I agree with everything you say, but believe that Obama has played right into the R-wing, anti-Obama pundits with ignorant statements -- such as the doozie about amputations and tonsils. I honestly take offense at that statement.
You couldn't be more right about the poor quality of hospital care delivery in this country. There is so much bantering about tort reform, yet most people have no idea how many errors they have been subject too, or how many people die just because they were admitted to the hospital. For example, an "industry secret" -- one is subjected to a medication error for every inpatient day of a hospital stay. A med error a day !!
Lots of it is directly related to shoe-string budgets, and short staffing, but that's the reality. Clearly, hospitals have to act more like efficient businesses, and efficiency is a major problem, but ANY reform has got to return solvency to the hospital system. Obama's plan does not do that and will probably create greater financial strain -- by cutting Medicare payments to hospitals by 5%, and passing down a greater share of Medicaid costs to the already cash strapped states.
Bottom line: when bureaucrats do healthcare, they wind up sounding dopey, and we will no doubt get a poor product. They would have been better to draft reform via a panel of healthcare pros from multi disciplines -- administration, finance, pharma, MD, nursing, DME, advocates, social workers, etc... A mulidisciplinary committee...
