Your Comments - A Small Business Owner Speaks Out

Over the last two weeks, I've received many excellent comments from the Feinstein 1200. 

I'm passing them along. Please note that I am only using first names or first initials to protect your privacy.

To all who are concerned about our current medical insurance crisis…..

The only things that loom large in this debate is whether doctors have to increase their staffs, thereby increasing their costs, thereby increasing their willingness to deny care, and all due to whether they get paid or not. This has been the tactics of the past 30 years when the Kaiser HMO model became the favorite of Richard Nixon (2007, Moore). The status quo has created gate keepers who actively deny care. In today's system you are more likely to be sent home or to a convalescent care facility then to recuperate in a hospital. The hospitals like Stanford love this model. They can charge $500 to be admitted and kick you out when the payments from the gate keepers requests, all due to the insurance company stopping payment. It is legal and is the current status quo.  
 
I like the idea of local neighborhood clinics you can walk to, and where you pay a nominal fee (see the state of Washington). The clinic aspect has a model that works and is comprehensible from the idea of care at the clinic level. The average range is $75 to $110 per month where one can go anytime and for any number of visits. If this model can somehow be tied to a comprehensive catastrophic care program like an insurance policy,

1. The model takes the care at the clinic level away from the insurance companies, a very good thing I might add, and
2. The model puts the care when things are critical into the hospitals. The model will cause the costs of care to the insurance companies to drop significantly, will add roles of new patients into the system, and will enable insurance companies to offer better care at the critical care levels only.

I also want to see that small businesses get a hefty tax break if they adopt a health care system into their businesses and offer a standard package to all the employees.  
 
If nothing is done, I am the officer of a corporation and will only do what is legal and that resolves around trusts that enable the executives to get platinum medical insurance while offering very little to the rank and file employee. This is the corporate status quo. Ever wonder what the banking industry is paying in those obscene bonuses? A big component is these medical trusts. They care complex and a regulation in the IRS where only large sophisticated corporations can afford. This current model is in place across the board in all fortune 500 companies. 
 
Let’s keep the debate flowing,  

Sincerely yours, 
 
Chris