GOP’s “Patient Centered Healthcare System” Bullshit!!

[busterbrown]

Simply means, getting the Consumer more involved in their own healthcare needs, will make them wiser in their choices...Perhaps they will avoid going to the Dr. if they were better equipped to analyze their own medical conditions...

I mean what a load of crap.
We need to expose this “Patient Centered Healthcare System” for what it is.. An attempt to keep the Insurance, Biotech and entire Healthcare Industry free from regulation..to continue its exploitation of the middle class.

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By Graf Zeppelini...

The theory seems to be that if you give consumers more "skin in the game," they'll make better choices about whether, when, where and how to spend their health-care dollar, and the cumulative effect thereof will be to bring costs down. Setting aside the wishful-thinking aspects of this theory, it should at least be pointed out that most consumers are not physicians, medical experts or insurance actuaries. One of the reasons why we have commercial regulation and consumer protection in the first place is that we don't expect people to become experts on everything they might think about buying. For all the braying we hear from the Right about the "nanny state," and the "government telling you what's best for you" and what-not, the fact is that sometimes we do need experts to help us make good choices and prevent us from making bad ones. But I'm not here to launch into a consumer-advocacy dissertation.

What concerns me about this "plan" is that at its core, its "essence" is to require people to take greater risks with their health. Again, the plan is to make people shoulder more of the actual costs of their own medical care, relying less on their employers and insurers to cover them. The purpose of that is to make people more aware and conscious of what their care actually costs, so they'll "be smarter consumers" and "make better choices" in the marketplace. Meaning, and I really can't think of any other meaning, we want people to think twice about seeking medical care when they get sick or injured. We want people to have to decide whether they really, really feel they really, really need treatment and whether it's really, really worth the money before they call a doctor or go to the ER.

[KansDem]

1. I heard something similar years ago...back when the GOP started its war on health care

I remember one GOPer ranting and raving about how Americans need to see how much their health care costs. I'm not certain what this was in reference to...I believe it had to do with medical insurance and the debut of "co-pays." Also, there was emphasis on having the "consumer" act as the go-between between medical offices (doctors, labs, etc.) and insurance companies.

[busterbrown]

2. “Consumers act as the go-between between medical offices....and insurance companies"

Are they out of their freaking minds!!!

[KansDem]

3. I had a procedure done last year...

A couple of weeks before my appointment, the medical group sent me a letter requiring me to contact my insurance company to make certain the procedure was "covered" and to what extent. I called my insurance company to get the details and then called the medical group to assure them it was "covered." I felt like the "go between."

It seemed rather cumbersome, but I suppose that's the state of medical insurance today.

I do remember a time when this would not have been necessary.