Think that your health is more important than a used car? Not anymore.

How healthy is your medical credit score?

System being designed to help hospitals figure out whether you'll pay them


03:32 PM CST on Wednesday, December 12, 2007
By JASON ROBERSON / The Dallas Morning News
jroberson@dallasnews.com

Mortgage lenders aren't the only ones showing more interest in your credit score these days – the health industry is creating its own score to judge your ability to pay.

Also Online
Tell us: Is medical credit scoring a good idea?
The new medFICO score, being designed with the help of credit industry giant Fair Isaac Corp., could debut as early as this summer in some hospitals.

Healthcare Analytics, a Waltham, Mass., health technology firm, is developing the score. It is backed by funding from Fair Isaac, of Minneapolis; Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare Corp.; and venture capital firm North Bridge Venture Partners, also based in Waltham. Each kicked in $10 million for the project.

The score is already raising questions from consumer advocacy groups that fear it will be checked before patients are treated. People with low medical credit scores could receive lower-quality care than those with a healthy medFICO, they argue.


MARK MATCHO/Special Contributor "How much assurance do I have that they're not going to look at this medFICO first, before they decide whether to treat or not?" asked Linda Foley, founder of the Identity Theft Resource Center in San Diego.

I could have gguessed that the vultures at TENET would have a hand in this.

Originally Posted by herbal tee

Think that your health is more important than a used car? Not anymore.



I could have gguessed that the vultures at TENET would have a hand in this.

Welcome to explicit rationing.

Originally Posted by Pink Splice

Welcome to explicit rationing.

Are there any treal world arguments left against a national healthcare system?

Let's see now. It was supposed to limit our choice of doctors, so we needed HMO's.
It was supposed to cost too much, so we needed PPO's.
It would lead to rationing....

let's adopt the same system used by the German Empire from 1889 (and which is still used by the Federal Republic of Germany today)!

Originally Posted by herbal tee

Are there any ()real world arguments left against a national healthcare system?
....

I sit amidst the Murine-Americans and the molds in the Ahmed Chalabi Intensive Care Unit in Building #16 of Katrina Memorial Hospital.

Nurse Craig comes in daily and taps his toes and then disappears when there is no response; Nurse Foley isn't interested in an elderly patient such as Yo. Ob. Sv..

The soporifics are all at the front in Eurasia or so I am told. The staff seems quite giddy with self-medication despite this. I am to be discharged just as soon as my x-rays are read in the Bhutto Laboratories and the translations from the particular Pakistani are made into Urdu and thence into Celestial and finally Spanglish.

Though my late father had failed his Medicare pregnancy tests. It appears that I am with child yet again.

_____
WCOORC is a registered trademark of The Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton, Bush Group of Fed-Gov.

Originally Posted by Virgil K. Saari

I sit amidst the Murine-Americans and the molds in the Ahmed Chalabi Intensive Care Unit in Building #16 of Katrina Memorial Hospital.

Nurse Craig comes in daily and taps his toes and then disappears when there is no response; Nurse Foley isn't interested in an elderly patient such as Yo. Ob. Sv..

The soporifics are all at the front in Eurasia or so I am told. The staff seems quite giddy with self-medication despite this. I am to be discharged just as soon as my x-rays are read in the Bhutto Laboratories and the translations from the particular Pakistani are made into Urdu and thence into Celestial and finally Spanglish.

Though my late father had failed his Medicare pregnancy tests. It appears that I am with child yet again.

_____
WCOORC is a registered trademark of The Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton, Bush Group of Fed-Gov.

Actually, I had in mind something along the lines of what is found in the royalist part of Ruperts's land or perhaps adapting the Antipodian model to the Sandwich Islands as a test case. In any case, I believe that we can do a little better than a rodent infested eurasian field hopital staffed by those intoxicated on pain killers. : .

So you want us to adopt Canada's health care system? If so, then hell yes!

Because it would create a positive relationship between the people and their government.

In a recent issue of National Review, Ramesh Ponnuru and Rich Lowry explained how Republicans can avert electoral disaster and get back on track. Conservative writers offer advice columns like these periodically, but this one included a concession we usually don’t see in print.

The plain truth is that the [Republican] party faces a cataclysm, a rout that would give Democrats control of the White House and enhanced majorities in the House and the Senate. That defeat would, in turn, guarantee the confirmation of a couple of young, liberal Supreme Court nominees, putting the goal of moving the Court in a more constitutionalist direction out of reach for another generation. It would probably also mean a national health-insurance program that would irrevocably expand government involvement in the economy and American life, and itself make voters less likely to turn toward conservatism in the future. (emphasis added)

This apparently, is the principal fear. Not just that Democrats will win, but also that they’ll implement a policy agenda. And it’s not just that the agenda is liberal, it’s that the agenda will discourage Americans from embracing a conservative agenda in the future.

Paul Krugman, responding to the Ponnuru/Lowry piece, noted:

I think that sentence contains a grim truth for progressives: the right will fight any health reform tooth and nail. They believe — and so do I — that the implications of universal coverage would extend far beyond health care, that it would revitalize the New Deal idea. And so they’ll do anything to stop it.

This isn’t an entirely new point, but it’s worth rehashing once in a while: the right will resist universal healthcare with all its might because, as a matter of electoral strategy, conservatives don’t have a choice.

It’s largely faded from the political world’s memory, but I’d argue the most important moment in the debate over the Clinton healthcare plan in the early 1990s came when Bill Kristol distributed a memo to congressional Republicans — exactly 14 years ago yesterday.

Leading conservative operative William Kristol privately circulates a strategy document to Republicans in Congress. Kristol writes that congressional Republicans should work to “kill” — not amend — the Clinton plan because it presents a real danger to the Republican future: Its passage will give the Democrats a lock on the crucial middle-class vote and revive the reputation of the party. Nearly a full year before Republicans will unite behind the “Contract With America,” Kristol has provided the rationale and the steel for them to achieve their aims of winning control of Congress and becoming America’s majority party. Killing health care will serve both ends. The timing of the memo dovetails with a growing private consensus among Republicans that all-out opposition to the Clinton plan is in their best political interest.

And a positive relationship between the people and their government means the effective end of the corporatist agenda.

Originally Posted by herbal tee

Because it would create a positive relationship between the people and their government.



And a positive relationship between the people and their government means the effective end of the corporatist agenda.

And, if Health and Education were left to the Several States or to the Counties and Parishes a renewed positive bond to less than Nation State polities in great variety would bloom with the citizens (and the badly documented and truly papered aliens amongst them) of the smaller polities.

It would create a set of positive relationships between the people and their many governments and would greatly hamper the Progressivist agenda and his levelling wind. The Progressive hatred of variety trumps their care for people in matters of health and education.

No Citizen Left Well will follow the bi-partisan Progressive No Child Left Behind, and we will all be poorer, more ignorant, and sicker as the waterboarders and __-insert ethnic group here-___ skull crushers entertain the War on Health and the War on Education in concert with the War on Terror and the Reform of Eurasia.

Originally Posted by herbal tee

I could have gguessed that the vultures at TENET would have a hand in this.

Thank you for posting and starting this thread. Universal Healthcare is a must if we are to be a country with any credibility.

This type of credit score investigation is a sure sign of a corrupt healthcare system. I am amazed at how much care some of the non-for-profit hospitals give away to those who can't afford it. Many struggle to keep their heads above water. The for-profit hospitals, like Tenant, make their profits on the back of those who are sick, but who can "pay," for substandard care in their bare bones facilities. Universal Health Care would/could put a stop to these callous practices.

The modern-day Liberal Manifesto:

It's time for the federal government, for the sake of security for all, to know each citizen inside and out.

It's time for the federal government, for the sake of security for all, to keep and own a health record of everyone from womb to the tomb.

It's time for the federal government, for the sake of security for all, to liquidate the last vestiges of individual freedom and liberty in this land once and for all.

It's time for the federal government, for the sake of security for all, to simply eradicate the individual from the face of the earth

So let it be written. So let it be done.

Originally Posted by zilch

The modern-day Liberal Manifesto:

It's time for the federal government, for the sake of security for all, to know each citizen inside and out.

Nah, I'll leave that to you guys. You want to read our mail and tap our phones without a warrent or court supervision.

It's time for the federal government, for the sake of security for all, to keep and own a health record of everyone from womb to the tomb.

And you don't think that's what TENET is trying to do?

It's time for the federal government, for the sake of security for all, to liquidate the last vestiges of individual freedom and liberty in this land once and for all.

The freedom of homelessness due to forecloseure caused by medical beills?
The liberty of an early grave because one cannot afford to use a for profet medical center?

It's time for the federal government, for the sake of security for all, to simply eradicate the individual from the face of the earth

Yeah man, the idea that we might be able to catch or passCuba and Malta is a real bummer.

Good to see you've got your priorities straight.

(to the troll zilch):

Originally Posted by herbal tee

(to the troll zilch):
Nah, I'll leave that to you guys. You want to read our mail and tap our phones without a warrent or court supervision.


And you don't think that's what TENET is trying to do?


The freedom of homelessness due to forecloseure caused by medical bills?
The liberty of an early grave because one cannot afford to use a for profet medical center?


Yeah man, the idea that we might be able to catch or passCuba and Malta is a real bummer.

Good to see you've got your priorities straight.

We do worse than both Cuba and South Korea in infant mortality. We're just ahead of formerly-Commie Croatia and sort-of-Commie Belarus.

That's not ideology; that's priorities. We do a spectacular job of enriching the people who most resolutely assert that the enrichment of themselves is the cornerstone of economic success.

Originally Posted by Deb C

Thank you for posting and starting this thread. Universal Healthcare is a must if we are to be a country with any credibility.

This type of credit score investigation is a sure sign of a corrupt healthcare system. I am amazed at how much care some of the non-for-profit hospitals give away to those who can't afford it. Many struggle to keep their heads above water. The for-profit hospitals, like Tenant, make their profits on the back of those who are sick, but who can "pay," for substandard care in their bare bones facilities. Universal Health Care would/could put a stop to these callous practices.

Thanks. I have a neighbor who works for a TENET run hospital. She's trying to get into a larger, better facility run by a quasi-public authority. I believe that a system of universal access will relieve such a burden off of private enterprise and could help put the 'high' into the next 1T.
Dispite the considered reservations expressed by our esteemed and archiac friend from the north star state, I don't see how the current system can be salvaged. We've already got the tax code turning figerative back flips to try to make private coverage available. Quite unlike what is true for wants such as clothing, the market just isn't a good mechanism for handiling needs. When one needs a life or death emergency operation, the theory of choice in medical providers just doesn't pass the real world test. The very idea that somehow a private provider can supply medical services more cheaply than a non profet and pay stock dividends is counterintuitive at best.

Originally Posted by Deb C

Thank you for posting and starting this thread. Universal Healthcare is a must if we are to be a country with any credibility.

This type of credit score investigation is a sure sign of a corrupt healthcare system. I am amazed at how much care some of the non-for-profit hospitals give away to those who can't afford it. Many struggle to keep their heads above water. The for-profit hospitals, like Tenant, make their profits on the back of those who are sick, but who can "pay," for substandard care in their bare bones facilities. Universal Health Care would/could put a stop to these callous practices.

No, it wouldn't. Not when they reached the point of needing to pinch pennies again. Or, see the latest pronouncement (on a state level) by Der Governator.

Or, see the practices in the VA. Universal Health Care might do a lot of good, but it's no panacea for miserliness, negligence, incompetence, or any other human failing.

Originally Posted by zilch

The modern-day Liberal Manifesto:

It's time for the federal government, for the sake of security for all, to know each citizen inside and out.

It's time for the federal government, for the sake of security for all, to keep and own a health record of everyone from womb to the tomb.

It's time for the federal government, for the sake of security for all, to liquidate the last vestiges of individual freedom and liberty in this land once and for all.

It's time for the federal government, for the sake of security for all, to simply eradicate the individual from the face of the earth

So let it be written. So let it be done.

Or just go to the movies and See "Gattaca" Much as I hate to agree with Zilch, he has a point here.

Originally Posted by zilch

The modern-day Liberal Manifesto:

It's time for the federal government, for the sake of security for all, to know each citizen inside and out.

It's time for the federal government, for the sake of security for all, to keep and own a health record of everyone from womb to the tomb.

It's time for the federal government, for the sake of security for all, to liquidate the last vestiges of individual freedom and liberty in this land once and for all.

It's time for the federal government, for the sake of security for all, to simply eradicate the individual from the face of the earth

So let it be written. So let it be done.

Uh... isn't this what the extreme-right is trying to do? What you describe above resembles, more then anything else, Don Rumsfeld's "Total Information Awareness".

The liberals who feel this way as well are whom I call People Who Are So Liberal That They're Conservative... what they're trying to conserve is their own brand of extreme liberalism.

Originally Posted by zilch View Post
The modern-day Liberal Manifesto:

It's time for the federal government, for the sake of security for all, to know each citizen inside and out.

It's time for the federal government, for the sake of security for all, to keep and own a health record of everyone from womb to the tomb.

It's time for the federal government, for the sake of security for all, to liquidate the last vestiges of individual freedom and liberty in this land once and for all.

It's time for the federal government, for the sake of security for all, to simply eradicate the individual from the face of the earth

So let it be written. So let it be done.

Ruling out the obnoxious surveillance that has no connection to health care...



First of all, the only people who need to know the details of the medical conditions of anyone are either (1) the appropriate persons performing medical care, and (2) law enforcement and the courts should persons misbehave while performing medical care, including malpractice and financial fraud -- such as billing the government for procedures not performed or for pointless procedures, such as drilling for non-existent cavities.

Medical records are confidential. Think about it; the Nixon administration got into big trouble by violating the confidential records of Daniel Ellsberg. So it is with much government information, such as Census data.

Womb to tomb? Your health insurer probably knows more about you than you want it to know.

It's the confidentiality of data that ends up in government hands that protects us. Sure, the IRS can do much to us -- but it can't expose your tax return to blackmail you. Your employer has no right to it. Private data isn't so safe. Think of your credit score. A prospective employer can use it to determine that you are not to be hired because you are a potential embezzler or cheat, and an insurance company can use it to determine that you might get desperate enough to commit an insurance fraud. Are those legitimate? Sure. Keep your nose clean, and you won't have trouble for problems that you created yourself, like having $50,000 in unsecured debt and an income of $20,000 by gambling on credit, and not only at the casino.

So if you have a bum ticker and go to Hawaii from Minnesota, maybe some doctor needs your records in Minnesota should you keel over. Fast.

I'm sure you've seen that commercial featuring the dude dressed in the pirate suit and playing a guitar at the front of a seafood restaurant.

FreeCreditReport.com puts it out.

Imagine what fun they could have with this story!

Originally Posted by Anthony '58 II

I'm sure you've seen that commercial featuring the dude dressed in the pirate suit and playing a guitar at the front of a seafood restaurant.

FreeCreditReport.com puts it out.

Imagine what fun they could have with this story!

Classic scare ad.

I've seen it. It demonstrates the mercilessness of our economic order; something does something bad in your name without your obvious consent, and you fail to recompensate those who got burned, and you really get burned.

In that ad, the star states that someone stole his personal information and used it for personal gain. Obviously, the crook should have to pay, and gulled merchants? They should be checking IDs! Or the credit card issuers should be doing what Discover Card does when it notices uncharacteristic activity. As an example, I largely use credit cards for what credit card companies call "nickel-and-dime" purchases. A few years ago I bought a computer unit. $670. I thought that the problem was that I bought it out of town. My mother got a call from Discover asking whether the purchase was legitimate. She couldn't be certain, as I had bought it at a place where I didn't expect to buy it; I was on the road back, and I don't have a cell phone. I called Discover Card, let someone tell me the merchant's name and the amount, and verified the legitimacy of the transaction.

Some time more recently I bought one of the newfangled big-screen TVs, a cable, and a new DVD player. About $600. On Discover. Phone call. I verified what I did -- and thanked the company.

Creditors should be tracking the crooks down and collecting the revenue that they lose to stolen data from the crooks through the courts, with reasonable collection costs -- including high interest rates, of course, default resulting in contempt of court findings. The message must be unambiguous; someone who gets something that isn't rightly his with data that is not his to use should pay the cost. Merchants should be asking for driver's license numbers (assume picture ID's) on non-trivial purchases and compelling card users to sign credit (and debit) card receipts that contain anti-fraud clauses.

The warning is also appropriate to those who have credit; don't abuse it. Big purchase? Get credit life, disability, and unemployment insurance if you pay over time (you don't need it if you pay within the grace period as a practice). Responsibility is a two-way street.

... Scamming of any kind is inconsistent with a just society, the legitimate objective of all good people. But I have my predictions on what will happen to consumer credit over the next ten years... and entry into the credit-issuing industry is a poor career choice. We are going to see consumer debt not so much a clever means of financing a Good Life but instead the fast track to destitution. The norm of consumer financing will be either savings, layaway, the rent-to-own scam, cash/debit card, finance companies, the classic A--- E--- green card, or do without. Exceptions might be for home loans (but not second mortgages), auto loans, or education loans. Buying a home theater, computer, furniture, or a new wardrobe on credit will be rare. So will going out to eat or going on a vacation.

Of course that all implies a slower turnover of designs and fashions. In a 4T, planned obsolescence that businesses got away with in other times becomes a means of making one's own business obsolete.

The following request frames our healthcare system really well.

Doesn't Everyone Deserve CheneyCare? Please Sign our Petition here. Read the Press Release
and see the CheneyCare print ad here!

http://www.calnurses.org:80/media-ce...-campaign.html


Four heart attacks, quadruple bypass surgery, angioplasty, an implanted defibrillator, an emergency procedure for an irregular
heart beat. Getting the care he needs? No problem.

For millions of Americans, this medical history would be a prognosis
for calamity. Un-payable medical bills. Canceled insurance – if
you're fortunate enough to already be covered.

But not for this patient. He's Vice President Dick Cheney. And, like
members of Congress and the President, he has a guarantee – all the
coverage he needs, when he needs it, from the provider of his choice.

A government-financed healthcare system with few restrictions or
prohibitive costs. Isn't that what we all deserve? Let the
Presidential candidates and members of Congress know – we all deserve
CheneyCare, guaranteed healthcare for all.

Two years ago I compiled the following information for an organization I belong to. The figures below are now low compared to the current costs of the war on Iraq. IMHO, our country has it's values backwards.

There are more humane and moral ways to spend our tax dollars. Millions of Americans are without healthcare in one of the wealthiest nations, the United States of America. The cost of the Iraq War is set to reach $315 billion by September 30, 2006, the end of fiscal year 2006. Missouri alone will pay $5.2 billion of that cost. And the city of St. Louis alone will pay a whopping 232.7million. For the $5.2 billion that Missouri taxpayers will pay for the war, 1,205,699 people could receive healthcare. That’s just the state of Missouri. The $205 billion already allocated for the war could have purchased much-needed healthcare for 30 million American citizens.

Economists are saying the cost of war could top $2 trillion after factoring in long-term healthcare for wounded Veterans, rebuilding our fractured military, and other economic loses. According to a January 21, 2005 Newsweek report, the demand for healthcare for Veterans alone have increased 34 percent in the past four years. Will the VA be able to care for and honor our troops with the healthcare they deserve? Currently, there are 16,000 people with serious injuries. By the year 2010 that number is predicted to double. Can you imagine the enormous costs of healthcare, plus disability? Will we honor our troops with the healthcare they deserve or will the already long waiting lists for care grow longer or possibly non-existent? Will there be mental health coverage for those who come home traumatized or will they end up homeless like so many of our Veterans suffering with P.T.S.D?

"Healthcare for All" makes common sense. Merton C. Bernstein, a founding member of the National Academy of Social Insurance and the Coles professor of Law Emeritus at Washington University speaks truth when he said, "Most people overlook the most affordable way to achieve universal coverage; putting all of us under the Medicare umbrella. That single payer system would reduce non-benefit spending by doctors, hospitals, clinics, laboratories and healthcare insures by about $300 billion a year, providing funds to insure everyone without additional outlays."

Hopefully, we will be the pioneers of a nationwide effort By offering a healthcare plan that Americans deserve. Let’s value our families and our troops with what Cardinal Joseph Bernardin so compassionately stressed, "Health care is an essential safeguard of human life and dignity and there is an obligation for society to ensure that every person be able to realize this right."



National Priorities Project: http://costofwar.com/numbers.html

$ 205 billion is based on an analysis of a variety of documents indicating how much Congress has allocated for the war so far. http://database.nationalpriorities.o...ffsources.html

Calculating the cost of war: http://www.opencrs.com/rpts/RL33110_20051007.pdf

16,000 with head injuries http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2006/01/08

Economists are saying cost of war http://www.boston.com/news/world/art...t_of_war_could

Merton C Berstein; http://news-info.wustl.edu/tips/page/print/4981.html

An excerpt from an excellent article:

The big con: we've already got national health care but the peasants don't get to use it
Perhaps the most galling stat of all: A Harvard Medical School study showed that, back in 1999, the US taxpayer shouldered the burden for just under 60 percent of all medical costs nationwide by being forced to fund health care for federal, state and local government employees. That included programs such as the Federal Employees Health Plan and those for state and local employees as well; the Cadillac coverage our fine representatives and Senators enjoy (and which they say we can't have); the cost of covering ER expenses for those without insurance; Medicare; and the costs of various state-run Medicaid programs.

That 60 percent represented $2,604 per capita at the time, which means government spending per-person (via tax dollars) on health care in the US was higher than total per capita health care expenditures in any other country in the world – including those with single-payer, universal-access national health care systems. As noted above, updated World Health Organization statistics reveal that US per capita expenditures for taxpayer-funded single-payer programs rose to $2,725 in 2004. So we're paying for national health care; we're just not getting it.

This must end; single-payer is the answer, a well-funded Medicare system is the model, greed is the obstacle. Eliminate profits as a factor in life and death decisions, run the entire system based on serving human needs rather than those of shareholders and CEOs, and the profiteers will go elsewhere for their money.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/ope..._s_this_he.htm

Originally Posted by Deb C

An excerpt from an excellent article:

The big con: we've already got national health care but the peasants don't get to use it
Perhaps the most galling stat of all: A Harvard Medical School study showed that, back in 1999, the US taxpayer shouldered the burden for just under 60 percent of all medical costs nationwide by being forced to fund health care for federal, state and local government employees. That included programs such as the Federal Employees Health Plan and those for state and local employees as well; the Cadillac coverage our fine representatives and Senators enjoy (and which they say we can't have); the cost of covering ER expenses for those without insurance; Medicare; and the costs of various state-run Medicaid programs.

That 60 percent represented $2,604 per capita at the time, which means government spending per-person (via tax dollars) on health care in the US was higher than total per capita health care expenditures in any other country in the world – including those with single-payer, universal-access national health care systems. As noted above, updated World Health Organization statistics reveal that US per capita expenditures for taxpayer-funded single-payer programs rose to $2,725 in 2004. So we're paying for national health care; we're just not getting it.

We are paying for a practice of throwing money at the Big Pharma on the grounds that such ensures research and development that stimulates the rapid discovery of life-saving medications. Never mind that the research is done by universities and hospitals, practically for free. Never mind that much of the testing of human medications is in veterinary use. Dogs are good models for testing medicines because of similar size to humans. The avant-garde of medical testing is often on household pets.

The idea that one can get better medicine simply by paying Big Pharma more is like ensuring the rapid development of automotive technology by rigging auto prices so that a reasonable subcompact costs what a Rolls-Royce costs.

We are also paying for such bad habits as obesity, alcoholism, reckless sexuality, drug use, sedentary lives, and poverty... Whoops! Intense poverty of course promotes the work ethic so that plutocrats can maximize profits.

Doing things on the cheap and forcing people to pay more... great economics, right?

This must end; single-payer is the answer, a well-funded Medicare system is the model, greed is the obstacle. Eliminate profits as a factor in life and death decisions, run the entire system based on serving human needs rather than those of shareholders and CEOs, and the profiteers will go elsewhere for their money.

The profit system works well only in a competitive system paradoxically by ensuring that people don't get the chance to gouge.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/01/15...oom/index.html