The well thought out plan to institutionalize The Affordable Care Act (ACA) aka. Obamacare had made it virtually impossible to repeal. As Congress and the incoming administration figure a way to replace President Obama’s signature domestic policy Americans are seeing their medical insurance premiums skyrocket like they never have before. Not only are premiums skyrocketing but deductibles and out of pocket expenses are making it difficult to access healthcare.
My advice:
Government needs to start looking at healthcare and medical insurance as two separate issues. Americans need healthcare, medical insurance is a vehicle to secure healthcare. Really, they are two different items. I once met an Illinois State Senator who said “people have access to healthcare they don’t have access to choice” All major cities in the US have a public healthcare system by law. Public healthcare systems are taxpayer funded and provide healthcare to those that cannot or do not have medical insurance but need medical care. Services include emergency and non emergency care. Systems were set up years ago for disease control.In Illinois for example, Cook County Health System treats over 1.5 million patients annually http://www.cookcountyhhs.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Year-in-Review-Cook-County-Health-Hospitals-System-July-2015-2.pdf . So if taxpayers in large cities are already supporting a healthcare system the federal government would be well advised to build on and improve the system that is in place.
Successful healthcare is and should always be community based. Geographic and Demographics should be used to set up healthcare systems. People on the East Coast have different needs and ways of doing things than people in the Midwest, South or West Coast The systems are set up all over the US now and instead of reinventing the system as a one size fits all giant, the federal government would be best advised using the public health systems all ready in place and working in the communities. The federal government could reorganized the local public health systems and reduced the waste associated with the delivery systems, healthcare would save billions of dollars and be more efficient. Some laugh but remember who takes the Oval office on Jan. 20th. 2017
President Elect Trump was quoted as saying ‘we cannot have people dying in the streets”
Expanding the local public healthcare systems will do that.
Tim Elenz
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