NATIONAL HEALTH CARE??

I do not believe anyone should be without health care; not in this country and in this day and age. The problem comes with who is going to pay for it and who is going to administer it.

Obama, who hasn’t proven he was born in the US yet, wants to do the job. What, I am going to let not only a government bureaucrat and avowed socialist call the shots on my health care needs; I don’t think so.

With the government screwing up whatever it touches these days and the voters starting to realize the emperor has no clothes, we only have to hold out for a couple more years (if we can) before we can bring about the badly needed change that everyone was hoping for.

If the numbers are still true that most of your health care spending takes place in the last 6 months of a person’s life, and the pressure to stretch health care dollars by the feds being stretched to the limit by an expensive bureaucracy the decisions will have to be made to let grammy and grampy or even younger people with a diagnosed terminal illness to be made comfortable until the end; in other words trying to save them vs. saving a buck. With government intervention, it will be plain to see which way the decision will go.

The health care system in this country is not broke, it is just too damn expensive and this is caused by a number of factors, greed being one of the biggest. First we are all being soaked by the insurance companies; secondly we are getting hosed by the hospitals. The quickest way to deliver quality, affordable and accessible health care delivery is to continue to promote lower cost alternatives; independently owned surgical centers charge about 30-40% of what hospitals charge and do a better job with lower infection rates. Independently owned walk in clinics, down south they call them “doc in the box,” for more routine issues. For major medical issues you will need hospital support; but, on the less severe procedures or minor issues these alternatives work and you can realize major savings of 40-60% off what you would pay hospitals.

As consumers, there is a disconnect between medical and financial. If we need to have a knee worked on you will know up front how much it will cost. In a hospital we don’t know how much it will cost until we have it done and get the bill. If you don’t have insurance or a high deductible a surgical center is the way to go, and up to 60% savings is worth a call. The two best surgical centers in NH are BASC which is the Bedford Ambulatory Surgical Center in Bedford, NH and Northeast Surgical Center in Newington, NH, both independently owned and separate entities.

Small businesses might be able to get lower insurance rates if they require their employees to try the alternatives before the more expensive hospitals. This is a hard nut to crack; but, money controls the system and that is why we all come out on the short end of the stick. We can all save money by shopping around, I’ve done it.