Reader comments
Health-care revolution needed, group says

Finally, a voice of someone looking at costs of health care and the corruption in it. Having insurance, especially medicare, there is an over abundance of abuse by doctors and IHC's. Laws should also be repealed and patients be allowed to not give full authority to hospitals while they may be undergoing a simple procedure. The term of customary and reasonable charges for medical care should be abolished. Who sets these customary and reasonable charges? The hospitals who over charge and falsify costs. Health care is in the grips of a monopoly and set what ever charges they want. This drives up health care insurance costs and excessive cost to medicade and medicare. An office visit should be within the means of a patient to cover its costs without having to resort to an insurance claim. Then after paying for the services of a doctor they should care enough to personally, not nurses or office staff, call or notify patients the results of a visit and testing. This care is personal and private that only doctors and patients have access to. Health care has become an impersonal and monopolized industry that needs regulating.

Somehow it's predictable that such an important article would be hidden in the inside sections of the paper. This ought to be on the front page. Health care is one of the most significant issues of our time, and Clay Christensen, a Harvard business professor, is one of the brightest, most innovative thinkers I know. Of course fixing our broken system is way beyond a little group meeting in Deer Valley, but at least they're making a start.

...to see how many people believe that the remedy for a bureaucrat-heavy, bloated health care system is to allow the government to regulate it even more.

Our problems with health care exist because the consumers -- the patients -- are not exposed to the real costs of the product. Our current system of third-party payment by insurance companies is the cause of this; simply replacing insurance companies with the federal government will not fix it. Indeed, given the government's track record, it will make it much worse.

A better car/health care analogy would be if Americans expected their car insurance to pay for oil changes, tuneups, routine maintenance and repairs. One can imagine how costly auto insurance would be if everything you wanted for your car -- including gasoline -- was covered by your insurer.

Health insurance shouldn't be for routine care. It should be like auto insurance -- something available for emergencies that would create a significant financial burden. Not for paying for your doctor's visit to have him look in your throat because you have a cold.