I am building up a head of steam over the health insurance system in the U.S. I suspect that there will be several entries on this subject in the near future, and it’s likely to be an ongoing subject.
My second sister has been in pain for 18 months. It’s been gradually growing, but for at least the last six months, and probably more, it’s moved from pain to UNBEARABLE pain. She has been given drug after drug to try to ease the pain, and nothing is working.
My sister has always been a petite woman, and in the last year she has lost 25 pounds. She hurts so much she can’t eat. She has no appetite, and nothing stays down.
I want you to know that she is going through this because she is covered by an HMO which will not allow her to change doctors. Her doctor doesn’t have the faintest idea what to do for her, and the HMO will not allow them to sever their relationship, so that she can find a doctor who CAN help her.
At the insistence of her daughter, she went to the doctor, and he put her in the hospital to have two tests done. They had been talking about these tests for some time, but there was a delay of months in getting them done. She had a meyelogram, which is an unpleasant procedure involving a spinal tap. It didn’t reveal the problem. She had a bone scan. Same result. Just before she was forced to leave the hospital by her HMO, she had an EMG test, and FINALLY……after EIGHTEEN MONTHS of severe pain….they discovered she has a pinched nerve in her spine.
I want to know why it took EIGHTEEN MONTHS for someone to finally see to it that she got the right test. Why has the government allowed the insurance industry to determine what is right for a patient? Why is the federal government allowing insurance companies to take the money in return for a policy that is not worth the paper it’s printed on? That’s fraud in my book, and it’s prevalent.
I thought we had a great health care system compared to the countries that have Nationalized medicine, but the truth is, if you can’t afford premiums of more than $700 a month, your coverage is worthless. Those who have the money to pay for premiums, or pay for procedures and doctor’s visits, have fine health care. The rest of the country is in serious condition, with little or no assistance with medical problems.
More than HALF of the people who go bankrupt in the U.S. annually, have done so because of the high cost of medical care, and the lack of appropriate insurance. It’s well past time to overhaul both the medical industry and the insurance industry.
I may be just one person writing about this, but there is a ground swell of complaint growing, and soon this issue is going to be on the front burner. Social Security needs to be redesigned. We need to bring our people home from the Middle East. But health care should not be taking a back seat to those issues.
Look at it this way, if people are not well, they are either not working, or not working to capacity, so you are loosing man hours. If you loose man hours, you have a lower gross income, and that results in less money coming in from taxes. Less money from taxes ultimately has to mean, fewer government programs.
Bite the bullet. Ignore the insurance company lobbyists and DO SOMETHING ABOUT HEALTH INSURANCE!! NOW!!
Hey girl I am with you 100% What to do? How to do? This is a major concern nation wide. Why is it falling on death ears? There has got to be someone some where to take this isue and make our voice heard!
I plan to encourage everyone I can reach to send a letter to his or her legislators telling them that we are at crisis point. It’s time to stop being part of the silent majority!
Buffy–Somewhere, yesterday, I left a comment to the effect that we need to form an AASP = American Association for Sick People, as in sick of not having good, affordable healthcare available to everyone. Be our founding mother!
Sounds like a great plan, CC! I can hear all the puns running through Dear Husband’s head…..
I’d be frustrated too if a sibling had been through such a wait for the necessary test.
Canada’s system is by no means perfect, but I feel much more comfortable with our national system than what I hear about south of the border.
We’re supposed to be the land of “milk and honey,” where streets are paved with gold. Well…I’m here to tell you that we have it good, but not as good as it SHOULD be.
I think the German system is better than either the UK or US ones. It even allows alternative medicine to be funded, if that is what a patient wants.
The trouble is, it’s the greedy drugs companies and medics who have pushed prices up to unaffordable levels. How you stop that sort of greed I don’t know.
I’ll have to research the German system, BW. I totally agree that the drug companies are at fault, and so are the insurance companies who limit what a doctor can do for a patient. I think the doctors have raised their rates because they know that insurance companies will bargain them down, but that’s disastrous for those of us without insurance.