{"id":2940,"date":"2002-10-10T11:05:42","date_gmt":"2002-10-10T11:05:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.armedliberal.com\/?p=338"},"modified":"2002-10-10T11:05:42","modified_gmt":"2002-10-10T11:05:42","slug":"health-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=2940","title":{"rendered":"HEALTH, AGAIN"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In recent news, Los Angeles County is <a href=http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/news\/local\/la-me-bailout10oct10,0,4459873.story?coll=la%2Dheadlines%2Dcalifornia target=\u0094browser\u0094>hustling<\/a> to keep from rolling down the shutters on a large portion of the public healthcare infrastructure.<br \/>\nMeanwhile, voters in Oregon are looking at a <a href=http:\/\/www.sfgate.com\/cgi-bin\/article.cgi?file=\/news\/archive\/2002\/10\/08\/national1349EDT0672.DTL&#038;type=health target=\u0094browser\u0094>statewide \u0091one-payer\u0092 plan<\/a> (which appears to be getting mixed reviews, at best).<br \/>\nSo here\u0092s another thought-question for the folks out there: <I>How would we <u>know<\/u> when the public health system here had collapsed?<\/I> What would that collapse look like, and how would we react?<br \/>\nThe problem seems pretty simple; Hospitals are morally and legally mandated to care for patients with little regard for their ability to pay. Some of those costs are covered by state and local government, some by the owners of hospitals (who are simultaneously declaring <a href=http:\/\/moneycentral.msn.com\/investor\/research\/wizards\/srwfund.asp?Symbol=thc target=\u0094browser\u0094>record profits<\/a> on one hand, and going <a href=http:\/\/boston.bizjournals.com\/boston\/stories\/2002\/02\/18\/newscolumn5.html target=\u0094browser\u0094>out of business<\/a> on the other), and some by insured patients, who face cost pressures as hospitals try and stay solvent.<br \/>\nSo the cost of taxes and insurance goes up, meaning fewer people can pay until < sarcasm> there is only one insured, tax-paying patient, and he (Bill Gates) is covering the costs for all the rest of us.< \/sarcasm><br \/>\nClearly, we\u0092re in an untenable position, and headed into deeper water on a leaking boat.<br \/>\nSo, back to my original question: How do we know when the system has finally broken? What will it take to get the necessary political will to deal with the problem?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In recent news, Los Angeles County is hustling to keep from rolling down the shutters on a large portion of the public healthcare infrastructure. Meanwhile, voters in Oregon are looking at a statewide \u0091one-payer\u0092 plan (which appears to be getting mixed reviews, at best). So here\u0092s another thought-question for the folks out there: How would [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2940"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2940\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}