It seems to me to be a bit like the credit card system. IT's designed to screw with people. Now I guess, since consumer credit isn't really required for life you can have a consumer credit system that screws with people, but I don't think it's a good idea to have a medical system that does that.
I remember when I was going in to the hospital, because of my MRSA infection following arthoscopic surgery, I was in a wheel chair- having just come from my doctor's office across the street- didn't even have time to go home- my foot was so bad after they unwrapped it, they admitted me straight to the hospital, but the ONLY thing I was concerned about, was "IS this hospital covered by my insurance? Do I need preapproval?" I was very ill, and in the most pain I have ever been in in my life- the kind that made me faint, and I think I hadn't eaten for a week, because I could not keep anything down- but all I was really worried about was the insurance bill- because I knew it was going to be spectacular.
This is NOT the way to run a health care system in a country like ours, imo. My experiences with the National Health in the UK were so good, and my experiences here have been so amazingly bad, that no matter what the problems with socialized care care, I think I prefer them to our problems. And I think a lot of people in countries with national health care prefer their system to ours. I never met people in the UK unhappy with the system. None. I'm sure those folks exist- but I talked to a lot of people while sitting in waiting rooms in the UK, and they were pretty happy with their care. And there was no paper work, and no bills.
I really liked the doctors there. They spent time with us, and they were much more concerned with preventative care. |
