08.18.2009: The whole "health care" business...

You've stirred up a nice hornet's nest of public concern and criticism with "your" health care "proposals."

As you've seen from the responses to Congresspeople and to you at town meetings and other speeches, most of us, and the polls verify this, have more than a few worries about the plans put forth so far.

I'd like to make a few suggestions to you which I'd really like you to seriously consider, and maybe even discuss with members of both houses of Congress.

There are a lot of rumors and lies sailing through the internet about your universal health care plan.
Here are a few things you and Congress could do to gain public support and increase our confidence in the proposals:

• Offer to test the final implementation on a limited basis, to start. Suggestion: All US Government employees, starting with you and your family, then all of Congress.
• Eliminate any and all exclusions for "pre-existing conditions" or new disease or disability.

Actually, those two might be all you need to do to start.

What else?

• All medical facilities must, by law, be able to securely communicate and share all personal medical information authorized by any citizen. Any and all unique or proprietary medical software provided by any vendor, large or small, must, by a given deadline, be able to exchange basic data, seamlessly and automatically.
• Any medical facility visited by any citizen must be able to receive all authorized medical information, background data and medical history for the client, within minutes. No data loss by equipment or software failure or by data theft is permissible.
• Systems must be established to provide feedback and reporting capabilities on the quality and efficiency of medical care delivey at all levels. Poor service or response time or accuracy must be corrected, and if not, there must be controls available to reprimand or discharge employees.
• Any and all parts of the medical care system may be available to unionization, but strikes or work slowdowns or stoppages are not allowed. This is the tradeoff an employee must make for any benefits they receive because they are working within a public system.
Technology
• All systems must have remote logical and physical backups with automatic system failover within two seconds of any hardware or software failure.
• No actual database data can or may be downloaded to any client, whether laptop or desktop computer. Period.
• Secure access will be by password plus fingerprint or retinal or other physiological identification at all levels of access, from doctor or nurse through programmers. At all levels.
• Encryption for data storage and communication will be specified by criteria established by the IDA or equivalent.