharma, state, non-corp, interdisplinary research programs, all need to be part of this reform, less we are kidding ourselves if we think this could not go in a poor direction. When the corporations, big pharma, and the A.M.A. influence the government, the medical review boards,.,. then we should expect this reform to sooner or latter take on characteristics of “medical care” that is more like the reduction of the Oregon population to lab rats and breathing cadavers for well frankly OHSU as the dominant current offender of abusive practices from ghost surgeries to reducing sedated patients to breathing cadavers for students to practice intimate exams in large numbers. I support universal coverage but only under the right conditions. Otherwise, screw the system I would rather organize a local collective independent of the state and corporate “medical care”.
I strongly support a single payer “improved medicare for all” model in Oregon. This is common sense for humanitarian reasons, taking the profits out of illness, business competition and for providing people with choices.
It’s about time! I’ve been hoping that the people being misled by the corporate media would come to their senses and realize what a burden health care benefits to employees are to small businesses. I work for a doctor who has practiced in Canada and France, and he knows single payer works. As for those who are vowing to leave the state if this passes, don’t let the door hit you on your way out. Try Somalia. It’s a libertarian paradise.
I agree. It will be a good plan where we can finally legally weed the elderly off the medical dole to reduce our costs. I agree with Govenor Ted and Kitzhaber that these people that get these fatal diseases it is cheaper to pay for their assisted suicide rather then the high cost of medical care and now we will have a mechanism to force that issue. Its also a lot easier to keep American kids off the medical plan and put the needs of the illegal ahead of them because we all know that American kids don’t want to work so why should they get preference in medical services above the working illegal. At least the government plan will allow us to deny American’s health care based on need. I also agree with the one care plan that we should pay these medical students and doctors the $10-$15 per hour that they deserve. Screw the loans and insurance because they are all greedy and at least with a government plan you can’t sue so that excuse will go out the window so they will have to be paid the going average pay rate.
I followed a hyper link to your blog post from Christian Dillstrom, you must be doing an amazing job as mobile + social media marketing wizard is pointing towards you!
Hello there First connected Post very relevant We loved really , desirable watch it will speak on Web web site of Business Furniture Status deals promotion missions of office furniture Implementation office modern day . with give attention to Service excellent Furniture Status is actually company Good Israel market This kind of .
OMG? 21kers and small investors ARE the perfect hostage to extort morer trillions in Fed infusions, heaved on US as debt and inflation. The fluff of jobs #s is a lovely memory. Those hostages, the unemployed-, they are so reusable, as hostages for billionair-e, hoarder/co-mmodity gamers. Generation-s of Americans, who earned their homes will be taxed to death at the hands of the bankers. There must be some other American property they can get their hands on elsewhere.-…soc security..-aha!!! Right on about the manufactur-ed hysteria. We always are giving up more rights and property to keep entrenched despots happy in their feeding frenzy. What next time they rear their ugly heads for another feeding?Gw2 Gold
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Ladies and Gentlemen,
1. My thanks to all those who participated in drafting the act.
2. The act should be edited by intelligent and literate lay people so as to make its language clearer and to correct obvious mistakes – cf. “he” instead of “the” in the paragraph entitled, “The Affordable Health Care for All Oregon Fund.” Critical lay editors might question the drafters about certain matters, cf. “the collateral source” in the paragraph entitled, “Reimbursement.” Might not some definitions be needed for clarity and specificity? If the writing of the act is arcane, it will be all the harder to get it understood and passed by legislators.
3. The title of the act is awkwardly long and so might be changed to “Health Care for Oregon Act.” “Affordable” in the title is superfluous in that if it isn’t affordable it won’t be passed or preserved if passed.
4. In order to promote the act to the public and to legislators we will need to identify how it can be afforded. Hence, we will need to detail just how the Board will control costs. I myself can not find in the act as written any information as to how they will do so. If drugs can’t be bought from abroad, say Canada, how can costs of drugs be controlled? If there are local monopolies or oligopolies by hospitals, how can their costs be controlled? If physicians hold monopolistic power, if they reject patients because they are not reimbursed ad libitum, the plan won’t provide the service. I just don’t understand how costs can be controlled when providers are private parties. Finally, how are frivolous or unneeded demands of consumers controlled. Every component of the health care system will seek to maximize its benefits and to externalize its costs. We have a lot of work to do.
Yours sincerely,
Stanton Cook
Worth taking a look at what looks like an early draft of the proposed bill. The devil, as usual, will be in the details such as how “evidence based” protocols will define the scope of medical coverage and the sources for paying for it. But it does propose a “single payer” system that delivers care through existing private providers and allows for profit health insurance to cover what it excludes. Opponents will immediately scream “rationing” although that’s what our current for-profit health care already does.
Will this plan cover health care for seniors who are on medicare? Part B copayments? Part D copayments and/or premiums? eliminate need for part D?
You are not listening. We don’t want ObamaCare and we don’t want an Oregon version either. I will be forced to leave the state if this bill passes. I want to get good medical care and this bill will drive all of the good doctors out of the state.
[...] bill establishing such a system is ready to roll for the 2011 legislative session (read the draft here). Just how this bill will fare in a tied House, a bare Democratic majority in the Senate, and a [...]
Fantastic! Oregon has a real opportunity to lead the nation toward more humane care of all of her inhabitants, as well as bring the state budget out of crisis due to the cost saving measures. As a medical student, I believe that a single payer system is the only way.
GOOD!!
ONWARD!!
I like it!
This is the method that was used in Canada to get their medical system enacted – the provinces went first, followed by the national government. Since the will to do this does not exist in Washington, DC, we have to do it here in the individual states first. Let’s have Oregon lead the way!
I heard you on Carl’s show on Thursday and am very interested in single payer happening. I haven’t had a chance to read your proposal but would like to be involved.
Thank you the opportunity.
Gutsy. Go for it!
Question–with regard to the provision about private health insurers, how will this affect an insurer that runs their own facilities, most specifically, Kaiser? The Kaiser model is one to consider, but how would the insurance/facilities pieces of Kaiser be separated under this bill (especially since it is multi-state)?
Brilliant. Now lets get it passed!
This kind of thing has been tried in many countries and many states of the united states and NONE of them worked like the PLANNERS plan it. The costs skyrocketed in ALL cases because the plan does NOT make the cost of even a single cancer case the responsibility of the entire states insurance providers. This raises the cost to everybody a HUGE amount. Also without any co-pay everybody will visit the doctors for every sneeze and every head ache which will also increase the cost because YOU can NOT have ALL of these doctors visits at NO cost. These visits WILL at least double and could triple or MORE in frequency or more. Some people will be in the doctors office every week and for some it could be every DAY, because they have no incentive to NOT go to the doctor if they do not need the doctor.
Yes!
I am an Oregon attorney. This issue is very important to me. I would like to help, especially if you need legal services. I don’t know how much time I can donate but we can work that out. Contact me.
LUNACY!
Do you think your plan will work any better than the plans of the now defunct Soviet Union? If so, welcome to the Soviet Socialist Republic of Oregon.
No Board will ever determine my health care. Adoption of your plan, an unlikely event even with incoming recycled Gov. Kitzhaber, will cause doctors to flee and patients to leave this state. You cannot order quality health care by decree. All individual choices are eliminated by this monstrosity. For example, I do not want Chiropractic “care” in my medical plan. But I would be forced to take it, increasing my costs. Your ridiculous caps on administrative costs are really hilarious. Don’t you realize that research has shown that in spite of the usual 4% administrative costs usually attributed to medicare by the ignorant, the costs are merely shifted to doctors, and administrative costs of Medicare are slightly HIGHER than private insurance?
Detailed analysis to follow.
A question on this proposal- how does HCAO intend to address cost control, that is reduce the rate of growth in medical spending? Is there an intention to adopt Medicare style fixed reimbursement rates? The context for the question is a recent posting by Michael Dembrow on Blue Oregon, and the discussions that followed. Any clarification is appreciated.
This is magnificent!
What a battle you have ahead of you to get this accepted by the establishment!
I will support you in every way possible.
You must come on my “Conversations with Dr. Don” TV show and tell my viewers (and the world) about this beautiful caring plan!
Bravo!
This is exciting; not the least because it is written in Plain English!!
It is full of common sense and Humaneness.
All power to it!
Fantastic with two suggestions:
1) Funding should include a sales tax in order to cover the unemployed, retired and illegals.
2) Fee for service should be eliminated and providers paid a pre negotiated salary. This would save a great deal on justification costs and fraud
This plan sounds ideal! Would like more info on how costs will be controlled.
This looks so sensible to me. I just can’t stand the idea of insuring the insurance companies. This would bring things into balance and cost a lot less. I like it. Wish we all had this. We have the power. We just aren’t using it.
I think this is a great way for Oregon to lead the way towards nation-wide single payer health care. Please take me off your snail-mail list (to save money) and update me via email.
Thanks!
Looks good! Perhaps this web site could include a simple devise to make it easier for supporters to send messages to their legislators, differentiating those who have cosponsored and deserve thanks from others who still need to be nudged.
;-” I am really thankful to this topic because it really gives useful information ,’.
I am 110% behind this effort. I would be so proud to have Oregon be the State that exhibits common sense and humane health care coverage. Whatever I can do to help with this effort, sign me up.
Lorraine Devlin
Portland
To the naysayers:
Our first naysayer called for no Obama care, probably also called to “read the bill”. If you had taken ten minutes of your time to look through the 2000+ page bill or any of those that came before it, you would have noticed the authors of the bill or various portions that were cut and pasted together to create the bill were in fact John McCain and Max Baucus. President Obama did not write any portion of the bill and you should henceforth call it McCain/Baucus Care or RepubliCare since the individual mandate was championed by the RCN for over a decade now.
The second naysayer states if we all have access to health care that will make us all hypochondriacs who will inevitably overwork the system. Hypochondriacs are already in the system and those with out health insurance, simply don’t pay their bill moving from doctor to doctor. Those with insurance are their insurance agency’s dream. A perfect client who overpays to every test imaginable looking for illness that doesn’t exist, ready and willing to take all the new pharmaceuticals out there. In your disaster scenario, you leave out the fact there are those who also dread the doctors office or don’t make any plans to go because they are too busy doing what they do. The truth of the matter is that people will still be individuals whether or not heath care is made available to them. There will be those who take advantage, those that use it wisely and those who never bother, but at least with some coverage there will not be those who loose their homes when a family member is diagnosed with cancer and the overwhelming cost of care bankrupts them.
And finally, my favorite naysayer, the one truly living in a parallel universe. To the person comparing this plan to the soviet union and stating “no board will ever decide my care”: A board of directors currently does not decide your care. It’s actually many boards of many companies. There is a board of Directors at the hospital, a board at every insurance agency, a board at each of the pharmaceutical companies, at the American Doctors Assoc., at the FDA. There is a board of directors calling the shots at every single angle and they do not always see eye to eye. While your so focused on the wording the board of directors clause, you missed the part where your medical care gets put back into the place it belongs: “patients and their physicians will determine specific treatments which are medically necessary.”
Yes, it’s such a fascist thought. Health care decisions being made by you and your doctor.
Make sure to show up to the anti-socialist program rallies after you collecting your social security benefits as well.
I consumer dominated review board, informed consent reform, inclusion of alternatives to allopathic care, limiting the power of the A.M.A. and big pharma, state, non-corp, interdisplinary research programs, all need to be part of this reform, less we are kidding ourselves if we think this could not go in a poor direction. When the corporations, big pharma, and the A.M.A. influence the government, the medical review boards,.,. then we should expect this reform to sooner or latter take on characteristics of “medical care” that is more like the reduction of the Oregon population to lab rats and breathing cadavers for well frankly OHSU as the dominant current offender of abusive practices from ghost surgeries to reducing sedated patients to breathing cadavers for students to practice intimate exams in large numbers. I support universal coverage but only under the right conditions. Otherwise, screw the system I would rather organize a local collective independent of the state and corporate “medical care”.
I strongly support a single payer “improved medicare for all” model in Oregon. This is common sense for humanitarian reasons, taking the profits out of illness, business competition and for providing people with choices.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for this bill!
It’s about time! I’ve been hoping that the people being misled by the corporate media would come to their senses and realize what a burden health care benefits to employees are to small businesses. I work for a doctor who has practiced in Canada and France, and he knows single payer works. As for those who are vowing to leave the state if this passes, don’t let the door hit you on your way out. Try Somalia. It’s a libertarian paradise.
I agree. It will be a good plan where we can finally legally weed the elderly off the medical dole to reduce our costs. I agree with Govenor Ted and Kitzhaber that these people that get these fatal diseases it is cheaper to pay for their assisted suicide rather then the high cost of medical care and now we will have a mechanism to force that issue. Its also a lot easier to keep American kids off the medical plan and put the needs of the illegal ahead of them because we all know that American kids don’t want to work so why should they get preference in medical services above the working illegal. At least the government plan will allow us to deny American’s health care based on need. I also agree with the one care plan that we should pay these medical students and doctors the $10-$15 per hour that they deserve. Screw the loans and insurance because they are all greedy and at least with a government plan you can’t sue so that excuse will go out the window so they will have to be paid the going average pay rate.
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I followed a hyper link to your blog post from Christian Dillstrom, you must be doing an amazing job as mobile + social media marketing wizard is pointing towards you!
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OMG? 21kers and small investors ARE the perfect hostage to extort morer trillions in Fed infusions, heaved on US as debt and inflation. The fluff of jobs #s is a lovely memory. Those hostages, the unemployed-, they are so reusable, as hostages for billionair-e, hoarder/co-mmodity gamers. Generation-s of Americans, who earned their homes will be taxed to death at the hands of the bankers. There must be some other American property they can get their hands on elsewhere.-…soc security..-aha!!! Right on about the manufactur-ed hysteria. We always are giving up more rights and property to keep entrenched despots happy in their feeding frenzy. What next time they rear their ugly heads for another feeding?Gw2 Gold
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