Based on your own family's experience, what do you think we should do to improve health care in America?

Let people be responisble for their own health care. Dont turn to the government. Socalized medicine will not work in America. The government will only screw it up.

Follow the European models - particularly that of Germany.

The US wastes so much cash by having one third of all medical staff either in your doctor's office arranging insurance payments, or at the other end of the phone working for the insurance company.

All of these people are intelligent and educated. Why not use them as nurses, home helpers, carers and so on.

I grew up in a Western European country. We could have a doctor visit us at home when we were very ill - particularly after hours. Whereas here, we're always told to go to the ER.

Also, everyone paid an equitable amount direct from ones payslip, based on one's earnings. The system was better than that in the US today, and - overall - cost less.

Based on my experience in EMS- I don't see too many illegals using emergency rooms- contrary to what you hear and I live in an area with a large population of them. You also have to be a US citizen to get government services. The only thing an illegal can get is emergency medical care and birth services only. No prenatal care prior to delivery

However I do run a LOT of Americans on medicaid to the emergency room for total BS. I have gone to the drug store and purchased out of my own pocket hemorrhoid cream, aspirin, pain reliever, etc and given it to people to avoid transport and paying for the ambulance bill and er bill with my taxes. The worst abuser I've seen are on medicaid. Which I have seen pay for a penis implant in an 82 year old bed confined Alzheimer patient. It subsequently got infected and had to be removed at an additional cost.

Well, the problem is rather in the USA, the only developed country that gives no health plan to its citizens.

Do like in many other countries, some not so well developed. Provide health care to the citizens, paid by the government

Protect health care providers from frivolous lawsuits and punitive damages.

Repeal all laws forcing health care providers to treat patients regardless of their ability to pay.

End Medicare and Medicaid.

Deregulate the industry.

Change the concept of health insurance to be like car insurance (they don't pay for maintenance, only catastrophic damage).

These are the things that drive up the cost of health care, not greedy CEOs.

Change insurance to "major" medical so people with insurance are motivated to ask about the cost of medical things. If our insurance covers everything with little or no co-pay people have a tendencey overuse the medical system.

allow people to purchase their own health care that can move from job to job with them. And to focus more on HSA's then normal insurance giving patients and their family more control over the costs of their own health care.

Stop providing it free to people who have invaded our country. That alone would reduce the cost to the citizens of this nation.

single payer system. Trim the fat, no more insurance companies taking a cut, lobbyists, and administrative companies.

We need a COMPLETE overhaul as health care was seized by large insurers and the government and ruined.

Only ONE real, comprehensive plan I've seen to date and it would work: http://www.booklocker.com/books/3068.html has a way to reform the system--logically:

enforce CONTRACT law--right now too many legit claims are denied by companies with impunity because paying what they OWE would be "expensive"--see http://www.thenationalcoalition.org/DrPeenotestimo... for one person who came clean on just that subject

enforce ANTITRUST law--in about half the 300 major markets there is one large insurer who CONTROLS the market and basically sets prices including what we taxpayers fork over for Medicaid, etc.

Nathan would require PRICE TRANSPARENCY which no honest man need fear or should object to. All those prices HIDDEN from the patient in the computer--let us see them NOW. We should shop around, especially the uninsured. The only game you can play where you get to charge whatever you FEEL like AFTER THE FACT instead of providing honest info up front. There's a MAJOR cause of bankruptcies right there. More than half the bankruptcies are over medical bills AND 75% of those folks HAVE insurance.

Nathan would also like to offer up a plan that stops the hemorraghing of taxpayer money and FIX the broken systems of Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP and END the problem of the uninsured and more importantly the uninsurABLE (folks who can't get insurance at ANY price). It's a VOLUNTARY, NO fines, NO employer mandates, NO new taxes on people.

It's catastrophic care PLUS. The plus is that EVERYONE on the plan gets:

a physical with follow up each year for a co-pay. They can have discounted prescription meds. They can have one NEEDED ER visit (ending ER abuse is important) per year with co-pay. Better than the other plans out there by far.

It's AFFORDABLE. How? Means-tested with a sliding fee scale--no way you can't afford it. The co-pays are based on what you can afford. The CATASTROPHIC LEVEL is also set by that. The working poor may only be able to shell out $2K in a year on med expenses--THEN the insurance would kick in. Someone making good money might have to shell out $10K before it kicked in. It's fair because it's going to save the well-off anyway because now they get robbed with every paycheck for BS like Medicaid which leaves lots of folks with NO coverage options and sends them into bankruptcy which COSTS US ALL.

Also by catching things early, which WOULD happen with a physical each year, we'll cut costs.

By making people pay their own way UNLESS and UNTIL they hit a catastrophic level of med expense, the nonsense of running to the doc for the sniffles or the ER for a stubbed toe ENDS because they have to pay for that themselves. This happens now with people who either have overly generous insurance plans or with illegals who use the ER as a doctor's office and because of spineless administrators, the abuse continues. Spineless administrators because federal law requires LIFE THREATENING conditions to be treated and stabilized without regard to payment. It does NOT, NOT, NOT say that any jerk who shows up at the ER and says "my toe hurts" gets seen at an ER. It is misapplied that way all the time, but that is the FAULT of spineless fools. Once the nonsense stops--or the administrator has to pay for that so it WILL stop--we'll see a reduction in who is going to the ER.

Then and this is KEY: Nathan says we need to greatly increase the number of doctors, nurses, and other allied health care professionals in the US. Right now we IDIOTICALLY turn away THOUSANDS of well-qualified students for NO good reason at all--then we rely on 25% of our RESIDENCIES to be filled by grads of foreign med schools--STEALING students from poor countries who provided those people with a free to them ed in many cases. They now get NOTHING for that expense they can ill afford.

Because of this we DENY a legit ed to qualified students in the US as well by relying on the fact that we will always have thousands of foreign med students who want to live HERE instead of their home country.

Just stupid as well as immoral.

Nathan's plan if implemented as she describes it would likely address more than 90% of ALL the problems with health care in the US and drop prices substantially. And ALL legit docs and facilities are automatically ON the plan so patients can see the doc or go to the facility of their choice. Funding IS explained.

This is the only plan I've seen that deals with human nature--some people are users and takers and they waste our limited resources--if they have to pay, that behaviour will decrease--if it's "free" to them, the rest of us will work ourselves into an early grave to support their nonsense. When they waste the resources they also ensure those with LEGIT problems have to wait and wait or be denied care as well. Nathan sees to it that the PURPOSE of insurance--preventing bankruptcy--is maintained. She also sees to it that the care people need IS available without breaking their banks. The genuinely ill will finally, for the FIRST time, get the care they need without worrying about going broke. I'm talking about people with SERIOUS problems, not someone who breaks his leg or has an emergency appendectomy--they'll live even under this system we have now.

Nathan's plan is fairer than any other I've seen.