Health care for all Americans is a noble idea. How to achieve this goal is an entirely different subject and challenge...Peter Idusogie

I strongly believe that in other to achieve the twin goals of universal health care for all Americans and affordability, there has to be comprehensive and fundamental change in the way we deliver health care in America . I believe that this objective can be best accomplished at the Presidential level with congressional oversight as legislation unfolds to promote that noble cause.

As your next Congressman, I will work hard to ensure affordability for all who want health care coverage. Secondly, regardless, of who wins the election at the presidential level, I will fight to preserve and improve on that which is honorable, that which is good, that which is just, that which is right, anything of virtue or excellent in our current health care system. In a nutshell, I will narrowly focus on being the custodian and protector of all the good things in the American medical system. I will do everything I can to ensure that neither service or quality will be compromised in the drive to provide universal health care for all Americans. We must never forget that America has the highest patient satisfaction among the industrialized nation.

Here are a few things to keep in mind, some of which you are aware of and others, politicians avoid informing the people.

Providing universal coverage or making health care affordable for all Americans is righteous but not inexpensive. Secondly, it will take some time before we begin to actually see the fruit in terms of a more healthy population and bringing under control the sky rocketing cost of health care. Regardless of whether you are for single payer or universal coverage involving private/public paternership certain aspects of reforming health care are essential and must be included in any plan to improve both the quality and delivery of health care in America .

• Since charity begins at home, we must promote individual responsibility at the highest level. Prevention is better than cure and many of the chronic disease that affect our population can be prevented if one will strive to eat right and engage in physical exercise. 80% of all health care cost goes to the 20% of the patients with chronic illness. Thus, all schools that serve meals must provide healthy food choices and parents must be included in changing the mind set of our children. The following issues among many others must be included as part of an overhaul of our health care system:
• Declare war on obesity and unhealthy lifestyle in other to cut in half in twenty years new cases of diabetes and stroke. (According to a recent news report, almost 60% of our population is overweight.
• Eliminate waste and costly methods in the delivery of health care. Allow the Federal Government to negotiate the price of drugs for Medicare with pharmaceutical companies
• Electronic medical records will yield billions of dollars in savings according to a study by the Rand Corporation.
• Allow Americans to import the same drugs with the same quality as the ones in the U.S. but are cheaper abroad.
• Allow doctors and not insurance bureaucrats to determine what treatment a patient deserves.
• Do not forget the people who are not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid but are not old enough for Medicare. If these people do not have health insurance through their jobs they are out of luck or are relegated to purchasing expensive insurance with high premiums.
• No one should be denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions.
• Expand CHIP(children health insurance program) to cover all children in America .
• Address the wide disparities, not withstanding the cost of living in administering health care from one region of the country to another. For example, the wide difference in the cost of open heart surgery between New York and San Francisco .
• Look at the health care disparity among different races while addressing through knowledge and education diseases that are peculiar or common in certain populations and culture.
• Utilize modern technology such as high tech electronic drug dispensers to avoid costly mistakes when providing prescriptions to patients.
• Come up with a more effective criteria in rating the performance of hospitals. In a nutshell, it should be track record driven rather than just profit driven. I also support the setting up of a public/ private independent entity that promotes best practice and evaluates new drugs outside the FDA that come into the market from the pharmaceutical companies.
• Close monitoring of food imports and working to reduce the use of antibiotics in the feeding of cattle and chickens. Promote organic substitute in order to stem the growing immunity to antibiotics by our children and population at large. The development of any super bug among other reasons is in large measure due to the over prescribing of antibiotics by doctors, sometimes bowing to pressure from patients. Once these bugs become immune to antibiotics, they then mutate to new super bugs.
• All health care reform must include full coverage for mental health: depression, bipolar etc.( lack of compassion for people with mental health, leaves much to be desired. Unknown to most of us, one of the great leaders of our country who suffered mental health and was suicidal was Abraham Lincoln. This disease is frowned upon and it is stigmatized and this stigmatization is very well reflected in the hallway of our hospitals all the way to the corridors of power in Washington. In other words, there has to be meaningful comprehensive coverage to alleviate the predicament or plight of Americans who happen to be unfortunately afflicted with this disease.

Top