Health Care Reform? Right...

How do we "reform" Health Care Reform?

Stand on its throat until it quits flopping around, kick it into a shallow grave and move on to fixing a broken, overpaid and greedy system.

Ever spend any time in an Emergency Room and later find out that a Q-tip cost you $4? How about a plain old bandaid at $6? How about that courtesy package, the pan, water pitcher, puke tray, etc... ? Any idea what you have paid for those? Even if you never used any of it?

Think I'm making this up? Check the itemized list of your last visit's bill... you DO get an itemized list don't you?

I couldn't blame you "to" much if you didn't, its a terrifying thing, and might cause some of us to "go around the bend".

Is it REALLY that hard to see where the real problems in the cost of health care are?

We, as a family, have been saddled with some of the poorest and often some of the best care I've ever seen, seems to depend on which "shift" of personnel you get or why you are there.

One night, after an incompetent Doctor gave a diabetic an oral steroid for a respiratory ailment, my wife was nearly killed by an RN that was to busy in a gossip session at the nurses station to administer a drug correctly. This RN had been FIRED (for incompetence) by this Health care organization at one of their hospitals, only to be immediately rehired at another.

A lowly respiratory tech just happened to hear my wife strangling behind the curtain as he walked by, he also just happened to be pushing a C-Pap machine. Only his actions saved her, the nurses would have never noticed. I had left the immediate area for just over 90 seconds.

Legal recourse? NONE... no I mean it, NONE. There is NO record of the incident, of the drug administered or of the use of a C-Pap machine to keep her alive until a Doctor got her stable. OR of the Doctors actions in saving her. No records at all. We have someone on the inside that went after those records for us for the next month, including the "private" and "secret" records. NOTHING. (according to our friend, all hospitals have a secret file, I can't prove that, but think on it...)

An over night ER visit turned into a 6 day ICU stay. Initial cost of the Hospital alone? $42K... in 6 days... because of an incompetent RN that had already been fired once for it. By the time it was done, that one incident cost me $120K.

Insurance? sure, good coverage and all premiums up to date, Denied for preexisting condition... That RN was NOT a preexisting condition...

The Doctor that hospitalized her to begin with? SENT ME A BILL for it. A foreign national that as far as I'm concerned, has NO business practicing medicine in the US to begin with, she's on the take with a sleep study outfit. You show up in her office for a boo-boo on your finger, you get a prescription for a $4000 sleep study, under the bullshit excuse of "quality of life".

"Quality of life" is a marketing term as far as I can tell.

This has made things even more difficult for us now. NO member of my family is EVER in one of these hospitals without another member of my family with them at all times, PERIOD. No matter why we are there for treatment.

We only use American Doctors, (Smith, Jones, White, Miller, whatever). Gender or skin has nothing to do with it, "Where were you trained Doctor?" is a common question. An answer like "Mumbai" or "Hong Kong", means we walk out. PERIOD.

I'm sure that there is some good training to be had in these places, we have just never seen any of it.

Is it really so difficult to see where the REAL problems, resulting in high costs, exist in health care? In a system that is still without a doubt the finest system in the world?

We don't need the idiots in congress to reinvent the wheel, we need them to repair and maybe regulate the one we are using.

Reform, Health Care Reform?

Start by murdering it.

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