health and care
CH is sick. He dropped 60 pounds in 6 months. His doctor thought he might have celiac disease, and therefore he has stopped eating anything containing gluten. However, all tests show nothing evident to tell whether his illness is actually celiac disease. Without gluten, he still feels pain in his stomach. He keeps losing weight and has changed his entire wardrobe. If it was not celiac, what is it? What is it keeping CH from absorbing nutrients?
Today CH's doctor decided to refer CH to another specialist, meaning "sorry I cannot help you." Within a call, CH found out that the specialist refused to see him because she does not accept his health insurance.
I shaked my head on the other end of the phone while listening to Kim's updating on her love-of-life husband's situation.
Kim herself is a doctor in general medicine. So are her father and brother. However, one family is not going to be seen or treated because of non-coverage of health insurance. Making a doctor appointment may takes days to weeks, and waiting for results may takes weeks to months.
"Any disease or even cancer, we are ready to cope. We just want to know what it is." Kim said.
"I wanted to send him to the emergency room, where they have to run tests on him immediately," Kim continued, "but the bill may be high. He was too tired to go out although he was in great pain that night. He talked me out of it."
Kim's father offered financial help if CH has to be treated without insurance coverage.
CH is at an executive manager level. Kim earns a good figure as the first-year attending physiatrist. When one of them got sick, the possibility of not being able to pay off the medical bill frightens me.
The purpose of paying for insurance is to be insured when in need. Now on top of being sick, it must be super distressful as CH learns that his rare health situation is not insured.
How can a doctor turn down a patient for the reason irrelevant to health?
This is the most mind-boggling thing. I have shared my praise for Sicko, but I hate to see what was documented keeps happening. Do you Americans really have more empathy for a puppy with a hurt paw than for a person without health insurance? What would a doctor do when he/she see a hurt puppy and an uninsured injured person?
US may be the biggest spender on health care, but the people are not best cared than the rest of the world. Huge amount of money pours into the health insurance business and the health care bills, but the results of care are not hugely better (if not as good as, or worse) than other countries.
Why do Taiwanese Americans go back to Taiwan for medical treatments and physical check-ups? Because they are affordable even without insurance and because people can make an appointment now and see a doctor tomorrow (if not today). Why wait for treating an illness? Long ago, a friend accidentally hurt her tail bone. She tried to make an appointment and got an answer that the only available orthopedic doctor in town could not see her until 3 months later. She flew back to Taiwan and got herself treated well (not sure if it was curable) in a month.
I may come to US at its worse time for the recent several decades. The health care system along with other performing-below-everyone's-expection systems (e.g., economy, education, environment care, etc) are pretty scary. I am not so worried because my job is not influenced much by economy, because I have done my basic education before coming here, because I can always depend on Taiwan for my health care, and because I believe, if Obama fails to do so, forces from private sectors in US are strong enough to bring awareness to the public's interest in caring the environment and acting upon the crisis.
Now Obama is promoting his expensive stimulus/investment package. I have read articles in hard-copy and electronic newspapers. In the New York Times Magazine, I found a nice summary essay for laymen to understand why this package is critical and neccessary for US to rise again. This essay makes me smile.
Down the road, I may highly possibly build a life or even a family during Obama's presidency. In his inauguration, Obama said that it does not matter whether the government is small or big, as long as the government works. (Which reminded me that as once mocked in the Colbert Report, the Bush government did not work but suck.) I really have high hope to see this country change for better and in a direction leading its residents and citizens to a well-cared and well-caring life.
I wish I could do anything for CH. I could only wish.
It must be something traveling back with him. He has traveled to dozens of African countries that I never knew. Please be a curable disease.
3 comments:
Very sorry to hear your friend's story. The current dilemma in the US health care system, in my point of view, is not due to the lack of spending, but to the inefficiency of the whole system. I think a good analogy is the education system. The government should make sure there are enough public school, which take care of all the basic needs of education, says the first nine years. And then government should subsidize less to the higher level education. As for the health care, what the government should do is to take care of all basic things and remove insurance company at this level. So presumably the cost should be much lower. However, every employed people are required to buy insurance, hopefully at a cheaper rate, to cover all rare diseases. In this case, the insurance company doesn't take much loss because the chance of payout is slim.
Obama's claim that it does not matter whether the government is small or big, as long as the government works is actually a false one. It is impossible for the policy maker to know if the policy would work or not before it is enacted. A claim like that would just be the perfect excuse of more intervention, which has been proven in the history of human being to be failure in most of time.
Interesting... why my display name is Computer Books.... -_-!!!
This name problem happened once to Ting2. Probably some hacker bug.
I agree with your opinion on health care and education. Another point is that the recent unchanged systems remain very short-sighted, which is a problem in many countries, including Taiwan. I will save this topic for later.
As to Obama's argument, you may be correct but what he proposes is to lead a government that works. In order for it to work, he needs to use right people who push the policies that have the highest possibility of showing positive effects. These people know how to think further and act effectively, so that the government will work. Intervention is not totally bad for the whole society. An entirely free market mechanism may not be the best solution for the welfare of most people. If the Obama administration is smart, intervention will not go far. Let's wait and see and wish for the best.
Post a Comment