Occupation:: Retired Secretary

My mother was in a serious car accident. In 55 days, we were in 5 different facilities & had 5 surgeries. The biggest problem is lack of communication & continuity in patient care. It is not a staff problem, but a problem with the “system”. Even moving within a facility has the same problems. Nobody knows what the patient history is, what orders have been done nor do they communicate with previous staff. Everything is on a computer program that is hard to track & easy to lose info. The staff is never the same. It was like starting over every time we moved or had new staff which was constant. I had to be there 24/7 to know what was going on & still did not always know. I had to second guess staff & question whether they knew what had been ordered by someone else. Because everybody is a specialist, they are only concerned with their area of specialty & what they prescribe. Mom had 12 different injuries. They were never treated as parts of a whole body, just individual injuries. We had to go 250 miles away for surgery. Medicare did not want to pay the ambulance trip back to the local rehab because they wanted us to stay where we were. We could not stay 250 miles away, 24/7 for several months. Letting the government take over would be another problem. Anything the government gets involved with is a mess with paperwork & cost. We are continuing into our 3rd month since the wreck & have several more months to go. We are in our 6th facility. Same problems no matter where you are. It has been a nightmare & continues to be so, probably for the rest of my Mom’s life. I do not know the solutions but definitely know the problems.

Occupation:: Correction Officer

It is quite disheartening that a country like U.S.A., could not provide universal healthcare for her citizens. A country that is acclaimed to be the richest country in the whole universe – rich in human and natural resources- with some individuals richer than some poor countries, yet its citizens are dying for lack of healthcare. A country that spends billions of dollars in aid to other poorer countries, yet its citizens cannot boast of an affordable healthcare – something that is very common in other developed nations. Countries like Canada, Germany, U.K. and even Cuba, have their healthcare problems solved long time ago, but America, which supposed to set the pace, is yet to convince members of the Congress and the selfish health insurance companies that healthcare is a right not a privilege for every American citizen. If only America could stop sending money to countries that train terrorists who in turn attack the U.S., such money could be invested in declaring universal healthcare for all Americans. Charity begins at home. Let’s take care of our own citizens who are beggars and homeless without health insurance before going to abroad to spend billions in aid and on useless wars!

Occupation:: Teaching Assistant

Regarding those who think it’s ok to appeal/oppose Pres. Obama’s health care bill, I say think again! Many of our children going to college and/or coming out of college cannot find a job with benefits immediately upon graduation. These students would be without any type of health coverage at all, if they want to go back to the way things were before (not good!). Many employers are going the part-time route to avoid paying out benefits because benefits can become very costly. Being without insurance is worse. Many middle-class families work hard enough so as it is, but they cannot shoulder paying out for their child’s doctor/hospital costs (without having some insurance coverage). Don’t mind co-pays, students can’t pay at all. So, it’s an “excellent idea” that it is extended to age 26. Opposers to this, maybe your child didn’t get to this age yet or else you’re wealthy enough to pay exorbitant costs outright. But most of us can’t. So, think outside of your own desires and focus on what’s best for those most in need. It’s the right thing to do.

Occupation:: Small Business Owner

Reform of health care must start with eliminating the trash – all the over utilization and unnecessary treatment that burden our health care system. Estimated at over $600 billion in a $2.2 trillion health care system, clearly it impacts on our ability to provide all citizens with quality care.

Who is creating $600 plus billion in health care trash? The medical community, of course, who must prescribe the over treatment. Don’t blame them thought, they’re just playing in the current system. But if we want to save health care, we better get some active trash haulers.

Let’s face it, the only people who can fix our health care problems are the trash makers – the doctors. They have to want to provide appropriate care and not over treat. Insurers have tried coercion and that hasn’t worked. The insurers pay them less for services but the number of services just goes up. We’ll never get control of health care costs by pushing down on the doctors. We need their willing cooperation.

Let’s look for ways to get doctors to voluntarily reduce over treatment. Let’s be realistic and address the problem where it begins.

Occupation:: Disabled

In May of this year I took my mother for a routine mammogram. They found a few masses in both of her breasts. Her doctor contacted me with her results a couple of months ago and wanted to schedule an MRI of her breast due to the findings on the mammogram. I went and picked up the films from the mammogram as requested by my mother’s doctor and scheduled her appointment for the MRI.

My mother is 78 years old and had to have her colon removed due to colon cancer a few years ago and therefore she has to wear a colostomy bag. She also has emphysema and severe scoliosis of the spine.

A couple of weeks ago I took my mother for this MRI. First of all, they didn’t have a clip board for me to fill out the paperwork. I had to stand up over a ledge to fill it out. Then the person who collected the co-payment (who is probably close to 80 years old herself), forgot to give us a receipt. We had to ask her several times for her to give it to us. We waited there for over two hours for find out that their MRI machine was not working so they sent us to their other office. Needless-to-say, we had to wait another hour in that office as well. This test consisted on her lying on her belly for about 45 minutes. This test was very difficult for her to take because she wears a bag on her stomach and because she has severe scoliosis. She got through the test and I took her home. She has been in pain with her spine ever since.

Her doctor called me again to tell me that the MRI showed as benign but she needs to go back for an ultrasound to double check the results. I received a call from the Center on Monday, August 16th to schedule this appointment. I asked the woman on the phone if I needed to bring anything with me and she said “No, we have her MRI reports here and they will be compared to the ultrasound while she is taking the test.”

I took her for her appointment today, Wednesday, August 18th. I was told to get her at this appointment at 12:45. We were there at 12:30. At 1:15 a women walked out and asked me if I had her films. I told her what the scheduler had told me on the phone and then she went back in her office. Later she calls us and tells me that they need the films. I was angry so the scheduler came in to see me. She told me “I never read the report and therefore I don’t know what you need to bring with you.” She then called and requested my mother’s records on a CD. I had to leave my mother there to pick up this CD.

Time was of the essence because when you have a colostomy bag, it fills up whenever you eat or drink anything and therefore, my mother didn’t eat or drink anything in order to get this test done. If she does not drink anything for a long period of time, she dehydrates quickly and will need to be rushed to the hospital before her kidney’s fail. Therefore, I had to break all the traffic laws to get this done as quickly as possible. I had to wait at for 20 minutes because the girl who was burning the CD was having some problems. As soon as she was done I rushed back to the Center to find my mother crying because her bag was leaking. She had to drink a little water when she was waiting for me and therefore the bag filled up quickly. She had gone to the rest room to empty it, but it had already leaked.

They took us in and we waited for about another 20 minutes. Two of their manager’s came out and told us the CD was blank. By this time I had to leave with my mother to get her something to eat and drink and to take her home to calm down and relax. They did offer to go pick up the actual films, but we would have had to wait another hour or so. We couldn’t due to my mother’s condition.

Editors Note: (names edited out per editorial policy)

Occupation:: Freeman

The thing that is broken is the will to be free individuals and oppose the yoke of slavery. An expediency is not righteousness. The system functions as intended and even so really works very well. The lack of freedom in the choices of all involved, limited by laws and legally enshrined crookedness, are exactly the problem. It should be a cash business, that is the answer. No state has any business telling me that I can’t buy health insurance from a company in another state or country. How absurd. Legalize low cost Freedom!

Occupation:: Pre-Medical Student

I’ve been very interested to read all the comments on this website, and I can see where doctors are coming from, and where unsatisfied patients are coming from. I think it’s silly and unrealistic to expect everyone to have health insurance – for many of us, it’s unaffordable or not worth the cost. To insure my family of 6, it was $1000 a month! At a rate like that, it’s better to save the money and just pay any medical bills out of pocket – which we did, when my dad had a bicycle accident at 40 mph and ended up with a $10,000 ER bill (notice: still cheaper than a year of medical insurance for the family). I don’t think that patients should be required to carry medical insurance. However, you should expect to pay your medical bills. I realize that sometimes they seem unreasonable, and you should hold your physician accountable – check what they’re charging you for and why they are charging that. However, as a future doctor, I think I can say that while there are some people in the field for the money, most of us want to practice because we feel the work is important, that the people are important. However, it’s also very high-stress, and involves long hours and years of debt accumulation. To you, it may seem like they charge a lot of money, but your bill isn’t just paying the fifteen minutes you spent with the doctor – it’s paying the cost of the facilities you saw them in, the cost of their liability insurance, the cost of their secretary’s salary, and then after that, the cost of the 11+ years they spent in school and training, incurring debts, and the high demands of the workload they now shoulder, which includes constant worry over paperwork and covering themselves in case you get angry and decide to sue them.

It’s sad but unsurprising that the doctor-patient misunderstandings basically come down to money issues. If there were a less expensive way for doctors to practice, maybe the exchange could be less stressful for everyone.

Occupation:: Medical Office

There is no website that really mentions the real cause of the healthcare nightmare. In January 2010, 1 farmworker clinic received 10 Million dollars to build a Taj Mahal for illegals! Unbelievable. At first it was to be built in 2009, but since so much controversy was happening, they held off until now. At the site of this new building Farmworker personnel told the contractors not to worry if a issue was not “spelled out” in bid specs, because the Federal Gov’t will pay for it. The funding it shall receive in 2010 is 11 million. Remember this is one clinic. Also, reimbursement for Farmworker clinics vs. Private practice is Farmworkers receives at least 3x the amount from taxpayers.. Now the new reform, per Obama, plans to increase the poor underserved clinics by 7x the current funding. How is an illegal person more important than our American elderly? I am utterly confused. Also, Interpreters are paid 100.00+ dollars per hour. Usually they are there 15 min. and receive the full 100.00. For no show patients they receive 80.00, and the Physician will be fined 5,000.00 dollars if they try to collect any money for this!! All physicians should be reimbursed the same. All federal funding should be divided fairly, not because you are a Federally Qualified Clinic. Americans, research facts, pull the scales off your eyes. Socialism and Communism are already here, almost 100% government.

I wonder if a grocery selling selling oranges in its home state can be charged with selling oranges under the commerce clause because it impacts the selling of oranges in all the other states. And this is precisely how stupid the constitutional commerce clause is.

Since buying health care insurance across state lines is prohibited there can be no interstate commerce involved. Not buying insurance is not commerce of any kind. But if one were to buy insurance in one’s state that is intrastate commerce. Congress cannot mandate that intrastate commerce is interstate commerce as if buying a policy affects the commerce of all the other states and this is precisely what they do under the commerce clause. This is what we call an absurdity.

The commerce clause was to regulate commerce among the states meaning that there would be no irregularities and that commerce would be legal and legitimate. So the legal and legitimate was to be first determined by the states engaging in interstate commerce. The states have a free hand in regulating their own commerce. Commerce is both natural and necessary. The states do their own regulating both between and among themselves. Congress was not to make a endless series of laws telling states how to conduct their own trade or even what was to be traded.

The 10th Amendment prohibits Congress from interfering with interstate commerce.

Over the decades the courts have given Congress unlimited say,sway, and control over interstate commerce to which it is not entitled. Congress was just to oversee that nothing was improper or irregular in interstate commerce and it doesn’t even have to be necessary.This centralized power was given to Congress because no single state could do this and in giving it to Congress serious conflicts would not arise between the states due to petty envy and jealousies.

Congress regulates AMONG the states and not BETWEEN them.In other words it was to see that interstate trade was fair and just. The commerce clause is toothless and there is very little cause for Congress to be interfering or managing interstate trade between and among the states.

Invoking the commerce clause as a means for the states to participate in health care is fraudulent.

Thoughts on Illegal Immigration

A large part of the cost of the health care problem is illegal immigration. There are 12-20 million illegal immigrants in this country.
1 There are already proper immigration laws on the books.All they need to do is enforce them.Immigration reform is a joke because it is unnecessary.The border patrol for years has been prevented from enforcing the laws.
2 If the federal government will not defend our borders and do its constitutional duty expressed in law and the Constitution then the federal government itself is breaking the laws framed from the Constitutional powers under Sec1 Art8. These are criminal acts.We no longer have a rule of law but a rule of men.
3 A sovereign state has the right and obligation to its citizens to defend its borders from invasion of any kind and doesn’t need permission to do what is right, and necessary, and this is obviously self evident..NECESSITY IS NOT SUBJECT TO ANY LAW! Arizona is doing what is NECESSARY!
4 The President has sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution and under Art2 Sec3 he is charged with making sure the laws of the land are enforced. By not enforcing the immigration laws he perjures himself,breaks the law,and is subject to criminal prosecution.and criminal charges.
5 Under the 9th and 10 Amendments Arizona and every other state bordering on Mexico has the right to defend its borders.If the state of Maine broke out in smallpox neither Canada nor Massachusetts would allow immigration or emigration and rightly so. Mexican immigration has become a harmful and costly disease to this country.Every state has the right to defend its borders when its safety and security are threatened.

Health Care is the country’s largest economic sector, accounting for over $2 trillion in annual expenditures—four times larger than national defense! Why aren’t Republicans crafting bills that will address problems in the current health care system? I believe the American people would support bills that:

Address private insurance coverage
Address insurance portability
Address pre-existing conditions
Provide for the digitizing of medical records
The sharing of medical records between physicians (with patient consent)
Crack down on Medicare fraud
Crack down on welfare fraud

Let’s start making some common sense decisions about health care without rewriting the entire universe of health care. This list can be a starting point, but there is plenty of opportunity for bills addressing other problems in the system. We need a targeted approach to health care problem solutions.