Health Care

Single payer health care. Hmm. I haven't read the bill, nor done as much reading about it as my dear hubby, but I do know that the military health care system would give you a great taste of what it would be like. Here are some tidbits.

I am healthy and go in for my free yearly checkup appointment with my specified doctor at my specified appointment time. I proceed to directly to the pharmacy and wait a minimum of 45 minutes for them to fill my prescription, pay nothing, and leave.

My friend woke up with excruciating back pain one morning, called to get an appointment with her specified physician, and was told the next opening was 20 days from now. She waited a couple days (impressive) and finally called to get a list of approved alternative providers and got an appointment with one of them. This alternative provider recommended an MRI to truly find her problem and prescribed some pain medication (which she couldn't take because she was nursing... nor could she hold her baby while she was in this pain).

The military insurance told her they wouldn't approve an MRI until she saw one of their doctors. Oh, and the next doctor appointment is still next month. Don't you want the government to run our health care system?

If you're healthy, have endless amounts of time, or happen to jump through all the correct bureaucratic hoops in the correct bureaucratic order, then it's a really great system for which you pay nothing (or very little). If you're actually sick, need any kind of urgent care, or need a specialist of ANY kind, you're going to have an infuriating time.

My friend eventually got her MRI approved and they discovered one of those discs was unhappy, so she's slowly getting more mobile, but still can't take pain medication. Just in case you were wondering.