We need something, certainly

With resources being a problem, I would imagine that Public Health might be adequate to the task of providing health care to Native Americans, but add another 250 million folks to that equation and we see a rather difficult problem in logistics.

I believe that our health care dilemma, and with 46 million Americans not having such care at all it certainly is a problem,is tied to the issues of money in politics and lobbyists reigning supreme.

Politicos look forward to careers as six and seven figure lobbyists themselves after their political careers end, and ,seeking reelection funds prior to that end, they look with favor on those campaign checks from HMO's, Pharmaceuticals and the like. My point being that any reasonable and effective national health care plan would seem to be dependant upon the weakening of the stranglehold this industry has upon our government. How else to get them to give up the billions in profits they take, while providing barely adequate and exceedingly expensive health care?

by ardee D. (6 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2377 comments) on Tuesday, November 14, 2006 at 7:02:34 AM
 

Ardee:

You're correct. Attempting to implement things immediately and completely would overwhelm the system. That's why I said the skeleton's in place.

But if BillHillary and Co. had begun the process in the early '90s, beginning just with the people born during the intervening years we'd have a wave of people between one and ten years old who qualified.

No, that wouldn't solve the whole problem. But it would have solved some of it, which all the arguments of the time didn't do.

Whatever system gets proposed next and perhaps eventually passed will collapse if it's not funded. So, as you've suggested, would the public health service.

The advantage to the USPHS is that nothing new has to be invented. Nobody has to argue about the nuts and bolts. All that's needed is a recognition that birth inside the boundaries of the US represents Native Americanhood, issuance of tribal census numbers to those who were born here.

The rest will sink or swim dependent on funding. Same as any other health care plan.

by Jack Purcell (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 5 diaries, 102 comments) on Tuesday, November 14, 2006 at 7:13:31 AM
 

Healthcare as it is now is a part of the capitalism, USA

Imagine you lose your job but not the healthcare. Will you agree on lower pay now? Won't you have more freedom now, more choices, more time? Won't you have more power?
At the same time-imagine an employer does not have to provide healthcare coverage. Won't the salaries change and restructure? Won't the mortgages go up? Won't the stocks go down? Won't the house market react with total change of the picture?

Our healthcare stinks. But it has to be changed from within. Our doctors are the one who has to take it away from insurance industry first with the help of the govt. Then our communities are to start licencing doctors, not the AMA or something. Then the communities are to tax- encourage the medical franchises charging less for medicines.

And so on and so on. All of it means one thing:we have to change our way of life and we have to change it together!
Do you really think such thing is possible in the current USA?

by Mark Sashine (51 articles, 19 quicklinks, 244 diaries, 3463 comments) on Tuesday, November 14, 2006 at 8:47:28 AM
 

panurg:

Maybe you're right. I don't have a job at the moment, though I have a few applications in for minimum wage jobs stocking shelves, flipping hamburgers, etc.

So I don't have health care coverage. For which I'm not complaining.

But if a national health care program is on the agenda, this is one way to get it done. You and I will just have to disagree, you believing it isn't, me believing it is.

I don't know what's possible in the US. The place has been full of surprises my entire life.

Maybe there are a few more in the works.

by Jack Purcell (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 5 diaries, 102 comments) on Tuesday, November 14, 2006 at 8:58:04 AM