[From the diaries -- Plutonium Page. This diary tells a story that's probably familiar to many people. The difficulty, (or impossibility, for some people) of getting healthcare coverage in the U.S. is criminal. And pardon the snark, but a certain criminal (Rove) has healthcare coverage...]
"We have a fundamental difference of opinion. I think government-run health will lead to poor-quality health, will lead to rationing, will lead to less choice. Once a health-care program ends up in a line item in the federal government budget, it leads to more controls. And just look at other countries that have tried to have federally controlled health care. They have poor-quality health care. Our health-care system is the envy of the world because we believe in making sure that the decisions are made by doctors and patients, not by officials in the nation's capital. -Third Bush-Kerry debate, in Tempe AZ 10/13/2004"
My friend proved this wrong last night; our system is broken and is the envy only of fools. This diary isn't about Rove or any of that. It may not even be that substantive. I have a feeling a lot of people can relate to it, though.
A friend, who has a condition that could kill him, refused to go to the ER because of cost- even though he was in the middle of an episode.
More after the flip
George Bush has yet another failure to hang around his neck. In his five years in office he could have wrought some sort of health care related change. He could have done a lot of things to prevent what happened to my friend last night. But he didn't; so my friend had a pay for it.
My friend is turning 28 this upcoming week. Being twenty-somethings we chose to celebrate the birthday on a day we could drink. Now this birthday is pretty important because my friend has a pretty serious health condition. There is something in his blood that causes it to clot more readily than the average person's. He didn't find this out until he almost died and was taken to the ER. That netted him a bill in excess of 25,000 dollars. Luckily a local charity took care of the larger portion of 18k. My friend was still left with a bill of 7 grand.
This leads us to last night. My roommate is friends with the same person and we all decided to get late night food after the party. My friend, by the way, must take medication on a strict schedule and has a very limited diet. How limited? He can't eat any green vegetable, at all.
After we finished eating, my roommate drove our friend home. I sat up waiting for her to get back. Two hours after she left (I was dropped off at the house first), I called and got no answer. It turns out that our friend had a recurrence of his condition and didn't want to be alone. Apparently there is a very large clot around one of the arteries in his lungs and he finds himself short of breath and unable to breathe deeply from time to time. It was an event much like this (but worse) that resulted in him going to the hospital when he was first diagnosed.
Now my roommate is a little more affluent than the rest of our peers. Her first response was: "You need to go to the ER. C'mon, lean against me and we'll go down the stairs and go to the hospital." That seems like a natural response; however, my friend's response (I believe) is more indicative of what occurs in nature though the content is unnatural: "I can't afford it."
He's been hospitalized and almost died. He's on a regular medication schedule and he has a strictly limited diet. He knows the risk he faces by not going, but he also knows the bills he will get if he does go. Those bills are so high as to be punitive. Mr. Bush claims that the health care system in America is the envy of the world because doctors get to make decisions? First the patient has to see the doctor; that is the entire part of the equation that our "President" is missing. If my friend is too leery of going to the ER (when he can't freaking breathe!) because of the cost, then we have a failure of health care.
Incidentally, my friend has insurance. But I had the same insurance before getting hired by the company that our mutual employment placement service placed me in, and thus know that the coverage is shit. The cost of his insurance is 140 dollars a month. That is roughly equivalent to 11 hours (pretaxed) of work. Taxed hours, my friend is working 14.5 hours a month to pay for insurance that doesn't cover the bulk of emergency expenditures.
That's almost 6% of his monthly gross income and over 8.75% of his monthly net income. So if Mr. Bush wants to make claims that our health care system is "the envy of the world", I suggest he come down here to Austin for a while. My roommate will be more than happy to let Dear Leader sit with our friend for two and a half hours (3:00 a.m. to 5:30 a.m.) while he can't breathe.
This is the problem with a capitalist controlled health care system. Capitalism thrives on difference. People in one position want to be in another. People -want-. But want is predicated on shortages for one group and abundance for another. It is the latter group that Mr. Bush addresses when he talks about "choice" and "quality". Those are coded words in the health care debate; he is not saying "everyone will have health care" as he should. Instead he is saying: "to all of you who can afford health care -and- can afford to costs that coincide with your exercising a policy you've already paid for, you will have less of a return on your investment if we let all of the poor people in and take care of all of the people who need emergency service."
This is no way to run healthcare. We should not set up a system where someone has to lose; that is ultimately what capitalism is: a competition in which someone eventually has to lose. We need a system that will allow my friend to go to the hospital when he can't breathe. We need a system that removes such questions as "Can I afford to go to the hospital?" Can you afford not to?
By the way- while our system is apparently the "envy" of the world- I would like to point out one simple truth. If my friend had been in Great Britain, we could have just walked him into the ER and gotten him seen to. If you think that is a worse system than sitting up on his couch for three hours while he gasps for breath, then I don't think our country is worth saving.