No story today. I've got one in the works but taking care of family and patients is priority one for the next couple of days...
But there is some time pressure to consider what we've been asked to do by the Obama Transition Team. We've been asked to contribute, not just money and time (though these appeals do continue), but ideas. http://change.gov/
http://change.gov/...
Sign up to host a health care community discussion over the holidays
Health care is a top priority for President-elect Obama, and he wants your help in reforming the system to provide quality, affordable health care for all Americans. That's why this holiday season, we're asking you to give us the gift of your ideas and input.
Sign up to host a Health Care Community Discussion anytime from December 15th to 31st.
We'll provide all our hosts with special moderator kits that will give you everything you need to get the discussion going. And Senator Tom Daschle, the leader of the Transition's Health Policy Team, will even choose one discussion to attend in person.
I say we take them seriously.
For a comprehensive discussion of health care reform as seen from the eyes of a family doctor and his patients, seemy earlier diary and my blog at TPM
I am going to plan a meeting with my patients and colleagues where I hope we will discuss problems and will dream, not about which plan we would like to see enacted but about how we would like to see our lives within the health care system. I imagine that will lead us towards a proposed solution.
We shall see.
We will meet as a group of family doctors and their patients in the office of one of the doctors (or in the office cafeteria or in a hospital meeting room, as the numbers attending dictate) in a suburban community south of San Francisco near the San Francisco airport. The patients will reflect the community, being of mixed ethnicity and income levels; most will be insured with private HMO or PPO insurance, but some will have Medicare or MediCal, the state insurance program for the poor. Some will be uninsured.
We will focus on the nature of the problems these patients have in accessing health care, particularly with respect to primary care, and hear patients' and doctors' ideas for how they would like the health care system to operate. Our focus will not be so much on which proposal we might favor but on the features of a health system which would be important to the patients and their doctors. From there I imagine we will get some idea of where we would like the health care reform to focus.
The mix of primary care providers and their patients will provide a backdrop that will highlight the issues faced not only by the uninsured, whose problems are obvious, but by those who have insurance and still are desperate for change. In our meeting there will be people of all ethnic groups, ages, and economic circumstances. We should be able to generate a meaningful discussion and provide a good opportunity for media, if this is desired.