I am a physician, I wanted to pass on a living example of how bad our system of medicine is for 16% of our population who lives each day without insurance. I wont violate any HIPPA regulations and Ill keep the facts as annonymous as possible for my own safety as the Director at my hospital would have my head for making a case like this known. Rest assured that examples like this happen every day everywhere and though they don't always pose a life or death threat, very often it is simply a matter of substandard care. This could happen very easily to you or anyone you know and is becoming increasingly common.
Follow me for the story of an unfortunate girl age 24...
A 24 year old uninsured female mother of two presented to our Emergency Dept. with a dinner plate sized skin infection to her flank and back along with multiple infections to other parts of her body. This case is very bad, the skin over her wound distintegrated and her back muscles and spine are clearly visable. The Pt. was placed on strong antibiotics and admitted to Internal Medicine Dept.
She has a year long history of repeated visits to critical care facilities and was given antibiotics on several occasions and sent home. Her wound cultures are positive for MRSA (antibiotic resistant bacteria). During her hospital stay she saw a resident surgeon who did the best he could with cleaning out her wound but it was clear from the beginning that this young lady would require treatment that our small hospital cannot provide.
So we made phone calls to many high level care hospitals in the area and the story was the same everywhere. as soon as it was known that the Pt. was uninsured the Hospital claimed "no bed available". This is the default answer given in these situations. Call back with another patient with Blue Cross and suddenly a bed magically appears. On the phone I repeatedly said that the patient would die soon if not given propper care.
Time is of the essence here. What she needed to do was leave our hospital against our advice and go immediately to another Emergency Room at a large hospital where she can recieve the care she needs. Of course liability prevents me from telling her that. What she needed was to be "turfed" or put in a cab and sent to the county hospital where her life would be saved but to do so would end my career and quite possibly that of the entire hospital.
So there she sits, in a bed with an IV giving her fluids and antibiotics as the infection creeps deeper into her muscle and bone. If we cannot transfer her soon she will die. Every day she loses opportunity of a meaningful recovery.
Folks, here is what needs to happen...Insurance companies as we know them today need to dissappear. There is plenty of money to go around in our medical system to make pharma, doctors, hospitals happy and running. But as things stand we have a giant middleman taking $.50 on the dollar which leaves everyone else to fight over the remaing 50 cents. It is as idiotic a system as can possibly be conjured up and drives up costs by inflating hospital fees and causes hoarding of services by patients in a feast or famine type reaction.
Healthcare for everyone is as fundamentally important to the American way of life as any of our freedoms. People need to feel secure in there health if they are ever to venture out and take risks like opening a business or writing a great novel or inventing the next gizmo. Without the guarantee of healthcare our population has and will forever be doomed to chase "Benefits" instead of doing what America needs to do and has always done to remain the best place on earth to live, raise a family and contribute to a great society.
Our system is broken, beyond that it is insane and will only get worse unless we actually get off our duff and do something to change it. I dont know exactly what that looks like but I think Barack Obama is our best opportnity we have had in a long time to acieve it.
VOTE!