It ain't Rocket Surgery will be the catchphrase of the Tea Party from here on out!

Oh, for the system we had before WWII in this country. People who got sick went to doctors and paid them with barter or time payments. Very few had insurance. Hospitals were built and run by churches and counties. Medical care for the truly indigent was done through charity. We didn't have all the whiz bang treatments we have today, but her example of what has happened with lasik surgery is well taken. Various non-insurable cosmetic surgeries have gone down in price as well. When given a chance, the market does work.

The system of employer paid health care was one of the worst things that ever happened in this country. It was the gateway drug to an addiction to "free" health care. Without it we probably never would have fallen into the Medicare trap

Two things that could be done immediately. Either make emlployer health care insurance taxable income or give individuals buying health care in the market the same tax breaks. That would level the insurance playing field and introduce competition into the market. Then set up a health savings account system (Ann's escrow account) so that everyone is using that to pay most of their health care costs and using insurance only for the big items.

Medicare? Well, it has to become a means tested program and people should have to shop for care. Not good for our present old timers (of which I am one), but as more people get used to looking at price, it would force geriatric care costs downward as well.

God, I love that woman.

"Do you want to know what real fear is? "

Earlier today, worded in this manner for the first time, this thought occurred to me:

In our lifetime, we may see the end of the Republic.

That had pretty big impact. But the next thought that came made even bigger impact:

Who will be our Oligarches?

Bankers? Health Care CEO's? Insurance Industry?

Maybe those who attended the Bilderberg Group meeting would know.

Cond0010: Do you want to know what real fear is?

The fact that the Insurance Industry, Health Care CEO's, Bankers and Oil Industry are already our Oligarchies. Any president who is in power at this point in time, is nothing but a figure head and is an impotent puppet manipulated by them.

If your theory is correct, Cilla, then they soon can end the charade of it being a republic and get down to the business of really governing us without all that silly nonsense about 'rights'.

Thanks very much for the transcript Gerard; I've flagged, copied and pasted it on the London Spectator's Coffee House Wall blog. Our NHS is going through yet another overhaul and I've suggested that David Cameron and Andrew Lansley the Health Secretary invite Ann over and pay her a fat consultancy fee to dismantle it and start again. Our exalted PM is reputed to take advice from Anita Dunn and her Marxist spouse (and Cameron professes to be a 'Conservative)- which puts our Health Service into perspective, I suppose.

Can't you persuade Ann to pitch for POTUS, if not has she any English heritage? I'd vote for her to be our PM! Barnhardt? Sounds German. Same lineage as our Royals, so that's alright then.

Thank you, Ann.
I am a Registered Nurse (R.N.).
Because our hospital has, once again,
given away 10's of MILLIONS of $$$ this
past fiscal year, there will be no raises.
Although management will, for sure, be
recieving bonuses for a job well done.
That would include increasing nurse:patient
ratios to dangerous levels, cutting ancillary staff, cutting benefits and enacting multiple useless programs to be "more efficient".
The new federal guidelines include a Medicare
payment system in part based on patient
satisfaction. Think about it.
I love being a nurse. And do it "in spite of".
Even while caring for a meth-addict who just
recieved a free cardiac pacer, an illegal alien
on free hemodyalisis or free care to an alcoholic with a stomach ache.
The freebies are a HUGE contribution to the
fail.
We tithe 10% of pre-tax income. My wife is
a stay-at-home mom. We home-school. We're,
once again, not going on a vacation this year.
We make do on one income. We volunteer. These are choices we've made.
Every voting adult in this country needs to be
a good example. Israeli officers are taught the
command "Achari"- Follow (After) me! Let's do
the same.
Praise God. He is in control.

"It's not Rocket Surgery."

Or Brain Science, for that matter . . .

Our county hospital that was built in 1951
(and which has had several remodels since) was deemed too out-of-date & small to serve our citizens. Many big city clinics come in to address the cardiac, gastro-intestinal, dermatology and neurological needs. We have no mortgage, so to speak.

What we do have is our county seat town of 70% illegals. Who routinely stiff the hospital and doctors. Currently we absorb said stiffing because we have no mortgage. Next week, however, everything moves out to the new hospital on the hill. Now we have a mortgage that must be paid. One answer was offering dialysis to get more revenues. However, that does not speak to the continued stiffing by the illegals.

Oh, and another thing the new hospital will have?
A "healing garden." To the tune of $350,000!!!!! Supposedly it was funded by private donations. Killer detail I omitted? New hospital is considerably smaller than the old one . . .

We need more Ann Barnhardts in America. She needs her own talk show.

She must have been reading my mind. Just the other day I used the term "rocket surgery" and that without reading or hearing of her.
She hits all the nails on the head dead square.

Just wish one of the candidates could read this and explain it to the rest of the citizenry.
tom

Pay as you go is essentially how U.S. dentists reclaimed their practices from insurance companies. By offering discounts for cash payments for routine treatments (cleanings, flillings, etc.), dentists reduced overhead, maintained their incomes, enabled patients to save money, and screwed the insurance companies, all at the same time.

While it's true that dentistry is a more circumscribed field than medicine, in that only so many things can go wrong with teeth, batteries of tests are generally not required, and the treatments are well-understood, medical doctors could still take a page or two from the dentists' playbook. It's worth a try.

The points made here are worth making but Ann Barnhardt is hardly the only person making them. The comparison of health insurance to car insurance is old-hat. The idea that having people spend their own money is the best hope of reducing medical costs has been made over and over. (It is the basis of Paul Ryan's Medicare reform.) The distortions caused by disconnecting the person receiving the service from the cost of it has been emphasized and re-emphasized.

As for the idea of capping out of pocket at some percentage of income, see David Goldhill, Martin Feldstein, and Brad DeLong. Goldhill and DeLong both advocate some type of roll-over of (essentially) HSAs to build up savings for major medical expenses, including those of old age.

It's always worthwhile to make these points again. But claiming to be the only person in the world making them causes Ms. Barnhardt to appear to be less than a serious student of the issue.