H.R.2516 The Medical Rights Act of 2009

H.R.2516 The Medical Rights Act of 2009 - more on this bill later.

Transfer Power to the Patients

The most important thing in health care reform is to transfer power to patients and away from corporations and government. This is what will ultimately save lives and help people the most.

Bradley R. Hennenfent, M.D.
patient, physician, and economist
retired

American Medical Associations Six Principles for Health Care Reform

AMA Principles for Health System Reform (HSR)

Improving the U.S. health care system

Expand coverage

• Provide affordable, essential health insurance coverage for all
• Promote a robust private insurance market
• Ensure sustainable public programs for vulnerable populations

Improve quality

• Provide real time data at point of care
• Use measurement as a tool, not an end point
• Correct problems with the Physicians Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI)

Reform government programs

• Ensure adequate payments
• Enable balance billing and private contracting
• Replace Medicare sustainable growth rate (SGR)
• Allow public subsidies for purchasing private insurance

Reduce costs

• Break down silos and reward physicians for reducing costs
• Enact medical liability reforms
• Streamline insurance claims processing

Increased focus on wellness/prevention

• Align insurance benefit design with prevention evidence
• Make public investments in education, community projects, and nutrition
• Eliminate racial, ethnic, and gender disparities

Payment and delivery reforms

• Promote medical home and other steps to reward care coordination of chronic disease
• Provide antitrust relief to improve quality and care coordination
• Conduct adequate testing of new payment models

http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/advocacy/current-topics-advocacy/health-system-reform/ama-hsr-principles.shtml

The AMA's six principles of Health Care Reform

The AMA's six principles of Health Care Reform:
1. Expanded coverage
2. Improve quality
3. Reform government programs
4. Reduce costs
5. Increased focus on wellness/prevention
6. Payment and delivery reforms

http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/advocacy/current-topics-advocacy/health-system-reform.shtml

Stop Screening for Pre-Existing Diseases

To get health insurance you usually have to answer "'no" to the health questions on the application. We need to stop this screening for pre-existing diseases.

If the risk pool is made to be large enough there will be no need for these questions.

"Mad As Hell!?!"

Health care reform is a MUST! Our forefathers gave us, the citizens of this great land, the freedom of speech. It's time to exercise that right and stand up for what is rightfully ours. Stop Health Care Reform from the bureaucrats that do nothing but rape our pockets!

We The People

It's Thursday, July 9th, 2009, and it's time for we the people to take over health care reform.

It's time for a revolution.

"I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this any more!" said Howard Beale (actor Peter Finch) in the 1976 movie called Network.

I'm not as histrionic as Howard Beale in the movie, but the patient's life is at stake. The patients health is at risk. The patient must be the most powerful entity in the health care system, not the lobbyists, the government, the HMOs, the insurance companies, the hospitals, or the drug companies.

I'm a patient, physician, and economist, retired due to injury and illness, and I have seen how important it is for the patient to be in charge of their health care. And health care should be based on good science with some good incentives for preventative medicine.

There are more patients than there are bureaucrats. That gives us the power to take over health care reform. We have been silent long enough.

Bradley Hennenfent, M.D.
patient, economist, & physician
retired due to injury and illness