Understanding Health Care Reform

As for the current health care law, I’m not sure what to think of it.  I’ve tried to read a little bit about it, but there is so much more to it than I know.  My social work fiance is pretty excited about it.  It means that a lot of her clients will now be able to get healthcare.

Making it more affordable to get to the doctor would allow more preventative medicine which might prevent long hospital stays.  However, they need to be able to see the doctor for that to work and I don’t think there is anything in the bill to make it easier for patients to see doctors.  More patients and the same amount of doctors with the same amount of paperwork.

That is why I’m hoping for various reasons that PCP legislature gets passed to make it easier on those country docs.  Less paper work and more money.

As it stands, docs still have to report to insurance companies and beg for reimbursement for services rendered.  It is also hard for me to see how this is going to reduce health care costs and lower prices on insurance (unless preventative medicine is able to keep costs low).

I don’t really know enough to have a good opinion on this current health care reform, I do feel however that we as a society benefit as a whole from having a healthier population.  I do feel that we should constantly work towards a healthier population.  I think this is what reform is trying to do and I applaud that.  I also think this is just the first step.

I think the first step is making it easier for patients to see doctors.  I think the next step is making it easier for doctors to practice medicine on their patients.

What are your opinions on the current attempt on health care reform?

let the vaccine wars begin!

Ok, so the vaccine wars have been going on for a couple of years with some parents of autistic children blaming the preservatives in vaccines for their children’s difficulties and the CDC stating that there was no link. Now the CDC is scolding residents of the state of Georgia for not being vaccinated against pig flu in this article from ABC news http://abcnews.go.com/Health/SwineFluNews/georgia-h1n1-cases-spike-low-vaccination-rates-blamed/story?id=10238235.

I wonder if we’ll see a lot more stories like this citing lack of vaccinations as the cause of various outbreaks… I guess we probably will even if the CDC isn’t fighting back with the media.

If you happen to be reading this I’d like to hear your thoughts on vaccines and if you have any first hand stories on how you feel vaccines have affected your life.