Reader-submitted stories

Health Care Reform Will Ultimately Save the U.S. Economy

Submitted on Tue, Jun 16, 2009 (12:17 a.m.)

Submitted by shukhrat

By Shukhrat Khakimov

The mass media wrote - Implementing Health Care Reform will not be easy. President Obama on this issue has fervent opponents. "Calling them" naysayers, "" fear-mongers "and peddlers of" Trojan horse "falsehoods, Obama warned interest groups, lobbyists and others against using" fear tactics to paint any effort to achieve reform as an attempt to socialize medicine. "" There are those who will try and scuttle this opportunity no matter what, "Obama said.

GOP Rep. Tom Price of Georgia - a former orthopedic surgeon - reacted preemptively to Obama's speech by accusing him of seeking a "government takeover" of health care.
"When you hear the naysayers claim that I'm trying to bring about government-run health care, know this: They are not telling the truth," Obama said. In fact, Obama, all the activity is designed to make Health Care sistem available to every citizen of the United States.

The president traveled to Chicago and met with team doctors. He discussed the problem of Health Care reform. Doctors said that the expensive Health Care from the numerous lawsuits against the medical service. They expressed a desire to set limits on jury awards in medical malpractice lawsuits. In the United States is indeed a lot of lawsuits against doctors. However, it should not be an excuse for systematic improvement in the prices of Health Care service. "The notion that 'defensive medicine' is leading to higher health care costs is not supported by empirical data or academic literature," Les Weisbrod, president of the American Association for Justice.

Addressing the doctors in Chicago, the president said "for the first time publicly that health care reform, including covering the almost 50 million Americans who have no insurance, would cost about $ 1 trillion over 10 years". "That's real money, even in Washington," he said. "But remember: That's less than we are projected to have spent on the war in Iraq. And also remember: Failing to reform our health care system in a way that genuinely reduces cost growth will cost us trillions of dollars more in lost economic growth and lower wages. "

Health Care in the United States takes a huge amount of finance. Due to the fantastic prices, the cost of Health Care in the United States may be slowing the growth of economic indicators in other industries. For example, the following interesting fact. "A big part of what led General Motors and Chrysler into trouble," he said, "were the huge costs they racked up providing health care for their workers - costs that made them less profitable and less competitive with automakers around the world."

Sen. Judd Gregg (RN.H.) said - "Reform starts with paying for quality, not quantity. According to a study at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, as much as $ 750 billion is spent each year on procedures or health - related services that don't necessarily help patients get better. For example, when discharging patients, hospitals have an obligation to provide patients with a care plan to ensure they don't end up readmitted. However, Medicare pays more to hospitals when a patient ends up back in the hospital. And physicians are paid more when they order more tests, procedures and office visits, whether you need them or not ".

I agree with senator about the quality. But I want to note - the quality of treatment and involves lower costs, because high-quality treatment-oriented to the health of the patient. Ask yourself the question: how doctors treat us? Treatment begins with usual therapy, routine, but expensive drugs, then treatment is gaining momentum. As a result, spent much time and money. Do you know that the scientific advances of medicine impressive. In the world there are strong drugs, covering a lot of opportunity to treat patients. For example the introduction of multiple injections of immune drugs that can replace hundreds of other drags. A possible stem cell? They are revolutionary and fantastic. The cost of immunostimulatory drugs and drugs from stem cells is estimated hundreds of dollars, and treatment of conventional drugs can be assessed thousands of dollars. Ask yourself the question - why the treatment is lengthy and expensive, with many, many diseases can be treated more cheaply and quickly? Doctors unhappy with the large number of lawsuits against them. We are talking about claims of improper treatment of the damage to health and more. I think it is possible to think about lawsuits against doctors who deliberately makes the system expensive treatments when there are several better and cheaper methods. Claims against the intentional treatment cost, will force many doctors to take their responsibilities more ethically. I think we can open law company with this kind of service.

Reducing the cost of medicine, improving the quality of care, insurance average people - all of this Health Care Reform. From the medical reform many economic benefits to society. The Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) has prepared a report - THE ECONOMIC CASE FOR HEALTH CARE REFORM. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY As stated "The findings in the report point to large economic impacts of genuine health care reform: We estimate that slowing the annual growth rate of health care costs by 1.5 percentage points would increase real gross domestic product (GDP), relative to the no-reform baseline, by over 2 percent in 2020 and nearly 8 percent in 2030; For a typical family of four, this implies that income in 2020 would be approximately $ 2,600 higher than it would have been without reform (in 2009 dollars), and that in 2030 it would be almost $ 10,000 higher. Under more conservative estimates of the reduction in the growth rate of health care costs, the income gains are smaller, but still substantial; Slowing the growth rate of health care costs will prevent disastrous increases in the Federal budget deficit; Slowing cost growth would lower the unemployment rate consistent with steady inflation by approximately one-quarter of a percentage point for a number of years. The beneficial impact on employment in the short and medium run (relative to the no - reform baseline) is estimated to be approximately 500,000 each year that the effect is felt; Expanding health insurance coverage to the uninsured would increase net economic well-being by roughly $ 100 billion a year, which is roughly two-thirds of a percent of GDP ; Reform would likely increase labor supply, remove unnecessary barriers to job mobility, and help to "level the playing field" between large and small businesses. "
And it's true! Health Care Reform will ultimately save the U.S. economy.

Shukhrat Khakimov, JD, Ph.D. in Law