Several years ago, my Grandma Ramey broke her hip. She was from the rural South, and by no stretch of the imagination was she “rich.” She had nothing but public programs to rely on. In the hospital, she went into a form of dementia. But within hours of her injury, she had a new hip. The horrible pain started to go away. She came out of the dementia. She lived for almost another decade – healthy, independent, and in her right mind. Our broken healthcare system in action.
In Canada or the UK, Grandma could have waited for weeks or months for a new hip – if she ever got one at all. In her condition, what would weeks of severe pain (and worse, total helplessness) have done to her? I am convinced the dementia would not have ended. She would have died in that hospital – in horrible pain, terrified, and unable to even recognize her family.
I’ve listened to President Obama. I don’t think that people on his side of the argument are in any way bad or stupid. But the program he’s pushing will mean waiting lists for everyone. It will also cripple medical & pharmaceutical R&D. The hip that kept my Grandma alive, the cancer treatments that give some hope to my family & friends who are fighting that disease, and the vaccine that would have prevented the cancer that killed my sister in her 40s – none of these things were developed in countries that have socialized their medical systems.
We can’t be like Canada. Most Canadians can drive to the US for medical care, if they don’t want to wait in line – and millions do just that. Almost every medical treatment used by Canadians were developed in whole or in large part with research dollars from American companies. When our government crowds private enterprise out of heath care, we will be stuck.
7 comments:
I don't think your side is stupid ei†her. I just want to know why. Why would another public health program, much like medicaid and medicare, cause Grandma to have to wait years for a hip surgery? Or cancer treatment? Is it because there would be lots more people who would be financially able to get health care and not enough doctors to go around?
I’m glad to hear that! :) As for wait times, here are the AVERAGE wait time for a hip replacement in one province of Canada. Other provinces may be better or worse:
http://tinyurl.com/mg56jy
Would this happen here? The President is really talking about Medicare for the middle class. But that’s the market that keeps private doctors and businesses alive. With no market, they go out of business (or become de facto government employees). This hurts Medicare and Medicaid. The government does not reimburse all of the real costs of M&M, so hospitals make it up on the rest of us – think $30 aspirin pills. That stops working when everyone is on Medicare.
Government-run healthcare will be like Veterans hospitals or clinics on Indian reservations. No one wants to work there. Many of the best & brightest students will get law degrees instead of becoming doctors. That means even longer waits. As for cancer – more government price-setting will slow research to a crawl, because it takes a LOT of money to develop a new cancer drug (or vaccine or …). The government will always set the price too low to fund R&D, because voters like low prices.
The system does need help, but why not try a little LESS government? Let individuals deduct the cost of insurance, the way that companies can. Let people in one state buy insurance in another state. (The EXACT SAME insurance that costs $4500 or more in New York costs $600 in South Carolina) Let people keep their insurance if they move from one job to another. These things would cost very little, or nothing at all.
And why doesn’t the President use his awesome powers of persuasion to teach some personal responsibility? My Dad had great insurance, and a lot of money. But he drank, smoked, ate too much of the wrong things, and hurt everyone who tried to love him. His first chemo treatment killed him. Now look at Vann. When he was diagnosed, he was in good physical health – because he took care of himself. He also spends his time giving people love, and as a result, he’s surrounded by people that love him, and support him – that’s INCREDIBLY important to your physical health. And he’s going to make it.
Love you, Aunt Susan!
Jed
Good Lord, Jed, this whole thing is making me cry- Grandma, Jenny, Julius, Vann.
I also don't think your side is stupid. I just think that whatever change is made, something has to change from the way things are now.
I went for a long time with no insurance whatsoever, which in turn caused me to go without mental healthcare for a long time when I desperately needed it. Once I finally got insurance (last November), I chose my particular plan on the basis of mental health coverage. I found a therapist and a psychiatrist who worked together and were covered by my insurance, and started seeing them after double-checking with my insurance to make damn sure that it would be covered, because we're having a lot of really serious financial problems and just can't afford to spend hundreds of dollars on anything besides bills and mortgage and loans etc. etc. etc.
After about three visits I got a letter from my insurance that I would not, in fact, be covered to see these doctors because they deem my illness to be a pre-existing condition, and now I owe hundreds of dollars for my previous visits. I can't afford to pay for the previous visits, and I can't go back to see the doctors because I have outstanding bills with them now. Even if I could pay the money I owe them, I wouldn't be able to afford to continue to see them.
So now the entire basis for my choosing my plan is rendered null and void because I can't get help with my mental illness. I managed to talk the doctor into calling in several months worth of Prozac because it was helping, but now I'm just taking the pills without any further therapy, which really isn't the way I wanted to go about things.
Anyway, point is, this system doesn't work. I could name off countless more examples besides my own long-ass story, but my point is that something has to change.
Hey Buffy,
I’m sorry to hear about your battles with the insurance company. I was listening to a radio show today about insurance companies canceling insurance after people get sick. It happens, but at least the government acts as a watch dog. The government does find companies, set rules, and enforces them (although not always very well). If the government BECOMES the insurance company, who watches them?
There are problems, and we need to help people who fall through the cracks. But would universal insurance do that? Or would we just replace one set of cracks with a worse set? Check out the Canadian web site I posted. Eighteen weeks spent waiting for a hip kills people. Would universal care cover mental? If so, how many months of paperwork would you have to fill in? Do you believe that the government bureaucrat will approve every request? If the waiting list for artificial hips is eighteen weeks, how long is the waiting list for a counselor? And how much choice are you really going to have?
Speaking of which, you may want to find out if there is counseling available at a local church. Years ago, I was really helped by a counselor associated with a friend’s Catholic church, and he really helped me. It wasn’t free, but it was very reasonable. All of the advice was secular, and it didn’t matter that I was not Catholic.
Universal coverage is not about helping the needy – it’s about "helping" people in the middle class. Think about it. I read Birdie’s blog, and she tells how her brother broke his leg on a skiing trip, and went bankrupt. Here’s a guy that can afford a ski vacation – middle class. He could certainly have afforded catastrophic insurance while he was healthy. Instead, he gambled. He used the money he could have spent on insurance on things like ski vacations. And he lost. He got medical help, but now he will have a bad credit rating for a few years. He may not be able to afford a bigger flat screen TV or a newer car. I don’t have any problem helping this guy with his medical bills … but only after he pays for as much of those bills as he possibly can. He’s an adult, and he should be held responsible for the choices he made. And that is exactly what happened.
We could spend a huge amount of money covering guys like this (and let’s face it, no one is going to buy insurance after the government makes it free – so we will all be this guy). But the time and money we spend covering people who could help themselves, but choose not to, takes away from helping the truly needy. And it will, in the end, make it worse for everybody. The money for this is coming from the printing presses. We are risking real ‘70s-style inflation. That does the most harm to people who have the least.
Jed
When I worked in Selma, we had a disabled couple of adults with a house full of children, all on Supplemental Security Income (SSI), the welfare program administered by the Social Security Admin. I don't remember the money amounts, but this household periodically added a new infant and an additional SSI payment.
The abuses of Medicare (for which we Social Security recipients paid during our working years and in retirement pay $100 or more a month) are too numerous to mention. These abuses, unlike those of SSI, have to be perpetrated by the doctors and hospitals, as the insured individuals mostly just do what they're told.
I don't think we need a new health care system. We certainly don't need to copy Canada's or any other country's system. If the "loopholes" in our current programs could be plugged, and abuses drastically reduced, the situation would not be perfect but would be enormously improved, and more resources made available for the uninsured in facilities such as Birmingham's Cooper Green Hospital.
I don't think these improvements will be made. But I hope there are enough informed people in Congress to keep the current system from being thrown out with the bath water.
P.S. I love the picture of Grandma.
A lot has changed since the first post. Based on the stuff in the news, I really can't tell what's going to happen now. But it looks like people will be able to buy insurance after they get sick. There's no way that can work (all the insurance companies would go bankrupt). There must either be some kind of restrictions (limited enrollment, sign up limits, means testing?). Either that, or they will force everyone and every business into a government program. So everyone will be on the equivalent of Medicaid.
Every article I've read says that they will partially fund this with cuts to Medicaid. So we may be funding lifestyle insurance for the middle class by cutting coverage to the poor.
And you're right - that is one of the best pictures of Grandma! She's standing next to Jack in the full picture. I need to fix the color and send that out to the rest of the family.
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