How long do you think you’ll live? 70 – 80 – 90 – a glorious 100? New technology has us believing it’s possible for an ever-escalating more of us to reach the centenarian mark, in reasonable good health. Are you taking care of any significant aches and pains, toward that goal? Do you feel your doctors and health insurance are helping you live longer? Perhaps not for long.
An informative article, “As Medicine Goes Hi-Tech: The Danger of Too Many Tests,” appeared in last Sunday’s edition of Parade magazine (Dr. Ranit Mishori, July 6, 2008, http://www.parade.com/health/). Interesting in its own right, the time I chose to read Parade and discovered the article, is karma—this morning (July 11, 2008) before picking up the parts of the paper I had not yet had time for, I lamented to myself about my lack of medical insurance. (I’m over 50 I’m allowed to talk to myself.)
What’s to happen as my body begins to fail and even if I endure small aches and pains—what if they are indications of bigger problems? In some ways of course, it’s my own fault. It only took a couple of brainless choices in life to plop me down in this unfortunate situation; and today, as I do more often now, I wrestled with my plight.
Without medical insurance I am inclined to peruse the “symptom checkers” on reputable medical websites—to what avail? Symptoms are notoriously duplicitous, often feigning a myriad of conditions and illnesses, from a pesky malady to deadly diseases.
But let’s, for the sake of argument suggest I have health insurance and a couple of twinges I want to have poked and prodded by a doctor. Well, first, you rarely get to see “the doctor” anymore. You get a Physician’s Assistant. Certainly (hopefully), these technicians are dutifully—stress the “fully”—trained and apparently are a medical diploma’s breadth apart from the “real doc.” However, are we getting the full benefit of our health insurance payments? Hmmmm. For both your curiosity and the medical industry’s fair exploration that’s another article.
So I describe my symptoms and the PA decides a heart imaging procedure is in order. Hold it! Before you PAs get all upset because I gave you a function that may only be decided by a Doctor—I’m hypothesizing here—we’re just rolling a scene. I have utmost respect for your profession and I have not yet researched your full role—it takes a special person to even consider medicine as a career.
But back to my office visit. In the Parade article, it tells us that heart imaging for instance—Coronary CT angiography—can produce allergic reactions and cause kidney damage. Of course, there is also the risky radiation exposure (how many x-rays have you had in a lifetime?); and do you know there is concern over its frequent false-positive and false-negative results?
Hey! That’s MY body you’re playing God with! I only have one!
This is the quandary more and more Americans are faced with every day—even if you have health insurance, how do you know it will keep you healthy? Now we’re told, “Yes we can help you … but be afraid, be very afraid”! (Yes, I meant for the exclamation point to be on the outside, you grammar buffs.)
Bottom line is our government and Corporate America is killing its citizens. I find this to be an interesting dichotomy—for those behemoths are comprised of human beings, too—don’t they care what happens to themselves and their loved ones?
On the one hand, a goodly many of us cannot afford health and dental insurance. You other poor saps are paying through the proverbial nose for care that might kill you anyway. Our government is at fault in two ways: 1) allowing greedy health insurance companies and doctors to run roughshod over it, with inept organization and ever-rising, resulting rate hikes; and 2) operating in collusion with the drug companies and medical equipment manufacturers, releasing pills and procedures for public use, knowing they’re going to kill some people. They don’t know who or when, but loss of life is likely. What a disgrace.
As if this news isn’t enough to gag you, other recent articles have warned us that the time is here—now—when hospitals will turn away those who can’t pay. Period. Go home and die.
Oh sure, privately-held hospitals have demonstrated a similar attitude (usually on the sly) for many years, stabilizing an under/uninsured patient as quickly and effortlessly as possible (if that), before turning him/her around to the nearest public hospital. I’m sure there is a statistic somewhere for the number of deaths that little trick has caused.
No, I’m talking about public hospitals. The ones we pay our taxes to support—however they get their funding, it ultimately comes from taxes. And though they’re not talking about the long-time uninsured, I’m sure it’s a-comin’.
At this point, it seems the trend is still with the private hospitals that are turning to upfront payments. Doctors’ offices have been doing that for decades. But their visits and procedures may only run to a few hundred dollars—not that I have it, but most of you might—that’s somewhat acceptable.
Hospital treatment however, often runs into the tens of thousands of dollars—and they want upfront payment?! The July/August 2008 issue of the AARP Bulletin gets serious about this in an article by Sid Kirchheimer, “Cash Before Care.” (Told you I’m old—but you young-uns better finish reading this and do some serious thinking—this is your future.) (http://bulletin.aarp.org/yourhealth/caregiving/articles/cash_before_care_0.html)
“Those most likely to be hit with upfront fees are the underinsured and the recently uninsured. And having employer-provided insurance is no guarantee that you won’t need to pay before check-in …”
And, they’re not talking about a mere 10% of the total estimated bill. “Today, the typical patient with private insurance is responsible for 23 percent of his or her medical bills—more than twice the out-of-pocket costs in 1980.” The article features Dave Williams who has a malignant cancer. The cancer center told him they needed $20,000 of his $30,000 estimate, up front. Now that’s kicking a guy when he’s down.
What’s to be done about this deplorable “malpractice” condition? Unfortunately, we can’t go back and undo decades’ worth of damage. And the Universe didn’t give me a magic wand … though I keep asking. I don’t know … maybe a day of protests? One day when all of us who can afford a day off, walk into our local Senator or Congressman’s office and voice our frustration and demand reform?
I wish I had a magic pill that would fix the problem. You know, like the ones for depression they advertise on TV? Will they give me a million dollars?! That’s all I’m depressed about—money!
Something needs to change—we finally have the technology to begin helping us live longer (obviously not perfected, it’s getting there)—but too many of us will die younger than we should simply because we don’t have enough money to live; and the government won’t put a lid on exorbitant insurance and killer, pricey procedures. Shame on our government and big business.
Ah, hell, I might just live longer without health insurance and doctors.
Always writing,
# # #
And before you-all get all up-n-arms about anything I say here—this is your notice that I am NOT in any way, shape, or form, a medical practitioner, so don’t follow ANYthing you could possibly conceive as advice, here. I am merely venting, although … perhaps the one day of protests is not a bad thing … but for the sake of libel or other misconstrued legal stance you may take, I am merely trying to be an informed citizen. I don’t make up the facts, I simply report them to you. WS
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment