Wednesday, February 09, 2005

The bottom line


Many years ago medical insurance was a rarity, but it was a boon to people who could not afford to be ill when specialists were hideously expensive. Now all doctors are expensive. Medical insurance has become more expensive than the cost of buying a car or a house or food and people have to choose between a roof and food on the table, gas in the car to get to work to earn a living to pay for the roof and food on the table, and buying medical insurance. It's a simple equation really.

Doctors inflate their prices to cover the cost of their education and the poverty of their student years, to pay for their roofs and food on the table and gas to get to and from work to buy roofs and food, and to pay for malpractice insurance because everyone wants to get rich quick by suing doctors/hospitals for every imagined mistake, real or fantasy, and to pay for incompetent doctors' mistakes who should never have been licensed in the first place. There is also the cost of trials on drugs that need more drugs to offset side effects that will need more drugs to offset more side effects (the cycle goes on ad infinitum, ad nauseam) and tests that aren't necessary, but lucrative, and more doctors and hospitals...and the list goes on.

Because of this obscene cycle of bottom line conscious doctors and hospitals and insurance companies majors surgeries that require more attention, time, and care end with an overnight stay, at best, and a lot of uneducated and inexperienced family and friends taking care of the patient, not to mention those without such a network of familial and friendly support taking care of themselves or hiring nurses and health care workers at their own expense (the cost sometimes partially defrayed by insurance). One of these major surgeries is a mastectomy that ends with an overnight stay and then home to recuperate on your own.

This is a travesty of justice and a clear breach of the Hippocratic oath, not to mention common sense. If you agree, go to Lifetime TV and sign their petition. I am not talking about a tonsillectomy or removal of a hangnail or even an appendectomy, but a mastectomy, major surgery, life threatening surgery.

Doctors and hospitals and insurance companies are watching the bottom line on their fiscal reports, more interested in profits than health care or human life. Let them know the bottom line on the humanity report has been drawn and they are over the line. Speak out. Let them hear your voice. Let the government, insurance companies, doctors and hospitals know that their greed will no longer be condoned and that humanity will no longer lie down and take their actions without rising up and being heard.

That is all. Disperse.

No comments: