10-18-2010, 06:35 PM
cbelt3 wrote:
The most interesting aspect of the study (thanks) is that the 'healthcare industry' began as a philanthropic organization, specifically 'The Blues". I remember when Blue Cross was a benign organization. Heck, my dad HAD Blue Cross insurance.
What is missing from the blurb (haven't read the book) is the very significant public health initiatives that grew out of the great diseases of the 20th century. Tuberculosis, Polio, Yellow Fever, etc... all created significant structural public health operations. And these hospitals and sanitariums were public operations.... no corporations, no philanthropic NGO's, etc...
A rational government *should* consider public health to have a level of importance right up there with defense. And in the "Great Society" days, we did. But nowadays, the public health organizations (and we DO have them) are stressed, cost-cut, and stripped to the bone type organizations that have little hope of success.
It is sad.
Well I'm glad that you can at least admit that point w/o resorting to the standard shouts of "socialism!"
Hospitals in my lower-middle-class neighborhood are closing because they are seeing too many uninsured patients. The uninsured patients treat the hospital as their local doctor's office because they can't financially afford to see a doctor on a regular basis. My state's charity care fund is inadequate to assist those hospitals.
Oddly enough, it was a Republican governor (Christine Todd Whitman) who pushed for the first low-income health insurance plan in the late 1990s as a long-term plan to save the health care system money by keeping lower-income patients healthier and get them preventative care. Unfortunately, that plan is constantly under attack come state budget season.