personal story

a personal story of American health care

Greetings,

I am sure it went unnoticed by I was gone from this string for a few days this week. I had a heart attack, no sympathy required; I only bring this up to illustrate a few points. I was on vacation last week, a vacation I had moved up because of impending layoffs, younger less senior employees who still have family’s at home need the hours to continue benefits, I digress, anyway I had Sevier chest pain starting Tuesday afternoon, Wednesday morning is a regularly scheduled union breakfast, I lead most of the discussion so I attended, still having chest pain after breakfast and a few errands, I stopped at my family practice doctor, (on a side note if you want to go to the front of the line at your doctor’s office, when they say how can we help you today, just say I am having chest pain). After a lecture on not only putting myself at risk, but the general public as well by driving myself to the doctor,( I left the breakfast part out), I was transported to a local nonprofit hospital. Being that the actual hart attach was by now more than 36 hours old my EKG was mostly normal, the heart attack was diagnose through blood test. By 9am the next morning, I had a Cardiac catheterization, showing a Nontransmural myocardial infarction with a 90% blockage of the distal circumflex on the left side and 50% on the right. I received a drug eluting stent my heart was then tested and rated at 64% blood movement 60 being normal (good thing) I was released Friday morning, excellent care, easy to see why some people worry about changing the system.
However here is where I take issue, I receive a list of prescription, so long it was on a 8 by 10 sheet of paper, I went to my local pharmacy, I don’t go to chains, I like to know where my money goes. My pharmacist called me up to the counter, and then asks a few questions, like my e-mail address. While I was happy to give him any information, I inquired as to what he was doing, he stated he was looking for coupons, rebates, and in some cases, trial offers, some of the meds I had been prescribed were cost prohibitive. While I certainly appreciated the effort, everyone can use any savings we can get. I did however state I had prescription drug insurance; he then told me that most offers were only for people with insurance. I then stated you mean if you have insurance, you can get prescriptions free, if you need help you pay full price. He said unfortunately that is often the case.
My second issue came when I called the cardiologist for fallow up care. The very first question, before making an appointment, or when the doctor had asked me to come in, do you have insurance? It has been well discussed that emergence care must be given, but necessary fallow up care is not.
Therefore, if you cannot afford prescription drugs, and you do not have access to fallow up care, even with something as serious as a myocardial infarction, (just sounds cooler), you will just end up back in the hospital or dead; I guess conservatives would prefer the latter, more cost effective. However, if you manage to live, you lose your savings, your home, often your job, any additional cost are then passed on to everyone else. The status quo is not only immoral it is not cost effective.
My final issue is the completely ridiculous issue of rationing care. I have stated may times, my health insurance coverage is through a non-profit trust, but even we ration care. One of my discharge instructions was to walk a half mile a day even though personally exercise is not an issue. So anyway, I walked the mile or so down to my mailbox to get Saturday’s mail. In my mailbox was a letter from a health insurance company, the trust has found it more cost effective to contract out portions of our administrative duties, one of those duties is pre-certification of inpatient admissions. I was ecstatic to be released form the hospital in two days, but according to this letter the hospital had only been authorized a two-day stay, even though I was informed, the norm is at least three days. I don’t take issue with this, if necessary the hospital can request additional time, furthermore most of the decisions are based on our basic plan, I have an XL plan, any restriction can normally be cleared up with a phone call, if not I can appeal to the board who can and often does override any decisions made. In addition, our board is answerable to the members. In fact, the only issue I had was what good was it to send a letter to my house, when I was in the hospital, and second was that the letter stated that I was responsible if my stay went beyond what they had authorized. Again, I have recourse most do not, leaving at least the possibility of having to deal with a bill when you believed you were covered. My point on this issue is unless you are independently wealthy we all have rationed care, the only question is, does that rationing serve the interest of the individual and the common good, or does it only serve to boost profits, at the expense of the individual and the common good.

Health care reform is a moral and economic imperative.

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