With the new administration, there have been lots and lots of talk and push for this grand solution of universal healthcare, how it'll be so great that EVERYONE will be insured thanks to the government. Right? Right. So I'm 32 almost 33 years old. I've been a Type I Diabetic since I was five. I have a one year-old daughter and I go to school. I'm currently on my husband's health insurance through his company (a telecom corporation/company). My disease is the less common and more severe kind. It’s not the kind that Hal has. I can't just diet and exercise and take a pill or three and everything will get better. No, I need insulin through either shots or an insulin pump (I'm on the pump). If I go more than a few hours without insulin of some kind, I need to be admitted to the hospital. If I were to go without insulin for a few days, well, odds are I'd be in serious trouble if not dead. Yes, dead. On the flip side, if I get too much insulin, I can go into insulin shock, suffer brain death and yes, die. So my life, everything has to be a balancing act. Especially now that I've got someone else to look after. Getting back to universal healthcare and private versus government health coverage. Growing up in a lower income family (sometimes we actually got the donated food for Christmas), I've seen what government funded services look like. They don't really care so much about your quality of life so much as where they can cut costs and save money. Think DMV. They don't care if you wait in line for hours, throw up your socks four times in the waiting room, what have you. You're not dead, so they're doing their job, right? Luckily, my mom grew up with a Type I Diabetic mother. So she already had an understanding of my situation first-hand. Also, we were within a couple hours drive of a major university research hospital. So in exchange for being a guinea pig, I got lots of advanced care for my diabetes for little to no cost at all. This is how I was able to transition from pork/beef insulin (yes, my insulin used to come from pigs and cows) to human recombinant DNA (cloned) insulin after a few years. I also got to trade in the old urine glucose tests (pee in a cup, break out the test tubes) for actual home blood test kits. Eventually, a study gave me access to an insulin pump (insulin pumps cost thousands of dollars) for free. I did so well on the pump for the study, that my parents' health insurance (an HMO) opted to cover the cost of a new one for me to keep. I've been on a pump of some kind ever since. The first insurance covered the whole cost, another pump I had to fork over 30% ($2800) and the latest pump was completely covered. Anyway, through luck and some background, I've been able to beat the odds (I read somewhere that half of all Type I diabetics don't live to see 20 years with the disease, I'm on year 27, working on 28). I've lived to the age I am, I've managed to have a semi-normal life and I've even managed to give birth to my daughter, who is the picture of health, despite being born 10 weeks early. I don't credit ANY of this to the federal government. Now, to give you an idea of why I'm wigged out whenever Obama starts going on and on about what Uncle, er Doctor, Sam can do for me? Well, my test strips cost a few hundred bucks a bottle. A bottle lasts me a week or two. My insulin pump supplies run at least a couple hundred a month. My insulin runs around $100 a bottle, which might get me through a month. Fortunately, thanks to all the new Type II diabetics who need test kits, test kits are free. But if I should need a new insulin pump (every 3-5 years), that's another $5000 - $7000. Now, that's to maintain my quality of life (close to normal) as it is now. The private insurance I'm on now through Marc's job pays for 95-98% of all that. I pay co pays ($10/15 a pop) and that's it. If I were depending on the government for my healthcare, I'd probably be taking shots (syringes are WAAAY cheaper than an insulin pump). Why's that such a bad thing you ask? My pump allows me to adapt to my situation. Say I have to travel, I can adapt my pump settings to avoid getting too low or too high due to stress or changes in my diet schedule. Say there's some kind of an emergency and I have to put off dinner for a while. I can dial back my pump instead of scrambling to find some kind of sugar to keep from passing out. The pump allows me to fine tune my medication around my lifestyle. If I had to take shots, I'd have to tailor my lifestyle around a set schedule of injections. I did this for fifteen years, it’s NOT easy. When I was on shots, I was admitted to the hospital with illness at least once if not twice a year. I missed more school and generally my health was fair to poor. Insulin shot therapy is simply nothing close to a normal metabolism. Because of that, life is nothing close to normal. I was sick more often and generally speaking I just felt shitty all the time. Ask Hal sometime. He can attest to how crappy something as simple as too much or too little insulin can make you feel. Now, I know, this may come off as whining and what not. But I'm not just thinking about me. My daughter decided it was time to go at 30 weeks gestation. (10 weeks premature) Thanks to our private insurance, we could afford her the best possible medical care at UCSF's neonatal intensive care unit for five weeks. The bill for that stay was in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Do you really think government run healthcare would even consider spending that much money for one individual?? Yeah, me either. Yes, private insurance is expensive. There's a reason. Those times that you REALLY need it, it’s there. If your insurance company gives you the shaft, complain about it and shop for someone else. That's the whole point of capitalism and being a consumer. As bureaucratic as private insurance can be, do you really want to trust your life or your loved ones lives to the biggest bureaucracy of them all, the federal government?? I mean, yeah, universal healthcare would be fine, if you were perfectly healthy, never got sick, didn't age and never needed surgery (appendix, childbirth, tonsils, and stitches). But that's not reality. Especially for someone like me. When I'm well, I'm well. But when I'm sick, it’s not cheap. I do my part to stay healthy and out of the hospital, but say I come into contact with this swine flu, I'd really hate to have to worry whether some pencil pusher thinks I'm worth the extra money or not. Yes, it sucks that not everyone has good health insurance. I wouldn't want to deny anyone good healthcare. Every time I read about a kid dying of Type I diabetes because their parents were too broke or too ignorant to take care of them, I get upset. Still, I don't like the idea of the fed just stepping in to take care of things. I can see some sort of middle ground, encouraging companies to offer cheaper services to lower income families/individuals. But don't go into direct competition with them. Any time the focus is on saving a buck versus providing good medical care, you're missing the point. Because of the "evil" pharmaceutical companies and the medical insurance companies, someone actually developed improved therapies for diabetics like me. When my grandmother was alive, they didn't have blood sugar tests and she had to boil her syringes and reuse them. Just in the quarter century since I've had diabetes, they've advanced light years in terms of testing accuracy, ease of testing and treatment as well as just knowledge of the disease and how to treat it, from diet to insulin pump and transplant therapies. When I was diagnosed at 5, they were doubtful I'd make it to college. Now my doctors don't give me life expectancies any more. It’s that much better and all because of those big evil corporations that everyone likes to blame. Yeah, the stuff's friggin' expensive, but considering all the great experiences I've had (see all my thousands of car show and track photos and dozens of videos), and how I've been able to live my life on my terms mostly, I feel it’s worth it. So yeah, if you skip to the end here. Next time you hear someone talk about universal or government run healthcare, stop and think for a second what that REALLY means to the individual. And the icing on the cake, it’s not free if you pay taxes. But that's another gripe... /rant
Have some friends with those insulin pumps and they completely transformed how they can function or at least be as normal as possible. Agree with most that you say especially when it comes to Universal Healthcare. Name me one program the Gumment has run efficiently as would a business or homeowner to survive. Every program (Social Security, Medicare,Medicaid) and others are completely Broke. It is scary to consider that Nobama (Gumment) has spent more money than any person in the history of the planet. Nobama's budget adds more debt than all previous presidents-from George Washington to George W. Bush - COMBINED At this rate will be a Socialist country or maybe already we are too close. Our liberal Gumment, 545 people,are taking this country down the wrong road and it will not be pretty. I agree with the Tea Baggers. Taxed Enough Already The innovation to create that pump is also being stifled by Gumment. Enough of my rant. Again Excellent write up!
I agree in principle, however, allow me to dissent on a few points; Consider your situation if you did not have access to the research facility to help you with your equipment and treatment costs. Imagine you were not on Marcs healthcare. If your mother did not have first hand experience in a household with a Type I Diabetic. Then what? The concerns you have are from the position of someone who HAS health care, and is terrified of having a lower standard of quality care. consider this: Write a story about your life without health care. Consider the successes you've had in life because of the care you've received. Strip all of that away and expunge all of the experiences that care has given you in life. That's what many other people are suffering with. I find it hard to pallet that my people, the greatest people on earth, the wealthiest people on earth, that my people are suffering through that story unnecessarily. You fear the pencil pushers deciding whether you are worth a few dollars or not. I fear my fellow Americans deciding I am not worth a few dollars or not. Don't get me wrong ... I'm not for irresponsible excess taxation and big government, I'm a radical centrist in the political spectrum ... socially liberal and fiscally conservative ... but I am compassionate to my people. We're the wealthiest tribe that earth has ever seen. Why should our people be hungry, sick, and helpless? ... so the wealthier of us can save a few bucks and buy shiatsu massagers in the seats of our luxury hot rods and polydyn coatings on our manifolds? The bottom line is that health care will remain the same for those of us with it sponsored through work and basic insurance. Whenever a universal health care system is implemented it will be to cover the un/under insured. If you've the ability to pay, greater quality of care will be available. We ARE capitalists. However the minimum standard of care will rise from NOTHING, to shitty. That's worth a few bucks to me. Also. Please Note. The vast majority of all health care costs are to elderly people in the cycle of death. Caring for the dying is what is expensive. Not for the sick. Preventative care has PROVEN to be cheaper than mandatory uninsured emergency care. Obesity is also a major cost. Statistics: http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Charts-and-Maps/ChartCart/View-All.aspx?charttopic=Health+Care+Costs http://www.kaiseredu.org/topics_im.asp?imID=1&parentID=61&id=358 http://www.win.niddk.nih.gov/STATISTICS/ http://truthfulpolitics.com/healthcare.php http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/64909.php "Health care costs concentrated in sick few-- sickest 10% account for 64% of expenses." "A survey of Iowa consumers found that in order to cope with rising health insurance costs, 86 percent said they had cut back on how much they could save, and 44 percent said that they have cut back on food and heating expenses" "According to a recent report, the United States has $480 billion in excess spending each year in comparison to Western European nations that have universal health insurance coverage. The costs are mainly associated with excess administrative costs and poorer quality of care." Maybe we should be punishing our representatives, and not our people.
I find it difficult to fathom how socialized health care will lead to the arbitrary dismantlement of the capitalist bank structure and citizen owned production and suddenly hundreds of years of land-owner rights are just dissolved. Or are we suddenly going to see a Leninist revolution emboldened by the passing of universal health care? Like, HOLY SHIT we voted in Universal Healthcare! Shut down the banks! Call in the harvest! Obama's gunna take away our crops!
I guess my underlying point is that at least currently and in the past, I had options that may cost more than "free healthcare" but they are options. If I hadn't had those options, then yeah. I'd be dead. As long as there's competition, there will be more affordable options. I'm not saying to not offer any sort of backstop or last option to those examples everyone turns to in these debates, those who can't afford it. I'm just saying don't take away my choice because its "not fair" to others who can't afford it. Also, with less government intervention and oversight, companies are more likely to come thru with research breakthroughs. What's the incentive to develop better treatments/medication if you're not going to make money? And no, I don't think Universal Healthcare = socialism. I just don't think its the happy shiny people solution some believe it to be.
We definitely agree 100% there. There's no magic wand. We have a long way to go to keep corporate greed and simple inefficiencies from weighing the costs of health care. To get a better system, with less money. We're the laughing stock of developed nations when it comes to health care for the most part.
Eh, like I care about the opinions of others...funny how the further I get from high school, the more I realize everyone else is still trapped there...but that's another rant.
Look at the current government offerings you have wick, welfare, and disability all good ideas for people in a jam and in need but you have the greedy lazy ass people who work every angle to use or should I say abuse the system and who is left footing the bill yeah tax payers… what do you think is gona happen with a universal health plan… I know Bend over America!
