Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Looking for change
I appreciate everyone response and comments. One thing I want to clarify: I didn't mean to convey the message that we should not give health care to inmates that are incarcerated. I think that if they have medical problems, of course they need to be treated. But, do they need a brand new complex? I don't agree on spending hundreds of millions of dollars of tax payers money to rebuild a brand new health service center in the prison, when many Californians don't have medical insurance and when California can't figure out how to budget their money. The bottom line is that California has some major problems that it is facing economically. We should concentrate more of our efforts on spending our money more wisely.
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2 comments:
Hi Micah,
Glad to see you excited to talk about public health issues. I agree that it's outrageous that prisons have free universal care (recal Michael Moore's hilarious trip to Guantanamo Bay) while one in 5 Americans is uninsured.
It will be interesting to see what healthcare ideas the presidential candidates try to sell us. The Democrats are throwing around proposals for universal coverage (not to be confused with single payer), not sure what the GOP is saying.
Universal coverage ideas will be tried from a bottom up and a top down.
SF is implementing an integrated safety net health system including over the next couple years. (http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/358/4/327)
While CA's universal health insurance plan just flopped, other states like Massachusetts are trying their own plans.
Hopefully someone figures out a system that works, or maybe we'll figure out many systems that work regionally. I just really hope we're not talking about this 10-15 years from now.
More on the prison health care issue: I took an informal poll of my hiking group today (climbed Corte Madera Mountain)---all retired physicians, and they agree with you that a brand new, state-of-the-art facility isn't what's needed---it is good, basic care provided by caring, skilled physicians--something they lack now. So we all agree....:-)
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