In JRW Healthcare Article, health insurance expert witness Jon R. Wampler writes:
Both political parties continue to focus solely on the supply side of our healthcare problem. We really need to be looking at the demand side as well. Value over volume should be everyone’s chief focus, but this will require sacrifice from everyone; physicians, patients, insurance carriers and the uninsured. We simply cannot afford to give everyone everything, no matter what the President says. The numbers just don’t add up.
It is time for all Americans to take a deep breath and revisit what could be done to make our healthcare system more accessible to all, less expensive, provide wider coverage, improve health for average Americans and still allow the 1300 companies currently providing healthcare coverage to continue to do so.
The following five broad reforms might accomplish this and much more without resorting to a government sponsored plan and allowing our government to work on other serious problems like Social Security, Medicare and, of course, our huge deficit. Adding another trillion and a half dollars on an experiment in revolutionizing our existing healthcare system just doesn’t make sense right now.
First, President Obama is just the right person to lead our country in a fighting its current number one health problem . . . obesity. Our young energetic, basketball-playing President could lead our country in an effort to lose weight. Currently two-thirds of all Americans are overweight, one-third of those are obese. Our children are in even worse shape.