Had a visit today. Victor from a home security service. Looking into getting Mom a medical panic button – the whole I’ve-fallen-and-I-can’t-get-up fear factor. Victor told a story that is Egads! worthy and then some.
His father had a kidney transplant and is going through dialysis. Everything has been covered by Medicare. Last weekend he went into the doctor, found he’d contracted an infection and the doctor prescribed an antibiotic for immediate treatment. When he picked up his month’s supply, the pharmacist said the bill was $4,000!
He said he couldn’t pay that. He was then told that Medicare would only cover it if he were admitted to the hospital. SO, he was admitted – although he didn’t need to be – and got the medicine he needed. The $4,000 prescription turned into, what, at least $1,000 more – how much is a hospital room overnight?!
The system is broken – let’s start keeping score and see if we can get these things fixed!
Settling the Score…
Another day in the Libby case; another key witness contradicting Libby’s story. While we find out “what really happened” and how guilty Libby is, let’s not obscure the root of the problem. If Libby is the fall guy, let’s view the situation as such. Key factors: Cheney is being fingered as the perpetrator of the Plame rumor spreading. AND, witnesses and circumstantial evidence are claiming that the root cause is corruption of facts, particularly in Joe Wilson’s finding that Saddam Hussein was not soliciting Africa for Uranium. And there is still the matter of a forged letter held as a contradiction of Wilson’s report.
4 responses so far ↓
Feminicely // January 31, 2007 at 7:55 pm
$4,000 antibiotics? Egads! Don’t worry, Bush’s proposed health-care tax plan will fix everything, including widening the gulf between the middle class and the CEOs AND pleasing the insurance company’s lobbyists.
lacajag // February 1, 2007 at 3:42 am
Phew! I feel better already! (Only because I can’t afford to feel sick…)
lacajag // February 6, 2007 at 5:45 pm
Those are fantastic points…perhaps it’s not just a restructuring of the health care industry, but a restructuring of national priorities? The more resources we allot to health care and devising a better health care system, the more likely we are to coming up with the best care possible for everyone.
If an idea is allowed to sit on the back burner, it becomes hard and crusty on the bottom of the pan…so to speak…
sittin_witty_in_NYcity // February 6, 2007 at 8:30 pm
Egads!, this is a tough one.
On the one hand, an unneeded hospital stay triggers the insurance coverage of an expensive pharmacy bill. On the other, pharmaceutical research and innovation has produced a life-saving drug that has inevitably reduced a potential 2-3 week hospital stay and in-patient treatment with IVs - and possibly thwarted complications to the latter –to a one night stay and a prescription drug.
In this country, our medical system is comprised of doctors, scientists, pharma cos, and especially insurance companies who are highly rewarded for their expertise and financial risk-taking in terms of years of esearch and product manufacturing. Overhauling the system will require a major mental revision on what it means to be incentivized for arguably the world’s highest quality health care: starting with doctors and the AMA, who has long opposed a national system of healthcare coverage. Likely, there will be a two class-system of health care in the future: one for private payers and employer-insured who will get higher quality services … and one for the poor and underserved who will get basic services they previously have not received. (Maybe a third class for students?) Anything other than that feels like socialist medicine to the powers that be.
And, a socialist model of health coverage requires a collective mentality where citizens accept the same, perhaps mediocre coverage and services for ALL. Will Americans go for that, especially considering the myth of the American dream and its pull-up-your-own-bootstraps idea?Will you willing to accept subpar medical treatment in order to ensure the basics for your poorer and perhaps less health-vigilant neighbors? Should smokers or substance abusers or the generally self-destructive receive the same medical resources as those with healthy behaviors? Will Americans continue to spend over $150,000 to attend medical school only to end up in a career in which they can’t pay back their debt? Will budding PhD researchers do the same? These are honest, tough questions we all need to ask ourselves. The issue is complicated, and solutions even more so…If Congresspeople spent a little more time at the office, perhaps we’d get to the heart of the debate and to the start of the solution.
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