Our healthcare system is a disgrace. Unfortunately, too many believe we are stuck with it. Is that what you believe as well?
Until most Americans realize that we are in the same boat, we will continue to get policies that fail us all. The leaders of our economic system strategically misinform. It is in their interest to ensure factions are fighting each other as they use said distractions to get their will.
What does that have to do with me flying to DC to be with my daughter? Our healthcare system is the outcome of fraud on humanity that came to pass from misinformation and factionalization techniques.
My daughter is in her fourth year of Medical School at Howard University. She had a stroke in January, the second half of her third year. It was completely unexpected. It turns out she had a vascular malformation in her brain. She lost half her vision, and her left-side was somewhat compromised. Four days after the stroke, she was released, and like a trooper, she tried her best to stay on schedule, which she mostly did.
My daughter sent me a text that scared me to death that had me on a plane immediately. Her malformation was zapped with radiation from a CyberKnife in April. They told her there was a possibility that as the vessels collapse, there could be deficits that she develops. Well, she started having severe left side weakness. She has little control over her left hand. She has a foot drop on her left foot, just overall weakness on the left. Ashley has insurance through her University. Of course, the university must try to control costs with the health insurance they choose.
Ashley tried to make an appointment with a neurologist. Her plan has only two in the DC area. The best appointment date she got was the end of December. Of course, they tell you if you have an emergency, you should go to the emergency room. Standalone high-priced emergency rooms are available all over with virtually no wait times. Hospital emergency rooms pre-COVID were busting at the seams. Imagine how they are now.
I am sure there is slack space with neurologists in the city. But our for-profit health system creates a false scarcity to maximize profits for shareholders and high paid executives. They create fiefdoms of profit at the expense of the health of us all.
It is not hard to understand that for-profit healthcare does not make things more efficient. In fact, the opposite is true. Doctors must hire staff to work the inefficiencies of using multiple insurance payers etc. Doctors operating in their own networks create inefficiencies by not opening ALL specialties for access to all. That would have allowed a government to determine where incentives are needed to encourage specialties where needed.
In our current system, this is impossible. Maximizing profits means creating a false scarcity, and that is exactly what corporations do.
Many Americans don’t see healthcare as a right until it touches their loved ones. We are a rich country that can afford great healthcare if the money in our current healthcare system actually went to healthcare. Our system is an evil we have been taught to live with and accept. This is the best we can do. Right?
Absolutely not. I made a promise even before my daughter got her stroke. I saw too many of our citizens hurting because of our inhumane healthcare system. I will use the rest of my life, to tell the truth, to inform in as humble a form as I can to reach as many as I can. The buildings are beautiful, and the facade is great. But ultimately, it is a system intended to bleed us dry, not provide healthcare firstly. We still have a democracy. When best informed, we can force our politicians to do our will and not that of the profiteers.