Senator Whitehouse is protecting the profits and gains of the already wealthy!
I can't stand that we're paying ridiculous money for healthcare and not getting proper diagnosis (for years)! I owe $2200 to Cranston for an ambulance ride last month! My PCP called an ambulance and the ER doctor was angry that I was there! He said she should have called a neurologist and I shouldn't be there! (That's the third time in 14 months that I been told this!) BTW, after 24 hours in the ER, I was finally in a room!
So, if we're bothersome to them when we seek treatment, why should they be rewarded further?
I'm glad that the merger was rejected by the AG because hospitals have cut services and doctors have retired. ERs are understaffed, the busiest hospitals are crowded with many hours waiting time!
We wait MONTHS for doctors' appointments causing additional suffering and stress!
If they can't heal you, they make more money on long-term care and can reduce office staff, maximizing profits. WTF are they being aided by Senator Whitehouse?
What happened to the governing principles of for the people, by the people?
I've been sick for more than 5 years. I've moved my care to Boston for a specific ailment and finally found a doctor that HEARS ME!
Boston globe had an article on exorbitant healtyhcare costs as well today here is what I wrote for the BG comments section
A hospital near my house is trying to expand. Because we, members of the community, tried to stop the last expansion, the hospital is holding community meetings. I asked if building the new addition would reduce the cost of healthcare, healthcare that is already unaffordable. The hospital folks did not know that answer. But we do. It will raise the cost of healthcare if the hospital expands. The hospital simply will not admit it.
Having spent much time over the last 15 years looking at the cost of healthcare it does not appear to me that anything in any of the bills in the MA legislature are going to actually reduce the cost of healthcare. These are bills to increase spending. Not to say small hospitals do not need the money, but increasing reimbursement rates simply cannot reduce the cost of healthcare.
The only thing that really increases life expectancy, which to me is the only real goal of a healthcare system, is a good public health system. Preventing cancer is cheaper than curing it. We have to prevent asthma, as there is no cure other than cleaner air. But we look at cures as healthcare, prevention as anti business regulation despite the old saying of an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, something truer today than ever. Unfortunately poisoning people is good for business as you not only get to sell stuff that kills, but it also means more healthcare spending. Prevention means we do not sell toxic substances that can spread through the community, and no one needs the cure.
Until we start to move towards a public health focused system, we shall never have affordable healthcare, and of course the private healthcare system will never move towards prevention, so none of the measures being taken by the MA legislature are likely to actually reduce the cost of healthcare. Which means more people will die unnecessarily simply because healthcare costs too much.
thanks for so toroughly covering this critically important issue, even though it has no easy solutions, and probably requires sacrifices from many - taxpayers to pony up resources, lawyers to accept some kind of tort reform to reduce expensive :defensve" medicine, insurers to reduce paperwork and overhead so there doesn't need to be an army of for-processors in every nedical office, provate capital that sees health varr as an opportunity to loot and run has to be fully taxed and vifoeously prosecuted if they do anything illegal, and, the public that has to understand the need to take preventve health care (diet, exercise, safer driving, alcohol/drug abuse....) more seriously because they cannot expect unlimited medical care from bad behavior, or from frivilous use of ERs, or from expecting instant service for every imagined ailment
Senator Whitehouse is protecting the profits and gains of the already wealthy!
I can't stand that we're paying ridiculous money for healthcare and not getting proper diagnosis (for years)! I owe $2200 to Cranston for an ambulance ride last month! My PCP called an ambulance and the ER doctor was angry that I was there! He said she should have called a neurologist and I shouldn't be there! (That's the third time in 14 months that I been told this!) BTW, after 24 hours in the ER, I was finally in a room!
So, if we're bothersome to them when we seek treatment, why should they be rewarded further?
I'm glad that the merger was rejected by the AG because hospitals have cut services and doctors have retired. ERs are understaffed, the busiest hospitals are crowded with many hours waiting time!
We wait MONTHS for doctors' appointments causing additional suffering and stress!
If they can't heal you, they make more money on long-term care and can reduce office staff, maximizing profits. WTF are they being aided by Senator Whitehouse?
What happened to the governing principles of for the people, by the people?
I've been sick for more than 5 years. I've moved my care to Boston for a specific ailment and finally found a doctor that HEARS ME!
I called a nonprofit!
Jo
Boston globe had an article on exorbitant healtyhcare costs as well today here is what I wrote for the BG comments section
A hospital near my house is trying to expand. Because we, members of the community, tried to stop the last expansion, the hospital is holding community meetings. I asked if building the new addition would reduce the cost of healthcare, healthcare that is already unaffordable. The hospital folks did not know that answer. But we do. It will raise the cost of healthcare if the hospital expands. The hospital simply will not admit it.
Having spent much time over the last 15 years looking at the cost of healthcare it does not appear to me that anything in any of the bills in the MA legislature are going to actually reduce the cost of healthcare. These are bills to increase spending. Not to say small hospitals do not need the money, but increasing reimbursement rates simply cannot reduce the cost of healthcare.
The only thing that really increases life expectancy, which to me is the only real goal of a healthcare system, is a good public health system. Preventing cancer is cheaper than curing it. We have to prevent asthma, as there is no cure other than cleaner air. But we look at cures as healthcare, prevention as anti business regulation despite the old saying of an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, something truer today than ever. Unfortunately poisoning people is good for business as you not only get to sell stuff that kills, but it also means more healthcare spending. Prevention means we do not sell toxic substances that can spread through the community, and no one needs the cure.
Until we start to move towards a public health focused system, we shall never have affordable healthcare, and of course the private healthcare system will never move towards prevention, so none of the measures being taken by the MA legislature are likely to actually reduce the cost of healthcare. Which means more people will die unnecessarily simply because healthcare costs too much.
by the way, I meant to add that I was really impressed by AG Neronha's tribute to his wife - wouldn't we all like to get to know her
thanks for so toroughly covering this critically important issue, even though it has no easy solutions, and probably requires sacrifices from many - taxpayers to pony up resources, lawyers to accept some kind of tort reform to reduce expensive :defensve" medicine, insurers to reduce paperwork and overhead so there doesn't need to be an army of for-processors in every nedical office, provate capital that sees health varr as an opportunity to loot and run has to be fully taxed and vifoeously prosecuted if they do anything illegal, and, the public that has to understand the need to take preventve health care (diet, exercise, safer driving, alcohol/drug abuse....) more seriously because they cannot expect unlimited medical care from bad behavior, or from frivilous use of ERs, or from expecting instant service for every imagined ailment