Discussion: argh

Just expressing my frustration with the lack of single payer health care in the US.

Yeah, when people think of the hassles of no insurance, they usually picture some poor folks who can't afford it. Those are perhaps the most pitiful cases, but not the majority. Many people (self employed, contractors, etc) can afford it, but the system is still completely rigged against them because it assumes that you get it through a steady employer. I should have insurance again in a month or so, and I can pick up COBRA if something really bad happens, but crap like today is frustrating.

If you were Swedish and, say, you were on a training camp in Finland and you broke your arm, you'd come out of the hospital with your arm in a cast and no bill. But of course they have *horrible* health care systems in all those countries in Europe. It's socialized medicine or something like that, maybe even worse. It's nowhere near as good as our golden standard health care system in the US, and you know that has to be true because The Man says so. I think he even says it's the envy of the rest of the world and Canada too.

Well, I've sampled enough of Canada's health care to hope that we can do better than that. I'll take our current mess over being left in an ER for 12 hours with back spasms and then having the doctor tell me that I must be taking recreational drugs because the morphine should be working. No shithead, I don't need a pain killer, I need a muscle relaxant, I told you that when I walked in here 12 hours ago.

Yes, I know, that could happen in the US as well, but on the whole, I think the quality of care is just fine here. It's the accessibility that's a problem. I think the priorities of the two systems can be derived from the fact that rich Canadians come to the US for elective treatments while poor Americans go to Canada for perscriptions.

apparently morphine is a muscle relaxant, they gave it to my mother to relax muscles for breathing. i agree that sometimes doctors mis-diagnose or don't listen because they have their own agenda, but amazingly sometimes know more than I do. I know, it seems wildly implausible.

I agree that quality is fine and that the problem lies with accessability. At some point, lack of accessability makes quality almost a moot point. A system which has the effect of dividing a society into a class of "haves" and "have nots" for very basic health care needs is seriously flawed. And just look at your own example that provoked this. I perceive that you're reasonable well off, and yet you didn't go in to get some stitches for a deep gash--pretty basic health care--because of your expectation of how much the bill would be. Does $500 (stipulating that's a good guess of what the bill would be) make any kind of economic sense, reflecting true costs? I'm skeptical. I'm especially skeptical when it turns out for lots of these procedures the bill to someone walking in and paying cash out of pocket is $500, while the same treatment might net $120 or whatever being reimbursed to the hospital by an insurance company for someone else who has insurance.

in all fairness, there are a lot of expenses we don't consider. for instance, part of that $500 has to pay the all-expense trip to Vegas by the drug company for the doc you'll see for 30 seconds.

Anyway, heal well. just hope it heals up clean, and doesnt crimp your style.

The gash is looking much better today and showing no sign of infection. I closed it myself by taping it tightly shut. Sort of a home brew form of the stapling that is getting pretty common for non-cosmetic stitches. It will certainly leave a scar, but probably nothing worse.

I completely agree that it is more than a little shameful that the richest country in the world will spend billions destroying poor countries and many billions more on failed attempts to rebuild them, but won't provide health care for its own citizens. And the double-standard of billing insurance companies one rate and sticking it to the non-insured is so criminal that hospital administrators should be locked up for even considering it.

Finally, morphine, like all narcotics does have the side effect of relaxing muscles, but there are far more effective local treatments.