WEB CHAT: Healthcare reform
Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009
Congress heads back into the ring next week to pick up the fight over health care reform. Join us Thursday, September 3 at 8:00 PM for an hour-long health care special, on air and online. The special will recap recent political developments in the health care debate and explore the roles various parties — patients, physicians, hospitals, insurance companies, the government, business — play in the current health care system, and in the debate over the future of health care in America.
More coverage on healthcare reform.
WHYY FM – Radio special begins at 8:00 PM
The special, hosted by NPR's Robert Siegel, will feature excerpts from his Howard County Health series as well as analysis from NPR Health Care Correspondent Julie Rovner, Editor Joe Neel, the leader of NPR's coverage of the health care debate; David Kestenbaum of NPR's Planet Money; and National Political Correspondent Mara Liasson. Click here to listen live online or listen to the special now at NPR.org.
WHYY Online – Live web chat starts at 8:30 PM
Join WHYY's senior health and science reporter Kerry Grens and health care expert Robert Field for an hour-long web discussion on the reform debate. Follow the discussion, ask a question, or offer an opinion.
Click here to review the transcript of the chat.
Robert I. Field is a professor at the Earle Mack School of Law at Drexel University and at Drexel's School of Public Health. His book, Health Care Regulation in America: Complexity, Confrontation and Compromise, published in 2007, is a comprehensive guide to the policies and programs that regulate the health care industry.
More health care coverage:
NPR
WHYY
NPR News will also be covering President Obama's prime time address to a joint session Of Congress next Wednesday evening, September 9. The President is expected to focus on his plans to overhaul the nation's healthcare system. More details will be announced on WHYY 91FM as they become available.
Well done USA! You are now one of the civilized countries!
is healthcare the real issue that we should be worried about???? Illegal immigrants are a huge factor in this debate… It is terrible that we as Americans are left with the tab of illegals not paying their tab. Yes, there does need to be reform, but only for legal Americans.
if anyone knows how kaiser works in the western states should know that this is a bunch of bunk. It will not make healthcare better. It will be a major cluster bunk. the specialist list is minus what they are really telling you. It is crap. I was pregnant in 2000, I knew I was gestational diabetic but Kaiser said "nonono" you are not and your baby will be 8lbs or under. They didn't run any tests. My son was 11 and 1/2 lbs. We both almost died. This bill will be the same. It will be broad and there will be no real specialist. This healthcare bill is crap. Medicare is what needs to be reformed not the broad spectrum. England has social medicine but their price of living is very high. It just doesn't wash. There will be a high price for this bill and we all need to be educated. They aren't telling us everything. I feel disgraced that we, the people, are not able to vote on this. It is a disgrace. We should be able to have the final vote, not our Government.
There is no reason to debate the Health Care crisis based upon two fundamental issues: There is no "crisis" and, most importantly, it is not a Federal issue. If the People decide that it is concern then it must be debated, reconciled, prioritize, and pursued at the State level.
Now is the time to start thinking about what a USA single payer system will look like. It will be better if citizens and not special interests put it together. We will have one because the insurance system will not work much longer. Every year the number of people who lose health insurance is larger than the number of people who lost it the year before. When there are fewer people and companys paying for insurance the cost goes up for each person. As the cost goes up fewer people can pay for insurance so they drop out. The cost goes up and next year there will be fewer people paying for insurance. When you graph a system like this the slope starts out shallow and starts to get steeper until a point when it goes almost vertical. This sort of graph is used to predict many different things. When used for health insurance it shows that in about nine years half the people in the US will not have health insurance and the outcry for a single payer system will be too loud for even politicians to ignore.
I tuned in to listen to what I thought would be a fact-based and informative report on healthcare reform. Instead, I was completely offended by the biased "analysis" of your "national political correspondent" Mara Liasson. She was so intended for healthcare reform to fail, that all she could "report" was the negatives. I was appalled! I had higher expectations for NPR–that, unlike its commercial counterparts, would not degenerate into this kind of political punditry disguised as journalism. I am very disappointed!
Maybe because that is what she believes. Can she not say what she believes?????
this is an example why our healthcare system is so screwed up I currently have HIP Family plan which I pay almost $10,000 a year for. last week my son sustained a concussion and neck injury while playing high school football and is in need for some physical therapy. When I called my insurance company to get authorization they told me that in order for my insurance to cover it he would need to be admitted to a hospital otherwise he would not be covered. So now the insurance company will have to pay thousands of dollars more to cover my son’s physical therapy there has to be a better way?
If you are familiar with HMOs you will know that everything has to go through red tape. It will not change. This "healthcare bill" will bring no change. You will not be able to have the same doctor whenever you go to the doctor. I have gone to the emergency room many times with Kaiser and it isn't better. I witnessed a lady that had cancer and her "doctor" wasn't there and wasn't called to see her. She had to go through questions that she had answered hundreds of times before and it didn't mean a thing. She didn't get the care she should have had, and when she did make it back to see the doctor, he couldn't understand her needs in a timely manner because he was not familiar with her at all. So therefore she had to suffer her pain that much more.