I posted this over in the Democracy thread.. Think it might belong here..A thread for how to improve the healthcare system .. Noam Chomsky one of the major heavy thinkers on the planet said this in his most recent interview.
Take Canada and the United States, very similar societies. Canada has a functioning national healthcare system. The United States is alone in the industrial world in that it doesn’t. Part of the reason for that is the difference in the ways the unions acted. If you go back to the initiation of the healthcare system in Canada came from the labor unions. Except, what they fought for is healthcare for everyone. The American unions fought for healthcare for themselves. So UAW got a good social welfare package: healthcare, pension, stuff like that, for themselves. Not for anyone else. Part of this deep indoctrination into “We’re all in it together,” “no class struggle,” there’s only one group of people who are highly class conscience: business. So they’re always fighting a bitter class war. But everyone else is supposed to be classless. The unions were willing to just trust management. Since we’re all in it together, you guys will take care of us. Well, you can see what happened. Management decides, “Sorry, game’s over.” They ended up with nothing. If they had worked for social welfare for everyone, it wouldn’t be a utopia, but at least there would be some functioning system for everyone.
My own feeling is that’s part of the reason why there’s such a constant effort to try to malign and undermine social security. For example, a lot of young people think that it’s unfair that they have to pay for elderly people, which is true. Social security takes money from working people and gives it to elderly people. Now, any civilized society would say that’s very fair. They were working, they took care of you when you were young, why shouldn’t you take care of them when they’re old? This sense of immoralism is really driven into people. In fact, a lot of young people think they’ll never get social security because they’re drowned in propaganda about how the system’s collapsing-
I have worked in the health care system for over 30 years as an RN and have seen things get better and worse…better.. the treatments for some illnesses are way better: for instance mental illnesses.. the drugs are better..less side effects and more effective..
worse..it is projected we will be down 350,000 nurses by 2020.. we are already down 50,000
nurses in California… Folks are dying for lack of decent nursing care..why ? lotsa reasons..one major one.. it’s really hard to be an RN, the courses are hard.. and the state boards are very hard .I’ve talked to Drs. from other countries who come to our country to become an RN and they can’t pass the tests. Also since there are not enough nurses to cover shifts the existing nurses are getting burned out..and they quit.. a vicious circle
Here’s a couple ideas on how to stream line our health care system:
1. There are alot of illnesses that don’t require a genius to diagnose or treat..
A lot of RN’s can diagnose a patient before they even see a doc..solution.. more nurse practitioners…and PA’s
2.streamline the lab process… got to Riteaid ..put your finger in a machine.. get the blood sent out..or better yet process it on the spot.. have them meet with a nurse practitioner and prescribe…
Granted these are bare bones medical care ideas but they’re efficient.. if you want a lot of hand holding pay for it..
The AMA isn’t gonna like alot of these ideas cause we’ll be dipping into their pockets, but hey
lotsa folks aren’t getting the treatment they needand they are dying..Praise Walmart for forcing other drug stores to lower their prices and save lives…
