After all the "interested parties" have had their say, i came across a much more balanced view of the healthcare reform scenario and the House Bill 3962 in the United States, and What a Rural Medical Center in the US thinks of it.
The following are the thoughts of Austin Medical Center, a 99 bed licensed hospital with a multiple specialty associated clinic. AMC is a rural facility located in a service area of ~45,000 people in southern Minnesota.
They start clear and loud.
We are supportive of health reform and this bill is a step in the right direction.
Some of their statements i liked are-
- The proposed insurance reforms are long overdue. All people regardless of health status deserve fair coverage.
- Shared responsibility is critical to the success of meaningful reform. Younger adults with lower health risk should not be able to opt out without a penalty.
Two more detailed and insider viewpoints were about legal reforms and state controlled options.
- Assistance to small business is a big plus. Especially in smaller communities like Austin and our surrounding area where future economic growth is highly dependent upon entrepreneurs. When these new businesses grow to a self-sustaining size, they’ll be able to pay their fair share of health costs. Giving them an exemption during the early years is the right thing to do.
- We do not support a public option modeled after Medicare. Today, government-run insurance programs can be heavy-handed, bureaucratic, inefficient systems that penalize medical systems (like AMC) that offer high value care. We cannot assume this public option will be any different. Our fear is that this plan will morph into a federal fixed fee schedule that is priced below our costs. This could drive all private insurance out of the market and we could end up with a government-run system like Great Britain and Canada. While these systems handle public health well, those that are very sick get rationed care. Most Americans will find rationing intolerable. We prefer to see expanded coverage through an insurance exchange like the Federal Employees Health Benefit Plan model, which Members of Congress and all federal employees have. This exchange offers multiple private plan choices and is the best “public option” for offering insurance for all.
Will the americans get rid of their fear of anything faintly RED or "socialist" ?
Tough question.
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