Medical Decentralization

2 Apr 00:

Since the collapse of Hillary Clinton's attempt to create a national health system, the Feds have in 1996 made medical insurance portable for persons changing their jobs and made an effort to expand medicine to children, but now over 40 million Americans are without medical insurance.

The Federal government does not want to address the problem of the uninsured and the states can not because firms that self insure are not subject to state regulation so that states really do not control medicine within the state.

The move to contain costs through HMOs have created public distrust of HMOs because HMOs have been given the job of rationing medicine without the publics consent. With pay for service insurance there is no incentive for cost control, but with capitated (fixed payment) in HMOs they make greater profits by restricting high risk low payoff treatments. What is not resolved in current medicine is who is going to ration medicine.

Oregon has increased the number of people on Medicaid by restricting high cost, low success procedures. Hawaii has almost all Hawaiians under a medical plan. Kentucky attempted to create insurance plan where Kentuckians could not be denied medical insure and reduced costs to the sick by pooling risk.

 

This materia came from a paper written by Alfred Norman, Brian Foshburg, John Frederick, and Lillian Liao

Contents

• Medical Records This is the continual of the discussion of privacy of medical records from the material on information policy
• Medical Organization This is paper written by Alfred Norman and James Feldman about the various medical proposals circulating about Congress when the Clinton's proposed their national medical plan.