Should we be marching for better health care?  ...........................yes!

Why are we being treated as second class citizen?....................because we are black and poor.

How do we revamp the health care system?...............................by demanding to be treated like a person

What kinda of grade should we give the health care reform?....... D-

When was the last time you got a checkup? How did your doctors treat you? Was you satisfied when you went for you appointment? Did your questions get answered correctly?

Why its important that we listen and chose the right canditate.  We can't afford not to have any health care.  We need good health care.

<<....about a child that died because of lack of dental care....>>

What a tragedy. This child should have been on dental care program.
On certain days, there are free clinics that offer free services to those that needs it .
We are reminded every month, by the health department that it times for the kids check up or any health checkup.

The school that my kids go to, there are dentists that volunters to check the children's teeth and if they need urgent care they will send an appointment slip home with the kids.
Some will go out of their way to make housecalls to make sure that this is taken care of.

<<<<<....Because I'm thinking there are still community hospitals and dental offices where children can get free care...>>

This is also sad to say but there are some mothers that do have children don't want help with free assistance.
Take for instance, my step daughter is so embarrased to be seen in the Welfare Dept. She'd rather go and get food or money from us and we don't have that much to spare.
Her mother had to make her get some kind of assistance for the baby girl. And now she's pregant again.

To Thine Own Self Be True

and an abundance of ridicuous lawsuits

Hey Silver;

     I'm glad you mentioned this perhaps you can clear something up for me. Congress has placed caps on the amounts patients who have been harmed by Physicians can be forced to pay. Even before that the court system had all kinds of hurdles that litigants had to jump through in order to file a suit against a negligent Doctor.

     My question is how can costs from lawsuits contribute to rising health care costs? I will agree the Insurance companies are raising their rates for hospitals and Doctors but I suspect they would do that regardless of whether there were suits are not. Look at what Insurance companies are doing to homeowners.

      What concerns me are families who lose love ones to negligence, or have children suffer physical ailments that someone will have to pay for health care for the rest of their lives. Is it fair that the family will have to struggle in most cases to pay these bills while the Doctor who caused the problem continues to bring in mega bucks? Or what about those who have lost their Spouses?

      I am not attacking your position by any means I am struggling to understand because I just don't see how lawsuits are the culprit. The other areas you mentioned make sense but this one I have a serious issue with (that being the myth not you personally) I would love to hear your thoughts on this maybe I can learn something.

Othello your concerns go to the heart of the matter.  Doctor's like auto mechanics and plumbers owe a certain amount of care to their customers.  Their customers "patients" are also entitled to reasonable compensation for negligent acts.  This so called "health care reform" has nothing to do with improving healthcare but is actually "Tort reform" or limiting the ability to suit and be compensated for wrongful acts.  WHY?  Because the American Medical Association has a powerful lobby.  They claimed that doctors rates had to go up because insurance rates were going up because JURIES were awarding outlandish and exorbitant amounts to people that were hardly damaged, not damaged and overcompensated.

My problem with that scenario is that no one talks about the salary of a doctors vs the damage done to a patient until it gets to court.  The patient or the loved ones that lost a person to negligence care about what they lost,  not the money.  The American Medical Association and the Republicans don't care hwat the loss was they want to pay nothing and allow an incompetent doctor to continue practicing medicine.  For instance, a doctor takes out your gall bladder and accidentally punctures your kidney.  he doesn't tell you and just sews it up.  You suffer for 5 years and eventually die.  An autopsuy reveals the cause of death.  Is this doctor guilty of negligence or murder.    A littlt girl is given a tracheotomy that she does not need and the trach is done wrong.  The little girl will have a tube and hole in her neck for several years.  Should the doctor be allowed to continue practicing?  Should a jury be limited in what they can award?   Should the government ever issue a blanket policy limiting the rights of 12 men or women to decide guilt and a remedy for that guilt? 

We should be about protecting the people and not limiting the rights of the people in favor of bureaucrats in Washington and incompetent doctors.  Final observation, if a doctor earns 1 million dollars per year and the hospital he works in earns 100 million per year and the doctor negligently causes the death of a patient in the hospital what is reasonable compensation to the family?  The law says the person gets the absolute value of what they lost.  In this case a loss of life is valued based on the likely income of this person for the balance of their lives.  The more educated and accomplished the person the more money.  Then the law says the jury can award the victims punitive damages to punish the evildoers and make sure they don't do it again.  Our government wants to and has  limited the punitive damages.  Doesn't this limit the jury's ability to ensure that these incompetents won't do it again? So a doctor making a million dollars and the hospital making 50 mil can only be punished to the tune of let's say $300,000.  That's ridiculous.  It's not the money it's the effect.  There is none.

As a general rule punitive damages should be equal to enough to hurt. One years salary, or two, or three?  Just my opinion and until the Republicans sold us out the will of the people.

 It eventually took the Patients life yet the Doctors insist they did nothing wrong when all they needed to do was order additional tests to check out the growth which they didn't because in their opinion it was not needed. Imagine the suffering they could have avoided by simply ordering a Colonoscopy. Needless to say the patient died so why should they not be held accountable?

The insurance companies won't pay for many tests that could prevent disease progression.  They do this to save money.  Then, if you don't have catastrophic insurance when you discover you have a potentially terminal affliction your insurance won't cover that either.  Real health care reform requires insurance companies to pay for preventative medicine.  It also requires the stripping of incompetent doctors of the right to practice medicine - after two or three negligent acts.  Again, I think a jury should decide to kick bad doctors out of the profession or at minimum an impartial body other than doctor's should be the jury.  Noticeably, insurance companies have little choice but to raise rates when incompetent doctors are found liable for butchering a patient and then they are allowed to continue practicing.

Justus

     In this case the procedures would have been covered however the Oncologist was never informed of the growth thus no further test. All because these Gentlemen felt it was insignificant, as stated the patient died so there should be no question if they were wrong or not.

It sounds to me as if you had god representation.  However, I'm sure the lawyers told you that the KEY to the case was to prove to a jury that a "reasonable doctor" would have ordered the tests and that failure to order the tests was therefore negligent.  I'm glad it worked out.