I Just Can't Get Shit On Enough These Days...

{Image shamelessly stolen from Deadly Haiku's blog.}
In my absence a great deal has happened in my personal life. From the wonderful things such as seeing family and cutting out paper snowflakes for decorations - to the downright unfair like lay-offs and insurance debacles. I really needed the break from everything politics, however I would have preferred more time blogging and less time worrying about how to put food on our table and medical care in our lives.

It wasn't all bad though, both my husband and I, in the face of no jobs, have begun seriously working on personal projects - which has also restricted my time online.

That said I have to really take a negative bitch rant session about the state of our nation - with regards to health care and our economy. Some rants about the entitled and judgmental attitudes of assholes may sneak its way into it.....

Our country has the most - excuse the language - fucked up idea about health care I have ever seen. First, I should make a note that I can't stand doctors. Not the people specifically, but the profession as a whole. "Doctor" has a God like standing in the eyes of the public, but when it really comes down to it...it's called a practice for a reason. A med student who graduates with a 2.0 is still called a Doctor, and even if the work is less than stellar the advice is still taken as Gospel.

Ridiculous.

Now, I'm not saying that the medical field doesn't have its good guys, its benefits, or its place - I'm just saying that there are a lot of greedy hacks out there posing as altruistic Doctors. I've had many a bad experience with Doctors, and I have a distrust of them like most people have a fear of Dentists. My main Peeve with them is that they don't listen to their patients. I know my body better than any Doctor does, so listening to what I am describing when asked about a problem should be at the top of the list of priorities - not staring at me as if I'm some hysterical hypochondriac spouting exaggerated symptoms for attention.


The insurance companies are problem number two in my book...privatized insurance will get you the best service, but its is for the wealthy. Employer based group insurance will get you some health care - at a price - but it hardly covers what you really need if your employer can afford to offer it in the first place. State insurance means you are at the mercy of the government. They'll give you coverage for little or no charge - but if what they offer can't get you a doctor then too bad for you. Suck it up and be shoved around from ER to ER until you either get seen, or bleed to death waiting.

Then you have the Bermuda Triangle that is Doctors, Insurance, and "Big Pharma". When the three get together, someone is going to mysteriously get lost. See, between insurance and pharmaceutical industries and Doctors - curing the problem isn't profitable for anyone. (Except for the patient - but who cares about them anyway?). Treating symptoms only means that the patient must come back time and time again for relief from what ails them.

One would think that this method would prove expensive for insurance companies who have to dole out money for every visit, every prescription - but in reality it creates loyal, eternal customers. If someone has a "chronic" condition, they must maintain insurance at ever inflating premiums, rising deductibles, and decreasing coverage. This equals profits for insurance companies. They also have a bad habit of stalling on payments while they use the premiums to make more money through investments.

Big Pharma makes big bucks when Doctors throw drugs at patients who could solve their health dilemmas via other means. The favor is doubly returned when the Pharmaceutical Companies give price breaks to the best selling offices, or offer Doctors incentives or otherwise directs people to specific offices through advertisements etc...Not to mention the fact that in order to get the drugs needed to relieve health problems, the patient must return time and time again for the mandatory pre-script exam - making big bucks for the offices that charge upwards of $120 for fifteen minutes of your Doctor's time.

Its all a big damn racket, and the only person losing is the patient.

Just to add insult to injury, when you go to a Doctor, the first question is usually "Do you have insurance?" Not "What seems to be the problem?" or "Are you having health/psychological problems?" but the straight to the point "Am I going to get paid what I want to get paid for this, or will you be a great big waste of my time?"

I understand that the medical community needs to get paid to keep the lights on - but lets face it, they price gouge. I once paid $100 dollars for an ER Doctor look at me for less than five minutes, and inform me that I had cracked ribs - and that nothing could be done about it. Thank you Captain Obvious. What I wanted to really know was could I have been in any danger of puncturing a lung, because the pain of the cracked ribs (some of which were actually broken - not cracked) had become so pronounced that I became worried. No answer for that.

My husband and I are paying almost $800 dollars for one visit to the ER when he was hit by a car. Granted, he was there for four hours - but the majority of the time he was there he was waiting, on a backboard, after being hit by a car and rushed in by ambulance. It was over two hours before a Doctor even waltzed in for a preliminary examination. He was just left to lie there, on his own - with no help. The hospital charged $400 for the time he was there - and the Doctor who spent no more than ten minutes in the room during that four hours charged another $400 for his trouble. That doesn't include the cost of the ambulance ride - for all the good that did.

The Doctor didn't even give him a full exam. He completely missed the bulging disc, and the herniated disc which my husband had to go to therapy for, and still suffers from pain because of it. Had the ER Doctor actually paid some attention to his patient, he could have caught it then, and started physical therapy earlier - alleviating a lot of the problems he has now.

But nooooooooo I guess the Doctor had more important things to do that night. More likely it had to do with the fact that our insurance had a gap at that point in time, and couldn't cover the inconvenient accident.

This is the state of health care in one of the [supposedly] most wealthy countries in the world. Its the place where you can get medical care if you're rich enough, and a pocket full of drugs instead of a cure.

This is "Bush America" Land of the sick and uninsured and Home of record profits in the health care industry.

So here I sit, not sure what kind of insurance I have, and if anyone will even accept it, just diagnosed with PMDD, and deciding whether or not I should tough it out, dealing with the pain and psychotic mood swings, use Yaz birth control, something that has made me very sick in the past, or dope myself up on "Mommy's Little Helper Happy Pills" ie, Prozac to the tune of an additional 40 lbs on my little frame and the libido of wilted lettuce.

Fantastic

In the meantime my husband and I will be scouting for jobs in a dying economy, hopefully being able to make it through the winter on what little we can get in assistance. With all of the price gouging that the utility companies are engaging in, keeping the lights on and the heat warm enough to keep the pipes from freezing ought to be fun.

In the meantime - I'll post more a little later, getting back to everyone who has left me comments in the last week - for which I am very thankful - but first I must get more coffee, and warm my aching hands.