Okay, I see I'm having trouble being understood so I'll write a little slower. :-))
________________________________ From: Gilbert Lawrence <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Thu, March 25, 2010 8:51:33 AM Subject: Re: [Goanet] win 'humbles' Obama. Hi Vivian (Coelho), Hi Gilbert (Lawrence), :-)) As a disclaimer I want to state that I've had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Gilbert Lawrence and I'm aware of the yeoman charitable work he does in his area. Also, he's a well known and well respected Oncologist - this is easily verifiable by anyone who doesn't believe me. I've been a cancer patient and I've spent LOTS of time in hospitals and I sincerely appreciate the work that Dr. Gilbert Lawrence does in his hospital and for his larger community. I am not sure about the gist and what exactly are you implying in the random statements you have made below. Yet let me take a chance and respond to these statements even though I do not understand where you are coming from. I have not followed your prior posts on this subject. Very clever. You insulate yourself by stating a the outset that you haven't been following the posts. VC: I stand by my contention that anyone in the US has access to healthcare that they don't have to pay for. No one who lives here will deny this. GL: By law no one irrespective of insurance can be denied emergency healthcare (law signed by Pres. Reagan). Many physicians will refer such patients to the hospital's emergency room. For non-emergency patients, doctors can / will decline patients with no insurance or insurance from a carrier that the doctor does not deal with. We're off to a good start! I agree with you on both counts. This does not contradict anything I've written. VC: I also stand by my contention that SOMEONE is going to get rich by forcing all Americans to purchase health insurance. GL: The goal is to provide the patient service and care. Anyone / corporation who does this is entitled to the compensation. So in other words no one gets rich by sitting on their rear end. I don't agree 100% with that last part - but I do certainly agree that health care providers are entitled to be paid for the services they provide. In this neck of the woods this is known as, dare I say it, CAPITALISM. VC: If Obama wants to provide free health care more efficiently to people who are uninsured, by all means do so, but why insert another bureaucracy between patient and doctor if not to get rich from it? GL: So exactly how do you propose these patients handle the reimbursement for their care? Are you suggesting the system to be like in Goa / Mumbai - direct payment by the patient after the service is delivered? In practice, we know that "Self-pay" means "No-pay". Insurance as an intermediary assures that the patients is not financially ripped off by the health care provider - doctors or hospitals (which is what happens now). Here is where I suggest that you read posts in a thread before you jump in! We're talking about people who CANNOT pay for the services they need, not people who can but won't. So in your second sentence you imply that it's the doctors who are being ripped off by "NO PAY" patients, and then you imply that patients are being ripped off by health care providers. I'm having trouble keeping up with who is ripping off whom. Again, I firmly support the notion that people should be paid adequately for the services they render (the C word at work). I just don't think that forcing people to buy health insurance AGAINST THEIR WILL is the answer. VC: I don't know anyone who is against providing free health CARE to those who can't afford it, it's the FORCED INSURANCE that is the problem. GL: This statement is most confusing. Who and how will this "free healthcare" be paid for? Conclusion: Providing care is not caring for an individual when they are sick. There is a lot achieved in Preventive and Maintenance care. And there has to be a system of someone supervising these aspects of care. It is the absence of Preventive and Maintain care that results in expensive care at a more advanced stage of the disease. This is the one of the main problems with the current healthcare system, specially in a society which has less and less social support at home to ensure the individual is prompt in their medical appointments and following-up the doctor's advice. I think you mean that providing care is not MERELY caring for an individual when they (sic) are sick. The rest of this para has nothing to do with health care or its accessibility and everything to do with the behavior of individual patients. How is forcing someone to buy health insurance going to remedy that? It's a problem which health insurance cannot solve, it's a problem of individual responsibility. I've never said that the current system is perfect, where many, probably millions, of indigent patients are provided health care which they personally don't pay for but we taxpayers DO pay for instead. I do believe that attempting to force everyone to buy health insurance is the absolutely wrong way to fix the system, particularly since the IRS is in charge of enforcing this. Can you really believe, Dr. Lawrence, that this is a good idea? No, I don't know what the answer is, but I know what it's not and this bill is a perfect example of making things worse. So, if Nancy Pelosi and that sap side kick of hers, Harry Reid, are willing to go against the will of the people with regard to this bill and risk getting kicked out of office and losing the House or Representatives, what is in it for them? Money. Regards, GL Regards, VMC
