I’m contemplating having custom-printed stationery made up for when people drive me perfectly batshit.
It will look like a note that you might have sent/received in grade school, with little checkboxes a la the, “Do you like me? Check yes or no” motif.
But mine will be even better. Mine are going to say, “Do you want me to kill you now? Or later? Check one.”
Good for those days when homicide is your ONLY option!
I can’t make a better case for socialized medicine than Helen did in her “Doctor, Doctor” post.
I will say, however, that I think it’s goddamned ludicrous here in the States that you go to a dentist for some emergency work because you’re in pain, and that dentist (or whatever type of doctor) has the right to run a credit check and never call you again because you’re not worthy of treatment if you’re uninsured and have a credit score below a certain number. Even if you might just have the means to make payments.
And it’s not that these medical magicians even love the big insurance companies; they’re somewhat forced to take lower levels of reimbursement in exchange for the guarantee of being paid for services rendered. Nobody wants to put their services “on sale” but if salaries have to be paid, you take it where you can get it.
A lot of people posit whether universal health care, other than being a tremendous cost, would sacrifice the quality of services rendered. From my view, I have yet to enter a hospital or doctor/dentist’s office and leave feeling like a miracle happened or that anyone cared enough to provide more than a bare-bones level of service, if that. At least with socialized health care, you could excuse the impersonal care because at least everyone is entitled to some. Which is more important?
A lot of the health care costs in this so-called “land of the plenty” are reactive, anyway. Preventive care would save a whole lot of grief in the end, and you wouldn’t have people like me who are conditioned to avoid medical professionals at all costs because the out-of-pocket expense (even with coverage) is enough to make us wonder, well, do I REALLY need to address that?
I fear we’re all in deep doo-doo if we ever stopped feeling ashamed enough to admit we actually do care about our health. My dentist needs to do about $1,500 of work on me that’s not covered by my plan; I’ve been dodging his assistant’s calls for six months. And they’re not a big fan of payments, either — if you don’t have it up front, then seeya.
I don’t know. If the incompetence exhibited at Veterans Hospital (dig through the archives; I can’t bear to look at those posts) is an example of socialized medicine, then we’re all doomed. But one of the issues that will persuade me to vote for a candidate in the upcoming presidential election is a solid plan to ensure that every American has access to health care, because no circumstance should be extenuating enough to tell someone that their life isn’t worth anything in this world.