ENACT MEDICARE FOR ALL AS ACA REFORM

COMPREHENSIVE, EARLY, PERIODIC,  SCREENING, DIAGNOSIS, and TREATMENT

​"From a public health perspective, in the age of Covid, ebola, zika, mrsa, malaria, chikungunya, pockets of once thought eradicated yellow fever, polio, and a host of other infectious disease threats, it's highly counterproductive and extremely dangerous to exclude anyone from healthcare services.

COAST TO COAST, AND CRADLE TO GRAVE :: Briefly, here are my thoughts on healthcare. The guiding principles of delivery should be familiar to anyone who has ever worked or received pre-natal care services: COMPREHENSIVE, EARLY and PERIODIC, SCREENING, DIAGNOSIS, and TREATMENT. 

GENERAL REVENUE SINGLE PAYER :: With regard to MEDICARE For ALL financing, I believe that we should have  a SINGLE PAYER Option (the People), and that funds should come from general revenues.  We don't pay separate premiums for military defense, nor should we be micromanaging the financing of Healthcare Defense, and we shouldn't practice any discrimination whatsoever between patients who present for care in the public system. The elimination of Medicare administrative costs associated with individual billing can create additional savings which can be better spent on preventive and reactive care. Copays and deductibles represent barriers to care for millions of American patients.

Silver, Bronze, Gold, and Platinum These are confusing and counterproductive attributes of the current for-profit health insurance marketplace -- there can be only one standard of care, and that should be the BEST care possible and available for all patients. We should allow patients to choose from a truly national (and even international) marketplace of providers, so that if a patient in Florida chooses to opt for care in Washington state, she should have that option. The phenomenon of Medical Tourism exists because in many cases, the standard of care overseas is better than what we can offer here, and most of the time at a better (lower) cost. We should explore international health service treaties with nations who might engage us in reciprocal health exchanges."

​                                                                                  -- Mike