The next thing that needs to change is very simple, expand the public health care system in the major metropolitan areas. All major cities/counties in the US have public healthcare system. Public Healthcare systems are required by federal law for disease control. If you live in Chicago, New York or Los Angeles of other populate areas there is a very good chance that the city and country healthcare systems overlap with each other. Cook County and Chicago both have a taxpayer funded public health care system. In Cook County Illinois, the public healthcare system main location is John Stroger hospital that not only deals with non emergency care but also is a trauma center. Most of Chicago’s violence victims are taken to Cook County hospital for the advanced level of care that is provided. But besides that, routine care is something they do everyday. Cook County healthcare system deals with child births, heart patients, annual physicals and other regular everyday procedures. People who live in Cook County with or without healthcare insurance are able to use the system regardless of their ability to pay. On top of that all states run a Medicaid program that most of the time doesn’t coordinate with the local public health systems. Also if a patient has private insurance, Medicare or Medicaid the local public healthcare system is suppose to look for reimbursement. Most of time the reimbursements are not pursued because of the government bureaucracies. One thing that is interesting is that Cook County treats about 1.5 million patients annually and the population of Cook County is 6.8 million. That being said Cook County treated over 20% of the population of Cook County on an annual basis. Property taxes fund Cook County healthcare for residents. If the Federal government would insist on coordinating care on the the local, state and federal level and expanding the pubic healthcare system already in place, the elimination and the duplication of administration of services on local, state and federal levels would save countless taxpayers dollars. Taxpayers already have a healthcare system in place for many years now, What needs to be done is coordination of the wasteful government bureaucracies.
Tim Elenz
Telenz@Benefitsage.com
847-397-5306
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