On health care reform, Medicare and $173. Worth of Tylenol.

Rick Stanton, Creative Director / Managing Partner, Stanton & Everybody Advertising + Design

I fear the President has stepped in it with healthcare reform.
In his haste to take advantage of his personal popularity he has rushed to domestic war.
And the same tactics that won his campaign will not win legislative and public support.
This was an opportunity to be deliberate, unifying, even cautious, and deliver a clear, easy to understand agenda supported with fact. What he and other dems have allowed to occur is just this side of anarchy. Once again, the chance for meaningful reform has suffered at the hands of political horse flop. Something will undoubtedly pop out the other end (see horse flop), but it will probably amount to no more than rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Wrapped up in all of this is the issue of Medicare. One of our clients is a Medicare-focused insurance company representing both Medicare Advantage and Medicare Supplemental coverage. It’s a wonderful company with a true commitment to the purpose of taking the fear and confusion out of Medicare.
I’ve seen this commitment a thousand times. It’s not an advertising ploy.
One of their products, Medicare Advantage, is the biggest target in the reform conversation.
Essentially MA takes the place of Medicare and handles the paperwork and provider payment process. This ensures the enrollee gets the care they need, and docs and the like get paid on time without the government screwing it up. MA is underwritten by the government and they pay the insurance company a premium to handle everything.
After seeing what Medicare / Medicaid did to my Mom & Dad in the last two years of their lives, I wouldn’t wish having to deal with those morons on my worst enemy.
The fact that a good company makes it go away and still takes good care of their enrollees is something we should all have as we become eligible. Healthcare may or may not be a “human right” but like education, it’s a social need. And private enterprise has always done a better job of serving the public than the government ever has. I believe most of the problems associated with healthcare in this country stem from fee-based care, and a lack of oversight for the provision of that care. Medical professionals should be well compensated to be sure, but salaried with incentives based on efficiencies, results and to a lesser degree, tenure. The fee-based system is broken and it allows for obscene disregard for common sense and morality. Here's an example. Two of the last three weeks of my Mother’s life were spent in a hospital. After her passing, I was mistakenly sent a bill from her hospital stay.
One of the line items was for $173 worth of Tylenol she was administered during those two weeks. I called the doctor and asked him point blank how he could sleep at night knowing his profession was allowed to do this to people. He hung up on me.
In my entire life, no matter how sick and infirmed I become, I will not take $173 worth of Tylenol, Alleve or aspirin combined, unless of course I end up in an American hospital.
To be sure, the medical industry, just like the insurance industry, has good people and bad. But the medical field has a higher calling and greed should not be a part of it.
All the hysterical right wing nut jobs screaming socialism should shut the hell up for the benefit of people with brains. There’s difference between socialized medicine and medicine with a real and transparent social conscience. My next Blog will be an extension of this discussion. It will focus on people who choose to be fat and those who smoke, with a special amount of vitriol heaped on those who are and do both.