Socialized Healthcare...
Hi *waves*. It's 4:45 in the morning and guess where I'm going. Have you gueesed? Well you're wrong. I'm actually going to the county clinic so I can keep from getting sued by the county over medical costs.
They call it health issurance, but it's not really health inssurance as much as letting them know that I have no money therefore I cannot afford to pay for even the most basic of medical care. It's quite depressing really, but I have to do it in order to get my zoloft and progesterone, which I need in order to live.
Yeah, it should be pretty fun. Standing out in the early morning twilight with the rest of the poor people, waiting for the clinic to open at 8:00am in hopes of getting one of those little pieces of paper with a number on it saying we can see the county worker today. Then it's another 3 hour wait until our number is called. Often they take you into one of those depressing rooms and ask you to pull out your ever monuting county medical bill (mine is up to about $300 now), so that they can take pity on you and give you a 6 month wavier to get discounted medical care.
If only we had socialized heathcare in this country. You'd think that everyone having a very basic need ( such as healthcare) without worry would be important, but it's not. Why, do you ask? Because in this country we worship one thing... MONEY. Fuck everything else. If you can't make money off it, it's not worthy of your time. And even if you do have health issurance, unless you're rich or have a kick ass job that actually cares if their employees live or die, you get a shitty plan that makes you take out a second mortage on your house, and you have to deal with doctors that get paid bonuses not to treat you, as well as companies who'd rather wait out your illness until you die from it than treat you for it, or better yet, use preventive medicine so you don't get it. You see, waiting you out is much cheaper than actually helping you get better.
Yes, my lack of zoloft is starting to catch up with me... as you can tell. I'm just disgusted with the world right now. There's so much injustice. There are more things wrong then there are right and that's sad. I guess it's just human nature. We live to kill each other.
hey darrrlin!!! i ain't been here in a while but HOLY FUCK @ the layout!!!1 i'm really, really lovin it, it is SO gorgeous!!! do you mind if i use the top image as a background for my desktop? it's sooooo pretty...ok, enough with that, you've prob heard it too many times before ;) hahaha just droppin by to see how you are, sorry to hear about the clinic thing *bear hugs* but i hope everything gets beeeeetter!!!! get it? beeee...buzz buzz hahahah yeah so...hahaha wanna drop by paparazzi and join? ;) hahaha i've finally found the time...(yes, i know, a few months later) to promote it. needs people joining!!!! i think people are getting lazy hahaha this is gettin long so i'll speak to you later smater!!! :)
Under socialized health care, it would take a person 6 days to get into a surgery room for any heart bypass procedure. Under socialized health care, a friend in the UK's mother nearly died while waiting to see a doctor.
Socialized health care is dangerous. I've seen it first hand.
Thank GOD we don't have that in this country.
Well, that sounded kinda mad. Probably because I'm having a swell time being weaned off of Zoloft. Every single thing is like grating on my nerves. This whole country is addicted to some kind of drug. It's like a bad scifi movie.
Must go to sleep...must. LOL.
luv jackie
My mother had a huge; I mean massive, hernia in her abdomen. It was so large that her GI tract would pop out and I'd have to push it back in with my hands. Do you know how gross it is to feel intestines under skin and hearing that sick squishing noise as it slips back under the muscle? Do you know how hard it is to see your mom is horrible... HORRIBLE pain and knowing you can't do anything about it?
My mom needed immediate surgery for her hernia. Do you know how long she had to wait until she had surgery under this healthcare system? 1 year and 6 months. Do you know how much she owes for that surgery now? $46,592.80.
If it takes 6 days to get into surgery under socialized healthcare, then I'm all for it.
It's a very grand concept indeed, like the basics of communism, but there are some very big things wrong with it.
Your first complaint is the supposedly outrageous lines you have to stand in under the U.S. health care system. That won't change with socialized medicine - in fact, it'll only worsen. With a "free" system such as socialized medicine, demand exceeds supply, and that's when outrageous lines form. Everyone from children in the emergency room to heart patients *still* have long waitlists to look forward to.
Socialized medicine restricts the private hospital industry from developing; when you standardize everything across the country uniformly, there's no entrepreneurship, innovation, or healthy competition - thusly, the entire market is sluggish in reacting to new demands and technologies. This severely degrades the *quality* of the service and medicine offered for everyone. The average waiting time for an MRI in Canada, for example, is 6 months.
Also, when you overload the goverment with outrageous expenses like that (expenses that will only soar with a lack of competition), its only choice is to make budget cuts to keep it under control. Yet another reason the equipment and services are usually incredibly outdated. Connected with this is the severe cap the goverment puts on doctors salaries; such a cap has been shown to significantly reduce the amount of time a doctor spends on his/her patients.
And yet another reason the quality of medicine received declines: socializing medicine has a history of increasing sticky political situations - work stoppages and strikes are much more common in a socialized system. This leaves the system dangerously discountinuous for those trying to utilize it.
And lastly, on the subject of cost: such a system is hardly free - in fact, it's quite expensive. To offset these costs, all citizens are usually required to enroll in such a system, bringing the average tax for health care for a two child family up to around $5,000 annually.
Socialized medicine is an extremely commendable, idealistic theory, and the current U.S. health care system (especially Medicare and Medicaid) are invariably flawed. But my theory of the U.S. medical system is much the same as my theory of representative democracy: it's far from perfect, but it's one currently one of the best, most realistic thing out there.
All valid points. But when you have no healthcare, long lines don't matter. You'd rather have some healthcare and deal with some crap than none at all. I hope that makes sense.