Dear editor,
In your paper’s article, “U.S. Supreme Court hearsMedi-Cal fee-cut case”, the ones hardest hit by the meteoric rise of medical costs
and the poor economy are undoubtedly the patients under the United States
healthcare plans. The government must immediately enact policies that will
reverse the rising cost of healthcare and the bankrupting of California
citizens. The federal government can start by enacting legislation that would
broaden the responsibilities of accredited healthcare workers. We currently overpay
for simple health services that can be done at lower costs and by doing so we
can have doctors deal with complicated treatments and conditions. The
government can also tackle rising costs by standardizing the information
systems of healthcare. States currently cannot share medical information across
state borders but a nationally standardized database would save patients costs
of redundant tests. I believe that these two approaches as well as other
initiatives will help alleviate the financial burden on the budget and free up
some money to reimburse our doctors. Although these are just stop gap measures aimed
at tackling the immediate deficit in healthcare but it will at least buy us some
time to create a sustainable solution during a time of financial peril.
Sincerely,
Jisu Youm
From the article, I don't see the incentives for doctors to provide quality care through Medi-Cal when they are being charged with more fees. That is not a reasonable solution when it comes down to slashing budgets. We should be focusing more of our attention on how else we can help insure the poor that need the care, without sacrificing its quality of care. As we can see, the federal government may possibly be losing more money due to backlashes by the doctors, hospitals and patients.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what Jisu says, in terms of tackling the rising costs by standardizing the information system. We see that so much of our expenditures is spent on technology but at the same time, there has been little integration of technology being utilized to decrease time and money, such as for administrative matters. This integration will also add to the quality of care from health care providers and the ability for them to ensure the health of more citizens, thus saving more money in the long run.
Sincerely,
Fay Saepharn
I completely agree that universal health records needs to be put on the agenda. But since there is so much fragmentation in the system how do you even begin to enforce it? The initial spearheading of a task like this would cost a bit of money for programing and enforcing. And until past medical records are for sure no longer a factor when deciding premiums, I feel the people wouldn't want this put in place. But to get the ball rolling a little, I would find and create studies that show universal medical records are cost saving because we all know there is power in seeing numbers. And really informing everyone involved the laws and regulations surrounding people's health records so the fear and unknown aspects are taken out of he equation.
ReplyDelete-Simone Johnson