Not only can you read the stories, but write one yourself on this website. It also recognizes your zip-code location when you link up so you get the immediate stories that are in and around your location. When you read some of the stories about each person’s individual medical condition and difficulty with either their insurance carriers or the fact they have no health-care, it truly gives you an idea just how difficult it is for millions.
Diane Stirling-Stevens / The Rag Blog
Nancy, Mercer Island, WA
Dear President Obama,
I am a nurse and work full time. I do not want shareholders on Wall Street determining the care that my patients get. Insurance companies, themselves, are driving up the cost of medicine. I am spending too much time on the phone with them, negotiating for the care the doctors have prescribed. This means that the clinic overhead is increased by paying wages for nursing time on the phone, when we should be with patients.
A worker at Humana Insurance told me recently that they had hired 200 more workers to talk with clinics and hospitals. Insurance companies have legions of gatekeepers who override doctor’s decisions. If this doesn’t drive up cost I don’t know what does.
What I want, as a nurse and a patient, is one set of criteria, one set of rules, one form, one card, one web site to understand, one set of medical records and one insurance card that will allow my care anywhere in America.
- It needs to cover EVERYONE, because if a poor uninsured child or mother gets on a bus with the flu…..we all get it! This contributes to pandemics.
- It needs to be GUARANTEED so that someone with breast or prostate cancer does not find themselves without insurance because there insurance was rescinded to insure more money for shareholders.
- It will cover all, regardless of age, preexisting disease, or income.
- Make it COMPREHENSIVE for inpatient and outpatient needs, prevention, medicines, long term care, mental health, dental, vision, hearing, durable medical, ambulances, etc.
- The money needs to be directed to health care services, not to middlemen and shareholders. THIS WILL REDUCE COST.
- Each citizen should have ONE CARD with each person’s medical records in a chip. This way, you may take it to any doctor or any hospital in America. This helps to reduce mistakes and to coordinate care.
- Disallow prescription medication ads. I want my injured worker to get care for his diabetes, rather than only his right leg and low back. “A healthy man has a thousand wishes; a sick man has only one.” [Slovenian proverb]
I have a kidney transplant. If I lost my job tomorrow, I would have no insurance to cover my immuno-suppressant drugs. Without these medicines, I would end up back on dialysis which would be far more costly than my medicines. We need single payer health care.
Thank-you,
Nancy Hewitt Spaeth,BE RN
Mercer Island, Washington
Source / Health Care Stories for America
Many thanks to Diane Stirling-Stevens / The Rag Blog
….and many thanks, Richard, for taking the time to search for one of the thousands of stories that are so compelling!
This woman's letter is one of the many I read through; thanks to the time you took to select hers, because it was overwhelming as I went through the variety of zip codes where I have family and friends and read over and over about the terrible trials and pain that
Single payer healthcare, if run correctly, could be great. It is a laudable goal. Unfortunately there are three impedements: 1)QUALITY 2) COST AND 3)CONGRESS
QUALITY: There are a lot of uninsured sick people who will pile on the system, driving costs beyond projections, slowing delivery and mandating rationing of care. Under this system you’ll have parity with the crack head, substance abusing bum, morbidly obese and the illegal alien. Are you o.k. with waiting in line behind these folks?
How many healthcare professionals want to take a big pay cut (and still pay oppressive tax rates to support the system)? Are they going to be happy becoming rank and file union members? Oh, you haven’t heard about the UMWU? Watch the union lard up the system and protect incompetent doctors, technicians and nurses. Just hope you don’t draw the wrong number in the doctor lottery. There will still be ‘optional’ for profit medical services available outside the system. Where do you think the best and brightest will go?
What happens to the incentives to drives drug and medical systems research? How many tax dollars will be needed to replace the billions the industry spends now? What happens to innovation and quality? How about replacement of outmoded medical systems – systems that change annually.
COST: We operate over a trillion in the hole each year now, we owe over 11 trillion nationally and trillions more in state and local debt. We just spent a trillion plus on the stimulus and TARP. Medicaid is projected trillions in the hole. Do we think the magic money fairy is going to waive a magic wand?
CONGRESS: We don’t want a rushed plan, particularly one that could further increase debt and deficits. The CBO has already blown the whistle TWICE on proposed plans. Let’s be honest, the egotistical, entitled, lobbyist tainted, partisan, career politicians in our House and Senate are incapable of getting the job done right. In the current climate, they’ll prioritize fairness over function. We’d be better off hiring Halliburton to do the job.
the above comment is by stream47@gmail.com, btw