I am an internist here in the Dallas Fort Worth area. I will never name exactly where I work and certainly not name any patient or health care worker by name. I have discussed what I am doing with the patient below - and have his expressed permission to tell his story - I have agreed to not use his name or any other identifying characteristics. However, I have finally became completely fed up with all the tragedies I see on a daily basis - and feel that I must begin to reveal how bad it really is to anyone who wants to listen. I am going to present a weekly vignette of how people are getting seriously screwed by our health care system. I am the one, last advocate that many of my patients even have. There are times when I want to scream these injustices to God in Heaven - until I am able to get God's attention - this board will have to do.
"Peter" is a 31 year old white male. He is muscular, trim, and works out 3 to 4 times a week. He has never had a medical problem for a day in his life. He takes no medication. He does not drink or smoke.
He has, however, made some serious mistakes in his life in the past. He has had a previous wife with children - to whom he now must pay over a thousand dollars a month in child support. This family is in addition to his current family with his second wife and kids. Never one to shirk responsibility - he is now working two and a half jobs. He describes his stress to me as overwhelming. There are times when he sits with his wife sleeping next to him weeping about how he will pay the bills the next day. Even with his wife's income, they are living day to day, month to month, paycheck to paycheck.
Because of his expenses with the child support, he decided to opt out of the health insurance that his primary job provided - I would have done the same, based on the outrageous amount of money they were charging for co-pays and for premiums. He and his family have no health insurance. He lives among the living poor. In no way would you ever be able to tell this looking at them.
He came in to the hospital for severe abdominal pain. Bad. He had worked through 3 days and 6 shifts with it. He was found laying in the floor at his job, grabbing his stomach, hardly able to breathe. He is afraid to miss one day at work not knowing what will happen to his family(ies). He came into the ER - brought by coworkers - and found to have acute pancreatitis. This is probably secondary to a gall bladder problem. The basic therapy for this is complete bowel rest for a few days, and then slowly adding food. However, on his 2nd day of food, after 5 days in the hospital - he began to have the pain again and lab tests confirmed that the problem was worsening. He will now have to spend about a week on IV nutrition at about $1200 a day. At some point, he will need a gall bladder surgery. The surgeons who have been called are all interested in having him seen at the local county hospital after he is better - because he has no insurance. He does not qualify for care at the local county hospital because he had the option of health insurance at his job and chose not to take it for financial reasons. He is on his own. I am going to have to spend some goodwill capital getting this procedure done - which I am perfectly willing to do. Many physicians I know would not lift a finger to help. In this country, you roll the dice when you have no insurance - you never now who will admit you through the ER.
His current bill - around 40,000 bucks. Probably another 10,000 to 20,000 more will be added by the time he is done.
I get to look his 3 and 5 year old kids in the eye every day - knowing that the tenous life they have now - will be really dicey once daddy has to declare bankruptcy and torpedo his credit.
My fellow Americans, we have the money to bail out Goldman Sachs but do not have the money to help this family? What would Jesus do? Where are all the Jesus people now? Why are they allowing this to happen in this country? What is compassionate about the conservativism that allowed these kinds of situations to happen to my patients on a daily basis?
I would love to tell you this is unusual - it is not. It happens daily. People's lives are being destroyed. Kids' lives are being dealt a fatal blow before they become 10.
May God have mercy on our souls.
Dagan68
"Here I stand. I can do no other. God Help Me."
Martin Luther - The Diet of Worms