I know that today, more than ever, women are choosing between paying rent or mortgages and caring for their children over medicine. How can we address this better as a health care.policy community?
Below you will find my response to a recently proposed question by a LinkedIn member.
I try to comment when I feel my input would help and shed some light on a topic. If this interests you just join LinkedIn and ask to join the group where the discussion is held.
You can follow the group when you join Linked In and follow the sub group Innovations In Women's Health
Anthony Zelinko • Lisa, hope your son is all right.
Great discussion and thanks to Dr. Scher, Dr. Watson for their candid input and the rest of you for keeping this discussion alive.
I would like to say a few things about Sharanda's insight.
"It is my belief that healthcare, politics, business, broken families... are all related in the worse ways possible."
Sharanda, you hit the nail right on the head!
Many think healthcare and related costs exist in a vacuum! It doesn't it is part of our societal fabric but the problem is no one but maybe a few have looked at it that way. The reason being most people only concentrate on areas that directly affect their bottom line or lively hood.
Let me explain
1. The insurance industry by it's own definition if you look into it will never lose money and is designed to keep raising rates at the expense of the consumer. Look at who can afford to air commercials Drug companies ie. Big Pharma and Insurance Companies. Tort reform is badly needed but that gets crushed by the Lawyer lobbyist. Insurance premiums continue to rise to absorb any lawsuits so much so it's driving many doctors to close their practices.
2. Politics, Hmmm Who has political clout in Washington and gives large political donations. It's major corporations and Big Pharma again. Funny how they pop up.
3. Now Business. Corporations by their very design are for profit entities. They exist for profit and their shareholders. Where the US got it wrong was to let jobs go overseas without any repercussions. What congress needs to enact is a law stating that any corporation that exists or falls under the advantages of being a corporation as long as it sells or markets 75% or more of it's products or services in our country needs to contribute 5% of it's pre-tax profits. That would do a number of things we can discuss later.
4. Now lets touch on Broken families. Let me just say in one of my posts I stated that single moms in first year of their babies life she should get assistance and stippened to stay home and raise the infant. Single mothers with more than one child should get paid for staying home and raising them as long as they meet certain educational and designed guidelines. We as a society pay 10 times over to incarcerate kids from broken homes.
5. Get off medications and understand that many "It's my belief cause more harm than good". Especially antidepressants! Basically if your not taking them someone in your family is. It's really sad. Somehow anyone who is slightly ADD or ADHD needs to take Ritalin. Where do you think Richard Branson would be now if he would have taken drugs to temper his ADHD.
6. Lastly the consumer needs to know multi billions have been lost due to fraud and mismanagement with our healthcare system ie. Medicare and Medicaid. Over the past decade we have been fleeced, but you will never get any of the people running those programs to admit it.
7. Lastly I tried to comment in a respectful and civil manner. The more I learn about this subject is making me cynical about our healthcare system and how it relates to politics. I have an analytical background and try to apply that skill to whatever I'm looking into. As Benjamin Franklin once said "Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days". I think something is fishy with our healthcare system!
