Fresh Medicine provides a compelling and rational solution to the mess we're in with health care. The author itemizes the steps we need to take to change the system for the better.
Philip Bredesen is the Democratic governor of Tennessee. He claims we need to establish systems of care that are continually reviewed and upgraded by an independent monitoring body to ensure that they deliver best practices medicine. These systems would be paid for with a trust fund similar to the social security tax on workers. Each person would get a voucher to choose the system of care he or she felt would provide the best services to them.
Like with any insurance: younger people would pay in for older people and the poor would be subsidized by those of us making more money.
Gone would be the days when our runaway health care spending was fueled by the overuse of risky and costly medical procedures that aren't effective and can harm people if not kill them.
A basic plan would be established that is run by the government and employers could offer expanded services if they chose to.
Do we really need to take out loans from China that our future generations will have to pay off just so we can pay for these risky surgeries and other procedures that aren't best practices medicine?
Fresh Medicine makes sense. It is clearly thought out and the only truly sane approach to managing our health care costs. Yes, it will be a single payer system. Does that spook you? Would you rather the U.S. be leveraged to China for billions of dollars because our elected officials can't come together to agree on a solution that is as lucid and effective as the one Bredesen outlines in his book?
The House voted to repeal the Affordable Health Care Act without creating a new bill to replace the law with a better version. What this means to you as a person with an MHD (mental health diagnosis): you will be denied coverage for mental health visits under your employer's health insurance plan.
We've rolled back progress so that health insurers can do the following once again:
Deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions.
Terminate coverage for those who get sick.
Deny coverage to women because they are pregnant.
What's more:
Seniors would lose new guarantees including free preventive care and lower cost prescription drugs.
Parents would lose the ability to keep their adult children on their health care plans.
Small business owners would lose tax credits that help them provide coverage for their workers.
Workers would lose the freedom to change jobs without worrying about losing health care coverage.
In Fresh Medicine Bredesen rightly argues that introducing economic tension into the health care marketplace is the only best way to keep down costs. Reducing the deficit was the straw man in instituting the current reform as the new Act actually incurred greater costs in the long-term.
The author knows that the true unchecked cost is that our government doesn't negotiate the prices of prescription drugs like other countries do. The runaway cost of drugs is what will bankrupt the U.S.
