P-Aid

It is obvious that there will be so many people who run to alcohol or maybe drug when they have problem in their life which could be very hard. We could make sure that this could only be kind of temporary solution of our problem because the problem itself still exists. There is no doubt that the problem will be suffered by the people who have addiction problem as well as people surround them after all. This could be kind of bomb which could blow up anytime without any warning.

Florida could be the place where this threat is widely spread and this must be kind of serious problem which have to be solved properly. We could learn more about the fact of this problem throughout Florida and we will find shocking fact. No matter what, we could not just let the problem which associated with addiction problem whether it is alcohol or drug addiction. There must be kind of problem solution which could be taken and addiction rehab programs will be needed very much because addiction will be hard to be recovered easily if there is no help.

Alcohol Rehabilitation Florida will be the right place where people could find the program which is helpful for addiction recovery.

It has been well documented that over the past couple of years, fitness marketing has experienced some losses across the board. Well, this didn’t only happen in the health business. A lot of industries have felt the downturn of the economy. As a matter of fact, there are a lot of companies which closed down and thousands of employees who lost their jobs and livelihood. Despite this fact however, it is not expected for gyms and exercise equipment sellers to completely fold. In fact, it has been predicted by industry experts that despite the state of the economy, this industry still has a good market.

Although a worldwide problem, obesity rates are the highest in the United States. There are more people suffering from being too fat in this country than anywhere else in the world. Now, this can be attributed to a lot of different things. For one, the most accessible food in modern cities are restaurant junk foods. Serving sizes and calories incurred due to these types of foods are enormous. Another reason is the current upbringing of kids which doesn’t emphasize on their health.

There are a lot of things that could be blamed for the high obesity rate but the bottom line is that since there are a lot of people facing this problem, fitness marketing still has a place in society. Being able to slim down and beat obesity needs more than a simple change in diet. It is important also for people to regularly exercise. Gyms and fitness equipments offer you just that. With a gym membership, you can perform a variety of exercises to slim down. With machines and equipments, you can shed some weight right in the comfort of your home. Either way, the crucial thing is that you do the necessary exercises. This is why the business of fitness will not soon die.

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What is the result of combining seven of the world’s legendary herbs known for their exceptional nutrient value? The answer is the very nourishing and tasty eXfuze Seven + health drink! You’ll simply love to lap up every drop of this delicious health drink. The ingredients of this amazing health drink are extracts of Acai, Fucoidan, Goji Berry, Seabuckthorn, GAC Fruit, Noni Fruit, and Mangosteen Fruit. Each of these herbs is a storehouse of the best nutrients that the human body can ever crave for and has made a mark for itself in the indigenous population of the region from which it hails. Each one is known to impart longevity and sound health. What’s more! – Even medical science agrees that these herbs are very effective in boosting up the energy and immunity of the human body. It is just for a frail person who just went through a major surgery and must regain his or her vigor quickly.

Acai (Amazonian herb) supplies antioxidants, Fucodian brings the goodness of glyconutrients, Goji Berry (Himalayan fruit) brings you a combination of 19 precious amino acids, Seabuckthorn (Nature’s Multivitamin) is full of vitamins and minerals, GAC Fruit (used in Chinese medication) for healthy blood, Noni Fruit (from Hawaii) is rich in adaptogens, and Mangosteen fruit( western fruit) is full of Xanthones.

Drink this stimulating and highly energizing formula that is without any harmful effects and tastes good, which is not the case with other supplements. Get more topical and original information on www.juiceduplife.info.

Americans are deeply unhappy with the country’s health care programs and costs. And rightly so. As one author observed, “A recent survey showed that only 17 percent of respondents in the United States were content with their health-care system . . . Why the discontent? The superficial reasons are simple enough to describe: the system is hugely expensive, very bureaucratic, and extremely patchy. The expenses first: U.S. health care costs a third more, per person, than that of the closest rival, superrich Switzerland, and twice what many European countries spend. The United States government alone spends more per person than the combination of public and private expenditure in Britain, despite the fact that the British government provides free health care for all residents.”

The United States pays more for health care per capita than any other industrialized nation — and even then, Medicare is not a comprehensive, pay-for-everything national health program like those of many nations and United States per capita health care costs continue to escalate rapidly.

Here’s what you need to know about health care costs as you plan for retirement.

Americans age sixty-five and over spend four times more on health care on average than do Americans under the age of sixty-five. At the outset of this decade, the average per capita health-care outlay for a person under the age of sixty-file was about ,800. For people over the age of sixty-five, it was ,089. And for Americans ages eighty-five and older it was ,001. Clearly, health care outlays are likely to get substantially larger as you age. You need to plan for them.

U.S. health care expenses have grown mightily. U.S. health care expenses have dramatically escalated each year as new medications, new treatments, diagnostic tools, and health care innovations have come onto the market.

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For example, the median nationwide cost for a hospital stay — excluding physicians charges — was ,280 in 1997; by 2004 it was almost double at ,455. The average total cost for treating a heart attack climbed 40 percent in just seven years. All in, health care costs have escalated fast and the increases are gaining momentum.

Health care costs are likely to continue to grow unabated. Unlike in other countries, no laws meaningfully curb the continual climb of health care and drug costs in the United States. For example, many Americans continue to import drugs from Canada because Canadian prices are significantly lower. This is true even though the new Medicare Features introduced in 2006 offset the cost of pharmaceuticals for U.S. retirees. To curb the cost of medicines, Canada prohibits drug companies from advertising on its television channels. In the United States, on the other hand, the very legislation that created the new Medicare drug benefit (Part D) expressly prohibits the federal government from attempting to negotiate lower prices with drug companies.

Count on it: medical costs are sky-high and likely to keep climbing unless there is a radical overhaul of the system.

More and more corporations are cutting back on health care benefits as medical costs soar. Recent statistics show companies cutting health care benefits and requiring employees and retirees to pay more for them. As one survey of corporate benefit trends concluded, “[Benefit] reductions have become not just common, but expected, with the only question now being of how much more of a reduction in benefits and or an increase in cost will be directly placed on individuals . . . In the end . . . individuals, either as taxpayers or consumers, will need to pay the bill.

I believe this trend will gain greater momentum over the next decades. It will be part and parcel of the continuing erosion of employment benefits — like the demise of traditional pensions — that is taking place throughout the country. Just like pensions, more and more health-care expense is going to become a do-it-yourself responsibility because heath care insurance costs are simply becoming too great for companies to shoulder competitively.

Taken all together, you can count on: (1) higher and higher health care costs, (2) more health-care-benefit cutbacks by U.S. employers, (3) the need to factor large health-care expenses into your funding plans, and (4) the need to buy supplemental health-care insurance to shield your savings from cost attack.

Of course, these views will not come as a surprise to most folks. Recent polls show that — immediately after the foremost financial concern of having enough money for retirement — the next great concern of most Americans is health care. More than half of adult Americans are “very worried” or “moderately worried” about being able to pay for serious illness or catastrophic health-care expense.

Copyright © 2008 by Jim Schlagheck

The above is an excerpt from the book Cash-Rich Retirement

by Jim Schlagheck

Published by St. Martin’s Press; March 2008;.95US/.00CAN; 978-0-312-37740-3

Copyright © 2008 by Jim Schlagheck

Author

Jim Schlagheck is an author, banker, longtime advisor to the ultrawealthy, and the coproducer of the public television series Retirement Revolution. He has written numerous articles on investing, retirement, and finance, and is also an acclaimed speaker who describes better ways for retirement readiness to audiences of wealth-management professionals and lay investors nationwide.

The Internet is a vast source of information relevant to education, health, business, recreation to name just a few. There are increasing number of people who have began using the Internet not only for the communication purpose and developing knowledge but as well for making purchases  online like airline tickets, books, medicines, clothes etc. There are lots of benefits with these Online Pharmacy Stores; one of the most appealing advantages of purchasing Medical products in Online Drug Stores is a comfort. All the same, as an alternative of going to the every day pharmacy stores you have to typewrite the name of the essential Medical product in the Search Box and to make just a couple of clicks.

 

While Websites like eBay and Amazon are amongst the top E-commerce Websites in the World, there is a growing number of Websites which have started to offer specialized products for buy from their Website. Online Pharmacy makes you to spend and review more time on the things which really needs your concentration like content, drug composition, licenses, success stories for specific medicine, comparison and reviews with other Products which are analogous in nature, while it as well saves your effort and time from long drives to Clinics and sell drug stores. For several different reasons buying health supplements, specialized drugs, cosmetics or Generic medicines by Online pharmacy is the best choice.

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In nowadays world, if you are linked up to the Internet you don’t have to step away your Office or home to buy any kind of Pharmaceuticals. The most essential reason for Online Pharmacy shopping is the discounts that these Websites provide. Direct Online pharmacy makes you to save time and money with an extra benefit of purchasing in privacy in your own Comfort zone and choosing the best products from a large number of choices for similar composition.

 

Purchasing pharmacy online obviously needs giving your address and name but you can be ascertained it is utilized only to get your Product to you, with no concern in the product you select; it simply is a comfy way to purchase your Pharmacy products.

 

Some essential points before purchasing Online are the delivery time, cost of shipping, privacy policies of the Website and Security they offer for Online transactions. Another extra Benefit of Online Pharmacy is that oftentimes people find discomfort and embarrassment when purchasing certain supplements and drugs from an established pharmacy store. Before now there has been a large amount of confusedness over the purchase of Medicines Online, but in a very short time span the style has changed and there is a producing culture of purchasing Generic prescription and medicines drugs Online.

Obesity is the tension of lots of people today as the intake of junk food has increased much in almost everyone’s life. With the fast moving life, pizzas, burgers, fries, etc have taken place on the plates of everyone rather than the fresh and home cooked food. People with extra pounds constantly remain in search of reliable and effective solutions to loose weight. Although solutions like exercise, fitness centers, etc are there, but due to busy schedule of life it sometimes gets difficult to take out time for these.

There are different types of medicines, health drinks, diet systems, etc available which claim to reduce weight. But, the difficulty arises in choosing a reliable one that does not let your hard earned money go waste and give you considerable results. Also, the worries remain of having side effects of these medicines.

Well, it’s best to use products that help you shed weight naturally without posing any threats of side effects. One such product is C-Slim from Chirag Nutraceutiical, Bangalore. It’s a dietary health drink that includes effective metabolic normalizers that help reducing weight in a natural way and reduces weight. C-Slim is a natural weight reduction health drink working as a natural therapy for losing weight.

It has potent anti-oxidant attributes that also aid reducing the incidences of Cerebro-vascular diseases, Cardio -vascular diseases, metabolic disorders like diabetes, and vital organs disorders including kidney, eye, liver etc. C-Slim is not meant for medicinal use, and helps loosing weight in natural, safe and healthy way. The company comprises of highly motivated and experienced team of specialists backed by two dynamic professors having experience of over three decades in this business domain.

The company, Chirag Nutraceutiical, holds updated infrastructure and machineries for manufacturing C-Slim. Besides, the potent anti-oxidant properties of Metabolic Normalizers C-Slim help reduction in the incidences of cardio— vascular diseases. The product has proved to be extremely effective for various people for weight reduction. The usage is simple and does not involve any hassles. C – Slim is produced under complete hygienic conditions utilizing best ingredients and fabricating practices. It’s available in highly appreciated flavours and is a natural and effective way of reducing fat.

How many people do you know who think their Congressperson has the answers to providing health care in America?  Or, their Senator?  George W. Bush?   Barack Obama or  Hillary Clinton?  Or, for that matter, any politician?  Do they really have the answers?

 

If they can’t do it, then how about the politicians in Canada, or Great Britain?  Have they solved the problem in their societies?  Some people believe they have.  However, in England, where the private practice of medicine was outlawed when socialized medicine was first established there, they were eventually forced to reverse their policy and permit the public to go outside the government’s system to obtain health care from private physicians. 

 

In Canada today, the story is much the same.  Many Canadians come to the U.S. for emergent needs, such as bypass surgery, because the waiting time in Canada is interminable, often many months before their citizens can get life-saving treatment when they need it.  

    

State-Run Health Care

All state-run health care systems have one thing in common: rationing.  Not necessarily involving the use of ration cards, but rationing nonetheless.  Rationing of resources.  The cause is a devilishly simple principle that’s present in all nationalized health care programs.  That is, it’s free, or so low cost that it’s almost free.  Basic economics clearly demonstrates that whenever something is free, the demand quickly becomes unlimited.  The lower the price, the greater the demand.  Give something away and you can “sell” everything you have and more.

   

However, the flip side of unlimited demand is a shortage of supply.  And, not having enough doctors, nurses, or expensive equipment, such as CAT Scans and MRIs, eventually leads to rationing.  Without enough health care to go around, rationing becomes a necessity.  That has been the failing with nationalized health care in England, Canada, Germany, Japan, the former USSR, everywhere it has been tried.

    

So, if there are no politicians who really know what should be done to solve our health care problems why do we keep expecting them to come up with the answers?

   

Just exactly what are the problems?  Too many uninsured?  Too high cost?  Poor quality?  Lack of availability?  All of the above?  Do you know or think you know?

    

What have been the government’s (read politicians’) solutions to date?

 

Health Care Policy

National health care (socialized medicine) in one form or another is the primary health care policy that is gradually being adopted in America.  And it is slowly but surely lowering the quality of the health care we are getting.  Talk to any doctor you trust and see if they don’t agree.  They will tell you that they are working much longer hours for far less money, that many physicians are retiring early or converting to “concierge” practices because they are fed up with the government and insurance company bureaucrats telling them how to practice medicine.  Consequently, there is a growing shortage of doctors and nurses.

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But, you may say, we don’t have socialized medicine in America!  Perhaps not yet, but we’ve been moving in that direction for some time, and we seem to be going further down that path as the years progress.  It’s a slippery slope.   For example, consider Medicare. 

   

But, Medicare is not socialized medicine, you may insist.

    

Unfortunately, it is, or is headed that way.  Why?  For one thing, it’s a system that’s based on price controls. 

    

Price Controls

Price controls have never worked, ever, in any society at any time in history.  They were tried as early as 301 A.D. by a Roman emperor, Diocletian (243-316 A.D.) who implemented price controls under penalty of death.  But, even that didn’t work, and it hasn’t worked since.  What price controls do is cause shortages, increased costs and disrupted markets.

    

Look at what has happened to the Medicare program since 1984, the year the government changed its method of paying for hospital services from a “cost plus” to a system called DRGs (Diagnostic Related Groupings).  DRGs are a method of classifying illnesses and assigning a comparative value and a specific authorized payment to each.  At that point, many hospitals began to lose money because the government started dictating the prices that are paid for inpatient care.

 

As much as 70% of many hospitals’ patients are seniors, whose bills are paid by Medicare.  The Federal Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) determines, in its sole discretion, the prices that can be charged for seniors’ inpatient hospital care, and then pays only 80% of those amounts.  The differences between a hospital’s standard fees for service and the amounts that Medicare pays must be written off.  They cannot be collected from the patient.  That’s price control.

    

Furthermore, because Medicare payments are determined solely by the government, annual cost of living increases are limited, generally to between 1-1/2% and 2-1/2%, in spite of the fact that hospital costs have been rising for years at an annual rate of anywhere from 6% to 14%. 

    

Another little known fact about Medicare is that seniors are prevented from seeking care outside the Medicare system, even if they are willing to pay the bill themselves.  Any doctor who accepts payment directly from a senior who is covered by Medicare is automatically disqualified from providing care to all Medicare patients for a period of two years.  This is especially important in situations where a patient wants a second opinion and would like to see another doctor.  That type of regulation is certainly an element of socialized medicine.

    

Many Hospitals Lose Money

Between health insurance contracts (HMOs) and Medicare limits on their charges, hospitals generally collect only about 50% of their total billings.  The rest is written off.  The result of all this is predictable: many of them are losing money.  About one-third of all hospitals in California are currently operating at a loss.  With a national health care plan, at some point, many hospitals would either be closed or services curtailed.  That’s been the pattern in every country that has nationalized its health care.  Nonetheless, that seems to be where we are headed, in spite of compelling evidence that it doesn’t work. 

    

Like the proverbial frog being cooked in a pot of cold water, Americans are gradually becoming aware that the quality of their health care is declining, even as costs continue to rise.  It just hasn’t sunk in yet.  When it does, they will undoubtedly be led into believing the government has the answers and demand more government control, regulation and oversight.  And, our politicians will be only too willing to oblige. 

    

Nationalized Health Care

Nationalized health care in America is gradually overtaking the free market, and we are all being slowly cooked in the pot of government intervention.   So, don’t be surprised at the type of health care program we get as time progresses.  Whatever your own conclusions, remember one thing: that our politicians won’t have to rely on whatever health care plan they establish for everyone else.  As usual, they will have their own, superior plan.  And, it will not be a part of the nationalized health care system that the rest of us will be required to use.  If you doubt that assertion, just look at the health care plan that our Federal legislators and government employees have now. 

 

In the interest of full disclosure, I’m one of those seniors who has Medicare health insurance coverage and I ran a hospital for about seven years.

 

© 2008 Harris R. Sherline, All Rights Reserved

So We start Refine our search to ” how to make easy cash online” and then we find 1000′s of sites offering there services and we end up paying money buying e books and software hoping to make money and we end up still don’t make money online.

So What the secret ? How other people making 00′s online and I cant do even one dollar?, here come the best part let’s face it you cant make money online without the knowledge of what u are doing.

First thing you need to do is learn everything about internet marketing and the best place to start is by searching for “search engine optimization” OR “SEO” that is the first thing you need to learn and then you start to learn how to build your first blog and from there you start to learn everything about internet marketing.

The word free doesn’t exist, you cant start your own business online but you need a small capital to invest,start with 0 its just good to get you going and my advice to you not to spend more than that in-case you fail,i know its sound harsh but its the true, you don’t want to end up paying 1000′s of dollars and you end up with nothing, first thing you need to do after knowing a bit of SEO and how to build your first blog is to look for a business or something you are interested in to build your blog around ( ex: health – business – pets ) anything you really have good knowledge about,now after you settle on a niche or business,start doing your keyword research.

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Once you find the best keyword for your niche or business its time to see if you can buy a domain around that chosen keyword or something near to it. Now is time to buy a domain name and hosting and like I said don’t spend to much money for that you can find really cheap hosting and domain for less than a year.

Now once you done all that and set up your blog is time to get content for your blog and monetize it,
for content what I prefer to do is write few articles a day and post them to my blog , you can post once a day or more is all up to you. There is few plugins out there can do that for you but I don’t recommend it, just write your own articles yourself.

Monetizing your blog is the easy part as you know by now there is google adsense and clickbank and other sources to monetize your blog,but the best thing really is to sell your own products,now you will tell me how is that?and I don’t have that much experience? Well that very easy you may heard of something call PLR OR MRR Products,if not let me tell you a bit more about it, you buy a ready made business from one of the PLR OR MRR sites and resell it on your own site,do a bit of research on PLR products one of my favorite site its call IMSEOVAULT.COM the site give you access to 1000′s of products instead of buying one products,you can join there membership site for .99 a month and you can download as much as you want plus I find few great SEO tools and keyword research programs that help me a lot with my works. And they have great offer at the moment when you join you get free blog for a year so that will end up cheaper than what you will pay for your hosting and domain.Plus they have an affiliate program that pay 20% return on everyone you refer so you will end up getting your membership for free and your products for free and making money on top so I think that is great deal on how to make money online and you will end up saving even your 0 your initial investing start up.

Many of the easiest vegetables to grow in outdoor gardens, happen to be some of the easiest vegetables to grow indoors, in window gardens, or grow light gardens. Varieties of a few of the easiest vegetables to grow are: Green, or red peppers, radishes, baby carrots, tomatoes, lettuce, leafy greens, and cucumbers. The varieties listed above are some of the easiest vegetables to grow as they do not need a lot of special care. These seeds and plants are happy indoors, or out, if provided with good garden soil, at least six hours of sunlight daily, and water when they need it.

 

Radishes: Probably, one of the easiest vegetables to grow. Seeds are easy to plant, and their fast growth makes them ready for eating in approximately 30 days. “Easter Egg,” is one of the most popular radish seeds.

 

Baby carrots: Another, of the easiest vegetables to grow. They are small, round, and 60 days to maturity. “Thumbelina” is a good one, indoors or out.

 

Lettuce: Loose leaf varieties are one of the easiest vegetables to grow, especially, indoors. There is either green, or red/bronze varieties. The head forming lettuce plants grow much better in outdoor gardens, as they need a lot of space.

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Leafy Greens: Mesclun, is still another variety of easiest vegetables to grow. This is a mixture of baby salad greens, offering a mild, pungent, or bitter taste, depending on the blend planted. Spinach, can be added to the list of easiest vegetables to grow, and Swiss Chard, another choice of easiest vegetables to grow.

 

Peppers: Bell peppers, red peppers, hot peppers, sweet peppers, all varieties of peppers belong with the other easiest vegetables to grow.

 

Cucumbers: One more of the easiest vegetables to grow indoors or outdoors. Cucumbers grow well on trellises, and small bush varieties are now available for smaller spaces, or indoor gardens.

 

Tomatoes: Not only one of the easiest vegetables to grow, but possibly of all plants on the easiest vegetables to grow list, tomatoes are: The easiest vegetables to grow! They are the most popular. They are named a vegetable, but truly are a fruit. It is almost impossible to kill a tomato plant, however, the plants can be susceptible to leaf miners and blossom end rot, when grown in outdoor gardens. None of those worries present when tomatoes are grown indoors. The very large varieties such as “Beef Steak” tomatoes grow best in the outdoor garden, and cherry tomatoes, or mid-size tomatoes, like “Celebrity” or “Early Girl” grow best indoors, as the plants are not as large, nor the fruit over-sized. No matter the choice of tomatoes planted, they truly are one of the easiest vegetables to grow, in any type of garden.

 

Heirloom vegetable plants can be some of the easiest vegetables to grow, they might be a little touchy to grow outdoors, as conditions are not always perfect; but growing inside seems to suit them very well, and they can be added to the easiest vegetables to grow list.

The socialized system of healthcare delivery and financing, a relic of the British colonial era, still practiced in Sierra Leone has glaringly failed and any efforts at resuscitating it without implementation of major structural and systemic reform will only serve to prolong the inevitable.

Throughout the world, total state control and management of industries, services, markets and the means of production are gradually becoming a relic of the past. This model as practiced in the Sierra Leone healthcare system has empirically been proven to have served only to stifle innovation, growth, productivity and quality output with a resultant decline in overall living and healthcare standards of the citizenry. The current state of the hospitals and health centers glaringly highlights the systemic problems endemic in the entire government owned, managed, financed and operated health care system.

The continued operation of such a decadent and dilapidated delivery and financing system, lacking in even the basics of a modern healthcare infrastructure continues relegating Sierra Leone to the very bottom of the human development index.

The transformation thus of the medical healthcare delivery and financing system into a private insurance or a national insurance based system offers opportunities not only for insurers to develop market-based medical insurance plans and policies but also serves to effectuate the Ministry of Health & Sanitation’s desired policy goals, as espoused in the 2002 National Health Policy Paper.

Both policy and regulatory officials, healthcare providers, the insurance industry and other stakeholders must be engaged to effectuate implementation of fundamental systemic reforms if the country is to avert an even greater catastrophe.

Privatization:

 

Under the proposed privatization plan, the Ministry of Health & Sanitation will be transformed from ownership and management of hospitals, clinics, and employer of last resort for all physicians, nurses and ancillary healthcare providers into a health agency with only policy and regulatory functions.

The goal will be for the health agency to serve as a policy and regulatory watch dog mandated with ensuring that adequate and quality medical care is provided at the various private hospitals, clinics and pharmacies that will inevitably be established with the break-up of the current government owned facilities.

With the break-up and subsequent purchase or leases of these hospitals, clinics, health centers and other facilities, investors and entrepreneurs in an effort to realize maximum returns on investments, will economically be compelled to upgrade quality and standard of care, introduce state of the art equipment and technologies and engender a type of market forces competition which will inure only to the betterment of health consumers in the country.

A much needed infusion of capital into the health care industry by such a privatization plan will clearly spur additional economic activities in ancillary industries, as the dynamic forces of privatization and market mechanism forces of demand and supply will ensure competition for the healthcare pie.

Divestiture of Government Ownership:

The dismantling of the current mammoth and highly inefficient government owned healthcare delivery and financing entity must from a public policy perspective be designed and restructured to ensure governmental ownership and management divestiture from hospitals and other health care facilities.

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Under such a scenario the government’s current enormous but woefully mismanaged capital outlay for health services will be substantially decreased as inefficiencies of corruption, salaries of providers, infrastructure maintenance, costs of medications and diagnostic equipments and other overhead operating costs will no longer be recurrent expenditures from the nation’s depleting coffers.

A system based entirely on a private market-based national health insurance plan with private enterprise and market competition at its core appears the most logical reform policy route to ensure a future sound, efficient and profitable health care infrastructure.

 Health Insurance Plans:

The cog which the proposed new system must revolve around is a nationwide network of affordable health insurance plans creatively designed to ensure a greater pool participation of a majority of the population. In such a system health insurance companies and provider organizations will be established to market various health plans, with minimum services and premiums based on market conditions. The responsibility for monitoring compliance by the various plans would fall under the ambit of both the Ministry of Health and Sanitation and the Sierra Leone Insurance Commission.

Multi-Payer System:

A major plank in this proposed health care delivery and financing privatization hinges on the enactment of health insurance legislation providing for employers to provide health care for their employees and dependants as part of a standard benefits package with concomitant tax incentives and governmental subsidies to ensure compliance. With such legislation the virtual free socialized medical care system, the costs of which have been borne exclusively by the government will now be based on a multi-payer system in which government, employees and employers will all participate.

With the system as currently structured however, only the government has a financial interest and stake and when other programs conflict with the financing of health care, politicians have only been too willing to sacrifice the health of their citizens on he alter of their greed and personal aggrandizement.

It is envisaged that health insurance providers will introduce concepts and plans, such as Health Maintenance Organizations (HMO) and Preferred Provider Organizations (PPO), through alliances of health providers and insurance companies and marketed to employers, labor unions, governmental ministries and corporations on an annual premium basis.

The competition engendered by such health organizations for the medical insurance pie will subsequently result in competitive rates, coverage, deductibles, co-payments and premiums to make health care costs affordable for all.

The Unemployed:

As unemployment and underemployment are perennial problems in the Sierra Leonean economy, the provision of health care benefits to this category of the population must remain the responsibility of government. Medical services provided to this category of citizens in a private enterprise environment must be reimbursed by the government on a negotiated and pre-determined fee schedule or an insurance mechanism established in which government negotiates with providers and carriers for the provision of services.

As an example a fund established by levying taxes on the private health care providers, envisaged to emerge with such privatization, could be instituted and utilized to pay for these indigent services.

Further, since the hospitals, medical clinics and other medical facilities will be operated as businesses, either for profit or as non-profit organizations, the market forces of demand and supply will certainly ensure that patient quality care, improvements in diagnostic technologies, competent personnel and a general responsiveness to the demands of the clients will drive the new marketplace. The lethargic and inefficient atmosphere witnessed at most government hospitals today with customer service virtually non existent would be a philosophy of the past.

The economic viability of healthcare businesses will depend largely on the clientele they can attract and maintain utilizing the above yardstick. Providers of lousy health care plans and services will inevitably loose business to competitors as every year participants will have an opportunity to change health insurance plans.

Since a large population of Sierra Leone resides in rural areas, the proposed privatization plan will ensure the expansion of health care facilities into areas currently inadequately serviced. This plan will ensure that clinics and doctors put up shop in every part of the country in order to tap into the healthcare services available in these rural areas.

Challenges to Insurance Companies:

Designing an insurance system and plan to cater to the needs of the rural population who often are self employed in farming and mining activities posses a challenge to insurers in Sierra Leone, who in the past have been largely passive and unimaginative in policy design to meet the challenges and risks confronting the nation’s socio-economic landscape.

Proactive and creative underwriting of risks must be undertaking by underwriters, actuaries and marketing specialists to design, tailor and price health insurance coverage to meet the diverse needs of the insuring public. For example, the creation of pools by occupational categories could be one method by which insured’s, engaged in similar trades could be encouraged to form co-operatives for purposes of obtaining health insurance coverage at affordable rates for themselves and dependants. Premium payments through the pooling together of the co-operatives commodities can be an