Illinois Governor a liberal commie pinko bastard

[Roofus]

sheeple.

You're the most stereotypical conservative I've ever seen.

[fatheadpi]

While national public healthcare sounds like a great idea, you run into a big problem: getting doctors to accept it. More importantly, getting it to be worth their while. From what I've seen (my Mom works in a private practice as an LPN and my Dad works in larger hospitals as an RN), state/federal run programs rarley allow a doctor enough money to break even on any covered procedure. Good luck trying to make money taking government healthcare programs. I'm active duty military and I see the same thing with Tricare. My current assignment puts me far away form a larger base so I have to use civilian doctors, and there aren't many that will take it. For a lot of stuff I still have to drive over two hours to get certain things done.

One thing that hits private practices (and I'm sure larger hospital employees) very hard these days is the cost of malpractice insurance. Then again, this is America. Have a doctor make a single mistake that sets you back $1,000 at most and suddenly the patient thinks they're worth a million bucks. I guess it's a society issue though; spend all life inhaling smoke from cigarettes, and suddenly it's Joe Camel's fault your dumb ass got cancer.

In addition to that, you have the large costs associated with new drug development, and companies having to compete with generic brands after 5 - 10 years and you can see where rising drug costs come from.

Back on topic....

The Democratic governor would pay for the program by revamping state health programs to cut expenses.

Good to see the parents will actually be paying for part of this, although I can't help but think a competitive civilian firm could do it cheaper and better given the same price breaks.

More from the article:

$45 million price tag
Blagojevich said the program?s cost ? estimated at $45 million in the first year ? could be covered by using managed care to cut $56 million in costs from the state?s health programs.

The state would reduce costly emergency room visits by hiring primary-care physicians to work with patients on maintaining good health, Blagojevich said. The changes would not apply to elderly or blind clients.

He's going to use existing taxpayer money the state's already gouging out of the taxpayers for this, so I'd say run with it. If you're gonna steal money from taxpayers for something that should be privatized, you might as well do it right. However, when they say managed care, you can bet it'll be a pain to get doctors to accept it.

[The Alchemist]

When I have a problem I go see a doctor. I don't have to pay. I guess I'm just wrong in the head for thinking that's a good way of doing things.