Obamacare

The title of this post is misleading. I am appalled that the United States has such a messed up medical care distribution system. The rest of the world has already come around to treating healthcare as a human right that is best served up on an equal footing to everybody without regard to ability to pay or any other criteria. But here in the U.S. care is only doled out based on your ability to pay or by your insurance provider's rules. If you have neither you are stuck. Sure the claim is that no one is turned away that needs medical care in an emergency but the reality is totally different than that standard.

I have been having medical problems for the last twenty years. At first when I was earning good money and had good insurance through an HMO my healthcare was great. But then I got worse and became totally disabled. I could no longer work so I no longer had income to pay the premiums on my HMO. I was converted to Medi-care/Medi-cal coverage. At first that went fine because they paid for my same HMO coverage that I had been buying myself all along. But then one day the HMO was allowed to dump me because I was costing them too much. Suddenly I had to resort to county provided healthcare. Sure the theory is that you can choose your own provider and pay through medi-care but the fact is there are no longer any doctors or facilities that accept the low payments paid by Medi-care so your only choice is the county hospital. So that is where I ended up.

My first appointment took over a year to get. They screened me at that appointment and told me to make a followup appointment. That was another ten months later. I was able to go to a small community clinic to keep my prescriptions filled for all my pain control meds but my health problems were beyond the capabilities of the physicians assistants and the overworked general practitioner at the small clinic. I needed specialists and surgeons not a shot for measles.

After a few years of almost no medical care at all I was finally referred to the specialists I needed. They each checked me out and passed me on to another specialist with each new doctor or clinic or hospital having their own lengthy wait for new patients to get in. I ended up most recently at Stanford Hospital for diagnostics and treatment. For the last two years I have been wading through their system getting lots of tests and being seen by various specialists. I never made it to the end of their system because my health coverage changed yet again.

When Obama announced his recently passed ObamaCare he gave a great speech in which he said that now all Americans would get healthcare equal to the quality of care he himself or the senators that passed the bill were getting. Well that is not true in any sense.

I have now been assigned to a County of Alameda HMO called Alliance for Health. As soon as I was assigned to the HMO Stanford Hospital told me I was no longer able to be seen there to finish my assessment and treatment at their Stanford Cancer Clinic. I have spent about 40 hours on the phone trying to contact the new HMO I was assigned to but have only spoken to a human twice and each time I was told that they would have to call me back. They have never returned my calls despite my verification of the correct phone number etc. I have given up now. I refuse to spend another minute of my life grovelling for healthcare. I would rather just let cancers and anything else just kill me. If this is the kind of healthcare the president and senate enjoy I would be shocked.

I do not blame Obama for this situation. I put the blame on the American Medical Association. They have manipulated the state of medical care in this country for decades by limiting the number of doctors available and price fixing medical care. Medical care in this country is about six times more expensive than the rest of the developed world. Americans have been brainwashed into thinking that the U.S. has the number one medical care in the world when by any impartial study it is more like 37th or 38th from the top. The AMA is the entity behind the brainwashing. They have done a very good job. But they do not do a very good job of providing medical care to those that need it...only to those who can shell out the high fees they extort. Anybody like me that complains is made out to be a fool or worse some kind of communist or socialist or something. But the truth is that medical care in this country is not based on a free and open market. The entire market is manipulated. From the number of doctors allowed to the fees charged it is all planned to drive the price as high as it is able to go. Well I give up in defeat. I am too weak to do anything about this situation. When my current meds run out I will just die and the system will go on. It is as simple as that--just modern genocide of the poor and medically indigent. It is the American way.