" And we see - especially as a result of the internet - many businesses eliminating the middle man today. It is working, and people are saving money on items that were once marked up for the manufacturer's profit, and then marked up again for the middle man's profit. If we eliminate the middle man, then we eliminate waste. and, if we go by the current profit margins of the insurance companies, we will save hundreds of millions dollars - perhaps even billions of dollars a year and the government could then well afford to subsidize the physicians and healthcare providers as opposed to the insurance companies - which is what the plans proposed by President Elect Barak Obama does, as did Senator Hillary Clinton's, and as did Senator John McCain's plan do. When we take out the middle man who is incentivized against allowing access to healthcare, we take the worry out of healthcare on all fronts. A healthcare system without the insurance companies is a win-win situation for the government, and the medical service providers. People will, once again, be able to choose their own healthcare providers, and there will be an incentive for hospitals to deal with the increasingly rising rates of staph infection, and other conditions that make going to them for care worrisome.

We might see health insurance companies go out of business, but those jobs will be absorbed by a hospital and medical practice industry that will begin to rebuild itself. Managed care is like a landlord that never makes repairs to its rental units. Right now, we have dilapidated and slum housing, and managed care is the slum landlord who keeps raising rents without making improvements.

Managed care, in theory, is contrary to what is the American dream and perspective. Managed...

Managed care does not take into account the quality of life that keeps a person's very life on earth a meaningful experience and passing. We need to put the emphasis back on the meaning of quality of life, and this can only be done by putting the authority over the delivery of healthcare into the hands of the experts - the physicians, nurses, and community of service providers that have all been devastated by the current healthcare system.
This does not mean that the public should not contribute to the cost of their health care. A spending account should be set up for people that allows them reasonable access to healthcare, or at least the kind of healthcare that is going to best serve them on the basis of their care with their primary physician. If care is going to be denied, or if a spending account has been exhausted, there must be offsets to those circumstances.

We are not going to resolve the healthcare access problem in four pages. However, there is no end to the usefulness that ideas submitted for discussion and consideration can bring to the discussion table. Health care reform is a daunting task, but it is one that can be accomplished, and in an affordable way. We have to return health care choices to the public and to the physicians and healthcare providers.

Many people say that managed care came into existence because of an out of control and increasingly high cost to health insurers. The only difference between now, and then, when managed care came into existence, is who is getting the health care dollars - and the fact that people are sicker, without coverage, and without access to care.