Sicko makes me sick. Of this country.

I just saw Sicko today. I am so angry that I probably should not even be writing. It just makes me so mad, to see the injustices that are done every day by insurance companies. I myself know firsthand what goes on: in 2004, I had to call 911 to go to the emergency room for uncontrollable vomiting (The Ulcer Saga, Chapter 1). Afterward, I got a notice from the insurance company saying the $630 ambulance bill wasn't going to be covered because the ambulance company was an out-of-network provider. My jaw literally dropped. When I called 911, was I supposed to tell them my insurance company? Was I supposed to check the phone book for various ambulance services and run my insurance through first while I was vomiting all over the place? With the help of the ambulance company making a phone call on my behalf, I eventually got it covered. Of course, since my crappy insurance policy only covers 80% of expenses, I still had to pay $126 out-of-pocket for the ambulance. (On another note, the ambulance charges $8/mile and I had a 10-mile ride. I should have just called a taxi.) It's just ridiculous that we have to go through that kind of rigamarole when in other countries, everything is free. I've been banned for life, or something close to it, from having my left shoulder covered by Blue Cross Blue Shield, because of a pre-existing medical condition. The irony is that I developed that condition, and was treated for it, while on BCBS coverage under my father. When I turned 23 and bought my own BCBS plan, they said it was an excluded pre-existing condition and banned my left shoulder from coverage. Now I have to make sure that for the rest of my life, I don't have BCBS coverage, or that I only get it through an employer or school or something like that where the fine print says they can't deny me based on pre-existing conditions. It's just ridiculous.

The insurance I have now, through school, won't cover any adult immunizations, even if they are on the CDC vaccine schedule. That $360 price tag you've seen advertised for Gardasil? That's if you're a big provider and can buy in bulk; my student health center wants more than $150 per shot (it's a three-shot series), so forget about it. God forbid I ever have something serious happen to me. At least I have a life insurance plan so I can get buried.

Anyway, I guess the good thing about the movie is that it should make other people mad, too. How can you not get mad when you hear about children dying from 104-degree fevers when the ambulance brings them to the "wrong" hospital? Or physician medical reviewers being compensated for denying insurance claims to patients? In the movie, they interview a general practitioner who works for the British National Health Service; if he gets patients to stop smoking, lower their blood pressure and cholesterol, and in general, improve his patients' health, he gets paid more. That doesn't happen here; we place no emphasis on preventive medicine and as a result can barely keep our diseases in check.

Sure, free health care in those other countries isn't exactly "free"; they pay a lot in taxes to make sure it works. BUT SO DO WE. We just don't get anything useful out of our tax money except a war and roads that aren't maintained. Oh yeah, and our exceptional public school system (Note: I went to public school and loved it. But you can't say that it hasn't failed millions of children all the same). Probably one of the best quotes in the movie came from a former member of the British Parliament who was describing the evolution of the National Health Service. He said the people (the general populace) realized after WWII that the economy had been pretty good during the war, because people were being paid to kill the Germans. So they thought, "If we can find the money to kill people, we can find the money to help people get healthy." Bingo. It was pointed out, multiple times, that in a democracy, the government should be afraid of the people. Instead, in America, the people are afraid of the government, and we put up with a system where we get nothing, but are so tied down with debt that we feel it's safer just to stay quiet and subsist, rather than demanding what we want. So then we have a government of power-hungry, greedy individuals who know the people are too scared to do anything, and so are able to do whatever they want. It's a complete circle, and one I don't like.

To counter anyone who might think the movie is just a bunch of Michael Moore propaganda, here's an article from CNN that addresses the points raised in the movie: Analysis: 'Sicko' numbers mostly accurate; more context needed. In all honesty, it was a dead-on representation of our broken healthcare system. I can't stand it when people say they don't want the government determining if your medical treatment should be approved or not. Why on earth are you then OK with an insurance company determining whether it should be approved, when they have a vested interest in NOT approving it?

If you want to do something about it, read HR676, the United States National Health Insurance Act, which would create a universal health plan, and then go contact your congressperson to get him or her to support it. I really can't see anything wrong with this proposal that makes it any worse than the system we're already living in. It would be funded through a variety of means, including a higher tax rate on the top 5% of income earners (if I were making that much money, I would gladly pay it), and mostly, and this is the most astonishing, through the reduction of all the paperwork that goes on now. A large percentage of healthcare costs in this country goes to paperwork. It's absolutely astonishing. We had a lecture from a lawyer whose wife is a psychiatrist in town, and he told us how, when she opened her practice, she had to hire multiple office administrators to deal with filing their insurance claims. These office administrators are skilled employees, not minimum-wage personnel. So they would send out a claim for, say, $100, and the insurance company would pay $30. So then the office person had to go fighting for the other $70 that they felt they were due. The psychiatrist ended up paying the administrator more than $70 in salary for the time it took to get the extra $70 from the insurance company, if they ever even got it. So what's the point in that? Now the psychiatrist only takes cash payments, and the patients are welcome to file their own insurance claims. So get rid of the need for billing personnel by getting rid of the insurance companies, and focus on delivering healthcare based on need, not ability to pay, and that will reduce a ton of costs right there that could then go to paying for things like CT scanners.

Here's another argument I hate: "In Canada, they have to wait months for an appointment or procedure." Guess what; SO DO WE. Have you ever tried to make an appointment with your physician? Even if you're acutely ill, they often have no free time slots for you, so you are told to go to the emergency room. I've had to schedule annual pelvic exams six months in advance because the office is so busy. In the movie there's a clip of a talking head saying there's a part of Ontario that only has 1 chemotherapy machine in the whole area. I guarantee you there are parts of this country that have just as few machines also. Have a stroke while driving through small town, USA? Good luck getting tPA therapy, even if you get to the ER within 5 minutes. It doesn't exist. So don't give me the argument that in remote parts of Canada there isn't top-notch medical care, because there isn't top-notch medical care available in plenty of parts of this country, either. Heck, there are children in Kentucky who have never had a dental checkup and have never owned their own toothbrush. The website where I read that anecdote is down, but I promise you that it's not made up.

Like most of my rants, I'm not sure how to end this one. This is definitely one of those issues that is going to keep coming up, over and over again, until something is done about it. Unfortunately, my plan of action, the take-over-the-country-by-force-and-make-it-happen-myself plan, probably won't work. I have been slowly learning how to delegate tasks and recognize when things are out of my control, and this is probably one of those things that needs to be delegated to my lawmaker. But that part's done; John Yarmuth is a cosponsor of the bill. So we just have to keep pushing this thing forward. Because as Pearl would say, "I'm tired of this crap."

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The Golden Rule, Slightly Tarnished
Dora wonders how we have become a society that can treat people this way. But when you have uninsured, homeless patients dumped onto the streets of LA by taxis called by the hospital to take them away, you believe it's possible that someone would want hundreds of dollars to return your cell phone.

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Congratulations to Karen and Jake, who are now the proud parents of Lily Elizabeth, born at 1:32 pm June 29, three days early, after "15 or 16 hours" of laboring by Karen, 6 lbs, 12 oz.

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Have I mentioned that I have to be at the hospital at 6 am on Monday, and even earlier the rest of the two weeks I'm on GynOnc surgery? No one has mentioned an end time, but twenty dollars says it's not before 5 pm.