Let’s talk healthcare

Tomorrow the House votes and our illustrious President is making very thin veiled threats. Maybe we need to remind our wonderful Representatives that healthcare in this country is nothing like they think.

As you know I have stated the original ACA did not do enough, yet I have never been real specific about some of my complaints. So here is a bit of example to hopefully illustrate some of my concerns and maybe even some of your concerns.

You may have heard a joke where eventually the punch line is you can’t expect the doctor to get it right, they do not know what they are doing yet, they are only practicing medicine.

I do not like talking about my own health, yet this maybe a scenario you have had similar experience. 

I went to the doctor for an ailment. He said sounds like this, take these antibiotics and call me in two weeks if it doesn’t work. So I did. Two weeks later, still not cleared up. So he says try these anti biotics. Two weeks later, still not good, so one more round of this. Okay now I have paid three co pays and three prescriptions.  And he decides maybe it is time for an x-ray. Yep, two days later I am being sent to a specialist. So now we have more copays and a barrage of tests.  All in all, things are working out, but how do we protect our pocket books from doctors having to go through this trial and error method of finding out what needs to be done. I certainly understand this is going to happen, it is the expense of this that needs to be addressed.

Or what about you go get diagnosed with something, and the doctor prescribes a medicine to help. And you may have noticed that they advertise a whole host of medicines on TV, that if you pay attention there are a multitude of side affects you are made aware. So the doctor prescribes the medicine and lo and behold you are hit with one of the significant side- effects so you call doctor and are told to stop the medicine immediately. The good person involved here had heard me complain about the excess side effects over and over again while watching the commercials. I tend to count them as they list them because this situation has bothered the heck out of me.  Okay now what. You and your insurance company just spent money on this prescription. (Let us be honest, it is you and your insurance company that pays). Can you get a refund? Honestly we haven’t asked yet since this just happened so I will update if you can.  I think you should be able to, however, who pays for this refund in the long run: the pharmacy, the pharmaceutical company, the insurance company, or in the long run does it comes back to you with more costs somewhere else.

And really we all pay along with our insurance, hence another one of the problems. Insurance companies are in the business of making money. They help when affordable, however, if the premiums are excessive people have to make choices. And insurance companies are looking out for their bottom line. They have to make Wall Street happy. There is less incentive to make you happy for some reason. You are the customer, they are banking on your health risk, and you pay the premium. Do not think though they consider you the customer.  I say this with a bit of a grain of salt: overall they do not work with you to help lower your costs. They may make agreements for in-service discounts, but the actual costs overall of healthcare, nothing . Some exceptions exist, some insurance companies have woke up to the fact that preventative medicine such as regular health screenings are good, however, they do not spend tons of their resources working to lower costs to you by working with health care professionals to alleviate multiple costs for the same illness.

A critical illness will incur the multiple costs, but you can at least understand that. It is situations that nothing can be done, or the time it takes to figure out what to do. You go to the doctor to see if you have the cold, flu, or an upper respiratory illness.  Either way it is bedrest, over the counter medicine, liquids, vitamin C, and if upper respiratory, maybe some anti biotics is the answer you get.  And most of us accept that visit is going to cost money if we choose to go, however, why do these visits cost as much as other types of visits which may incur more time with the doctor? Or you break a toe or a finger, you go get an x-ray and yep it is broken, but not much we can do about it, You have to go to make sure it is not serious, but what next? Nothing, why do these visits involve full costs especially when they can be reviewed in a few minutes, determinations made and you are on your painful way.

I understand paying a doctor for their time. I am in full agreement with this payment. It is just why some of the doctors’ cost are so high I struggle.   Some of it you see, especially the staff it takes to deal with insurance companies.  Too much complexity here for what is needed. Again why aren’t the insurance companies doing something about the costs they are driving up. It would be in their best interest to hold costs down, yet do we see them working to reduce? Is Congress addressing it?

Anyway the point of all this is there is so much going on in healthcare that has nothing to do with healthcare reform that is being considered.  The day to day costs you and I incur are never addressed. And since the healthcare business is a business there is always a profit motive behind all the decisions the insurance companies, hospitals, doctors, labs, etc… make that affect you, yet are never addressed by Congress.  I heard one person say they need to regulate these businesses, unfortunately they are regulated.  So we are left in between these companies wanting to make money and adhere to regulations that are cumbersome and are not effective for us as they should be.

And as usual I ramble on and on when I am ticked off about something and I am ticked off.  Trying to make the point here is we spend so much on healthcare, but no one looks at controlling the environment that drives up the costs. Doctors will care about you and want to succeed with your health, however, they are caught up in this excessive need to manage a business that does not want them to succeed, but give business to all other aspects of healthcare so those businesses can succeed. It is an ugly trap for everyone, but Wall Street. Wall Street just sits back and goes what have you done for me lately. When Congress pushes Wall Street to the side so these businesses can concentrate on you, then real healthcare reform can begin.

Until then every bill especially the current Republican bill is all a smoke screen to screw you.

Email or call your Representative and tell them to vote no. And remind them your turn to vote will come soon.