Oddly political

[williamofoccam]

 As most people who know me, I am not much for politics.  However it's started to concern me more recently...

Let me start by saying that I don't have an answer to the healthcare situation, so I'm not going to pretend that I have an answer.  I've got conflicting experience which while I feel it gives me a better graps on the topic doesn't make it

Comments

[careswen]

I think you raise a lot of good points, including the fact that there is no easy answer.

Keeping healthcare coverage employment-related is a bad idea, I think, because it leaves the unemployed and the underemployed at risk, not to mention their children. I know neither candidate is proposing socialized medicine, but I'd like to consider it. Though my experience, both personally and professionally, with Medicare and Medicaid definitely gives me doubts about how our government bureaucracy would handle our healthcare.

Tomorrow (Tuesday) on Oprah, they're rerunning an episode where Michael Moore "faces off" with an insurance lobbyist. I've set the DVR to record. I have mixed feelings about Michael Moore, but I'm really interested to hear the two points of view. You know I'm more sympathetic to the providers and the patients than the insurance companies, but I'm going to try to keep an open mind and hear both sides. I haven't watched Sicko yet, partly because I'm afraid it will just piss me off, when I feel helpless to fix the

[williamofoccam]

I think I lean more toward the idea of socialized healthcare, but I admit that I don't know enough about it

[careswen]

I think that's one perspective that's missing from my background -- a more balanced view of patients. As a patient advocate depending on the provider to make care judgments, I was biased toward the needs/desires of the patient. If the clinician told me treatment X was needed, I believed them, and fought to get it covered. Of course, there were times that patients wanted things that weren't appropriate, like expecting their insurance to pay for non-rehabilitative massage therapy. Sorry lady, Blue Cross isn't going to pay for us to rub you down just so you'll feel good, when there's nothing wrong with you. I can definitely see how someone in the position you were in could have more exposure to the cynicism-inducing patient behavior

[williamofoccam]

I think you hit on a BIG point, while there needs to be checks and balances there isn't an impartial party.

You did work for what sounded like a really good clinic. It sucks that the rules of insurance companies to keep bad clinics in line hampers the good ones so much.

I didn't have a good experience when I worked in the patient setting. I was young, idealistic, and underprepared. Looking back it could have been much better if I had some of the knowledge I currently have.