In These Eight Midterms Races, Health and Medicine Are Front and Center (statnews.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: In Idaho, Nebraska, and Utah, voters will directly decide whether their states should expand their Medicaid programs. In Wisconsin, they could elect a candidate for governor who has pledged to sharply curtail drug prices. And across the country, Democratic congressional candidates are running on platforms highlighting their support for protecting insurance coverage for those with pre-existing conditions and lowering drug prices. Health care is on the ballot across the country, with issues ranging from medical marijuana to abortion rights to insurance coverage dominating the conversation.

Comments

Healthcare is issue #1 for me

[rsilvergun]

I've got friends and family that depend on pre-existing condition coverage. Plus I've got friends stuck in dead end jobs because they can't go 90 days without healthcare (one of them tried to get Cobra and found out that it's damn near impossible to sign up for, at least with his old company. He's just had to live without health insurance for 90 days).

I want Medicare for All. Saves money, works in every country that tried it and covers everyone. 45,000 Americans die of treatable illnesses every year. I don't want to be one of them.

Re:Market solutions

[ShanghaiBill]

I was under the impression that the costs for supplies, equipment, and medicines are what has been growing so fast.

The biggest contributor to rising medical costs is administration. Many clinics and hospitals have more people dealing with insurance and regulatory compliance forms than treating patients.

The second biggest contributor is big ticket equipment. It is questionable how much value these bring. When hospitals install MRI machines, costing millions of dollars each, there is no measurable improvement in patient outcomes.

National Candidates and Marijuana

[Only Time Will Tell]

There has been a lot of discussion and action at the state level around the legalization of medical use of marijuana (or full-blown recreational use in a few states), but I haven't heard much about U.S. Congress representative candidates, yet alone senators, supporting it. Has anyone heard of, or does your candidate support, bringing up a bill on the federal level to bring consensus around medical use nationally? In Indiana, the state legislators have essentially punted on the idea. They held a special committee over the summer to study the issue, with families and doctors coming forward to speak about the benefits. But in the end, the committee decided it would provide no recommendation, and several state politicians seem to want to defer to the U.S. Congress to act. I don't really have a dog in this race, but do believe it can provide a lot of benefit to patients, let alone stop ridiculous jailing and prosecuting of those who choose to use.

Nope, they were for nothing

[rsilvergun]

if you had a catastrophe you'd quickly find out they covered nothing. They were riddled with loop holes. If all else failed they'd declare it a pre-existing condition.

The plans were that cheap because they didn't work. Their purpose was to soak up money from rubes and (more often) divorced guys with a court order to have insurance. Reading the fine print they weren't worth the paper it was printed on.