U.S. Health Care Reflections
When I get by all the political and economic class rhetoric some things stand out in my mind (perhaps at my age I use the term mind loosely):
I really can't justify the richest nation on the earth being the only industrialized nation without universal health care. When opponents squawk, it seems to usually be some form of "I gots' mine and I don't want any of the bad socialized medicine programs like in other countries." REALLY? That seems to imply these other people in other industrialized countries don't like their programs, but are unfortunate enough to be stuck with them. IF SO, they could vote these systems out at the next election. THEY NEVER DO.
WHAT MAY BE TRUE is that the richest nation in the world cannot afford to keep pace with other industrialized countries with health care, modern transportation systems, quality educational systems, etc. We certainly can't IF WE CHOOSE to maintain endless decade long wars, maintain expensive military bases all over the world, and fight an inanely expensive War on Drugs at home. The amount of money other countries save by NOT DOING THESE THINGS is more than enough for America to compete in these other areas.
I don't understand why, if my pet is sick, the Vet will see my pet the same or next day; if I am sick the nearest appointment is often 3 weeks away unless I exaggerate the symptoms to the point of gasping on the phone---in which case I will be told to go to the emergency room, a grab bag adventure with the highest cost.
I don't understand why we have to import foreign doctors to staff our health system. Surely the richest nation in the world can afford to build enough Medical Schools to have our own children become our doctors. But I forget, we have military matters to spend our money on, not medical schools. I wonder when the last new American Medical School was opened?
I don't understand why ancient practices, which are now cost prohibitive, keep on going stronger than the Energizer Bunny. There is no reason why all medical doctors need go through 4 years of medical school, years of interning, and years of being an Associate before they can be on their own, after piling up hundreds of thousands of dollars debt. A Dermatologist, for example, does not need to be an expert on every body system. But they go in training for a decade just like an internist. Then to complete the farce, the Dermatologist will make a lot more than a General Practitioner, who is supposed to be an expert on every system and to have seen, in training, every type of medical problem.
I communicate with my doctor via email for 75% of my problems. He is salaried so he doesn't care if I choose to get my questions answered via email rather than coming in to the office. And I get answers the same day, often within two hours. Is there something wrong with this that it is rare? Prescription renewals, questions, appointments, whatever, it is all on line.
It is bad economics for our court systems to award huge grants of money to the aggrieved party for costs which exceed actual costs of subsequent treatment to correct the problem. THERE CERTAINLY is no reason for relatives of any sort to become rich over another relatives medical misfortune. If some health care individual did something malicious or real careless then punish them by suspending or removing their license, impact on their salary or whatever, but don't bankrupt the system with zillions of mal practice suits for millions of dollars in emotional trauma and other vague stuff. Accidents do happen.
Health care costs for any procedure or product should be the same for all citizens. So should the cost of similar health insurance whether it be an individual or a group. Why should the cost of the same policy for one person be ten times that of some one who works in a large company with many employees?
The money spent on our criminal pursuit of drug abuse via our long failed War on Drugs should be spent instead on free Drug rehabilitation Centers, which also serve to help anyone with any kind of addiction like being overweight, oversexed, overly aggressive, overgambling, overanykind of addiction. We have remarkable system of jailing the poor for drug abuse and affording the rich rehabilitation. Addiction to anything is a medical problem, not a criminal offense.
If there is no Government run, self supporting (no use of tax money) insurance option I don't understand what else is going to motivate insurance companies to reign in their rates. We have already tried self regulation by insurance companies on the guise of free enterprise and look what we have. Maybe we should just let those who want the current system to be in place have the current system all to themselves (no switching for them) and those who want reform and real competition let them have what they want.
Something like of a third of medical costs occur in the last six months of life. Perhaps a more sane and humanitarian approach to the dying process is in order. There is no reason why each person can't control their own dying process. Most people protect their pets from needless suffering at the end, and that is meritorious. With pets you have to make the decision for them, but humans can speak for themselves, either via earlier written instructions or at the time. If a person has had enough and wants to end their life with a little dignity and in a painless fashion that should be their choice. It is totally inane to disconnect feeding tubes and let them starve to death or disconnect breathing tubes and let them suffocate to death. And the health costs for mandating life support is out of sight. How long we can keep some body cells functioning is rapidly becoming absurd.
I am for universal health care coverage for all our citizens. Leaving someone, let alone 40 million people, with no health insurance is simply unethical. If that is not unethical I don't know what is. I have known many people with serious medical conditions (like non medical supervised diabetes) who simply can't afford to go to a doctor. Not good. Not humanitarian. Shameless. HOWEVER: If we cover everyone with medical insurance this country is going to have to increase the number of doctors and health care professionals. Sure, the upside it provides jobs for more people. The downside is that health care costs will go up even if there is more efficiency and less rip off by insurance companies. Of course many other countries manage to have universal health care, and coincidentally, are the same countries where polls show the people are the happiest or most contented. To everyone, their health is important and you can't worry about health matters and be contented or happy at the same time. So how then do these countries afford it? In my own mind, the only way we can afford adequate universal health care in this country is to dramatically reduce the number of foreign military bases and eliminate the nature of our current War on Drugs. Every major 'empire' in history has collapsed because the costs of maintaining a massive foreign 'empire' caused an implosion of domestic economics. If we cut back on foreign military bases and future military adventurism and replace the current War on Drugs with Addiction Rehabilitation Centers as part of universal health care, then it becomes a massive job shift from military and police jobs to health care jobs; from prison guards to Addiction Rehabilitation staff; from either of these to environmental protection programs; from foreign military expenses to foreign economic assistance directed at bettering communities---a little more Mother Teresa and a little less Ghengis Khan.
When I was young, America was the best at just about everything. Everyone respected us and wanted to be like us. Now it is rapidly changing. We are now considered by most to be the biggest threat to world peace, we are considered one of the biggest obstacles to protecting the environment, including climate change (which of course is a fabrication because that intellectual heavy weight Sarah Palin says so). What the hell do environmental scientists know anyway? The only ones to be trusted work for the oil companies. Yeah, sure. America's problem is priorities.
