6
March
2008
March
2008
It’s time for National Healthcare
Today I’m sick. Runny nose, inability to sleep, some coughing.
I took some theraflu and called my doctor to see if I could get in to see a doctor. Their earliest appointment is 11am tomorrow morning.
It’s frustrating. Exceptionally frustrating.
When I hear of citizens in other countries just going to their clinics and being seen right away versus my sorry butt being sick today and with an inability to see a doctor, I’m more than a little frustrated.
It appears that the whole debate isn’t about healthcare, it’s about partisan fighting.
Michael Moore’s “Sicko” should be required watching for everyone in the medical field and for everyone who uses healthcare.
Jim McGuigan
Jim McGuigan
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Hi there,
I’ve read your blog and think you’re a good writer. I would like to invite you to join our new online community, polzoo.com. We’re a user generated political editorial and social network site. We also choose amongst our own bloggers to appear on the front page as featured columnists. Please check us out. I think your voice would be a great addition to our site.
I’m sorry your not feeling well.
However what exactly is the point of going into a Doctor, who is going to tell you something you already know?
He runs a few tests at about 300 dollars a pop, gives you a couple tylenol, and then tells you to go home, take some cold medicine, to at least dull the body aches, and hopefully the fever, and that you be good as new in 3-5 days. And charges you insurance company about $1500.00 to tell you something you already knew.
It all just seems kind of pointless to me.
And this is coming from someone who has had the flu twice since November!
Are you kidding me Jim? Really?
You’re sick, you have a cold/flu…there is no cure for that…it has to run its course. No doctor can do anything other than prescribe antibiotics (only if you have an infection of some kind).
I love it how you think that if you had national healthcare that you’d instantly be riding on a magic carpet directly into the doctor’s office. What a crock! You’d have to wait…and wait…and wait until everyone else with more pressing needs would be seen. Your condition is not life-threating so therefore you’d continually be tossed to the end of the line. Sure, you can go in to see your doctor, just be prepared to wait in the waiting room for hours/days before seeing him.
Have fun and bring a magazine to read!
Jim…
It could be worse.
You could be my wife’s Canadian aunt who had a brain tumor and waited a month for an MRI.
You have a cold - one word - zinc.
Tom
Actually national healthcare isn’t the horrific thing that republicans have made it out to be. I hate to say it but see if you can borrow “sicko” by Michael Moore. It sheds a lot of light on our health care system and other national heath care systems.
As for me, I go to the doctor about once every two years and when I do go I ask a flurry of questions I’ve formulated ahead of time and rarely do I go for just one thing.
I knew what I had needed to run its course but the inability to sleep makes it impossible to get better. I guess I’m lucky in that I have a doctor who goes straight for the cure rather than expensive tests. He said he could have prescribed a sleep study but the result, since I don’t have the symptoms of sleep apnea, would have been to prescribe at least a short term sleep aid. He skipped the thousand dollar study and went straight to ambien.
I can’t imagine a doctor under national healthcare would have done any different.
I heard Prestone is good for the sniffles.
How come we always hear about all of the terrible things that have happened to sick people in countries where there is a National Health Plan? The one thing I’ve noticed is a pattern where all of the MRI machines are busy. Oddly none of these people point out that in the US under our for profit insurance system patients have to go through a series of tests before the insurance companies will even consider an MRI. Perhaps all of the MRI machines in Canada are sneaking across the border to make more money in the US. I’ve got an idea. Since we have so many MRIs in the US how about we just keep them in use. Turns out that if the government provides basic health care for it’s citizens the MRI machines don’t vaporize.
Saying that the government is incapable of solving the problems that exist under a for profit health care system is ignorant. It’s assuming that everyone else in the country is as incapable of problem solving as the nay sayer him or herself. (projection?) I’ll bet if they got as creative with trying to solve those problems as they get in making up excuses for doing nothing those problems would be solved.
It happens to be the citizens that work for the government. Citizens that seem to have managed to do a lot of things very well throughout our history. One might even say, “Better than any other country.”
Great post..I can’t imagine a doctor under national healthcare would have done any different.