Health Care

You can find any num­ber of per­son­al anec­dotes about the health care in Amer­i­ca just about any­where in Amer­i­ca you go. I’m late to the game, but I’ve got a sto­ry too. It’s not an out­ra­geous out­lier, or an edge case about just how messed up the health care sys­tem is. There’s too much push­ing toward extrem­ism in what is cur­rent­ly being spun as the health care “debate”. That’s why I decid­ed to write this.

My Story

I have fan­tas­tic health care. I’ve been using the pub­lic, Coun­ty-run Metro­Health sys­tem since I moved to Cleve­land in 2003. In all of that time, I’ve had noth­ing but excel­lent, com­pas­sion­ate and pro­fes­sion­al care from the staff at this pub­licly run and tax-pay­er fund­ed hos­pi­tal and health­care sys­tem. At my old job, I had Kaiser Per­ma­nente as my HMO, and while the care I received from Metro­Health was noth­ing less than amaz­ing, try­ing to get access to that care was an exer­cise in bureac­ro­bat­ics [to port­man­teau a neol­o­gism]. It’s the same sto­ry you’ve heard a thou­sand times, long waits, high co-pays, unfriend­ly staff and poor access.

Now that I work for the Coun­ty, my health care needs have nev­er been ful­filled in a swifter or more pain­less man­ner. My health care pro­gram is admin­is­tered by Metro­Health, and designed specif­i­cal­ly for Coun­ty employ­ees. I have a ded­i­cat­ed num­ber I can call for ques­tions and appoint­ments, I’m guar­an­teed an appoint­ment with­in 3 days, I’ve even seen spe­cial­ists mere hours after hav­ing my GP decide I need to see one. I even get to use the Metro­Health pre­scrip­tion counter instead of hav­ing to dri­ve a half hour to a Kaiser Per­ma­nente approved phar­ma­cy.

If this sounds like a mir­a­cle, you should keep in mind that this is what health care can be like when it is gov­ern­ment-dri­ven and tax-pay­er fund­ed. There is no prof­it motive. The sys­tem is focused on doing the best job it can, pro­vid­ing qual­i­ty health care to its cit­i­zens.

Debbie’s Story

For awhile, as described in the Tough Times post I put up in March, Deb­bie had no health care.  Not due to any fault of her own, but because her employ­er’s mal­com­pe­tence result­ed in an entire school of teach­ers get­ting laid off. The only afford­able pol­i­cy she could get her­self basi­cal­ly cov­ered noth­ing, and buy­ing into COBRA is a joke for peo­ple who don’t make much in the first place. She end­ed up going to Metro­Health and get­ting rat­ed. Since she made so lit­tle, she only had to pay $5 for her care. And she had her health cared for, through a tax-pay­er fund­ed gov­ern­ment-run health care sys­tem. Her new insur­ance does­n’t cov­er cer­tain med­ical prac­tices and pro­ce­dures due to the reli­gious beliefs of her employ­er. I make no crit­i­cism of this, since her employ­er is pay­ing for her health insur­ance. How­ev­er, a pub­lic option would at least give her a choice.

A choice to use a tax-pay­er fund­ed, gov­ern­ment-run health care sys­tem, like the amaz­ing one in Cleve­land.

The Cleve­land Clin­ic and Uni­ver­si­ty Hos­pi­tals get a lot of deserved press for the work and research they do into cut­ting edge med­ical pro­ce­dures. Metro­Health deserves just as much praise for the work they do car­ing for and heal­ing the cit­i­zens of Cuya­hoga Coun­ty.

Addressing the Crazy

Death Pan­els. Seri­ous­ly? I have a liv­ing will, and I am com­fort­ed by the fact that it requires more than one doc­tor to agree that my chance of recov­ery is hope­less before they pull the plug. A pub­lic option will not result in this:

I think the best way to deal with the peo­ple who are vir­u­lent­ly opposed to a pub­lic option (quite a few of which are mem­bers of my fam­i­ly), and who are turn­ing the pub­lic option idea into a dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly ogr­ish fac­sim­i­le of the actu­al law is to:

• Ask them what their solu­tion is. If they have one, get as much detail from them as pos­si­ble. Lis­ten to their solu­tion and ques­tion the areas you find lack­ing, be they moral, eth­i­cal, eco­nom­ic, polit­i­cal, or pro­ce­dur­al. You might not con­vince them, but you might con­vince some­one who is lis­ten­ing, and you’ll be bet­ter able con­vince oth­er peo­ple who might not know their ass from a hole in the ground (they could prob­a­bly see a doc­tor for that con­di­tion if they had a pub­lic option).
• Go to Real­i­ty Check, watch the videos, read the FAQs. When you come across ridicu­lous email for­wards, crazy online rants, etc. reply with actu­al facts (don’t just link to the site). Noth­ing hurts The Stu­pid™ like the 2x4 of Edu­ca­tion™.
• Write any and every Con­gress-crit­ter, but your own first. Send them your health care life sto­ry and ask them to sup­port the pub­lic option.
• Use the patent­ed Give The Stu­pid™ Enough Rope To Hang Itself By Its Own Petard While Rea­soned And Calm Adults Edu­cate And Debate Amongst Them­selves™ method to give The Stu­pid™ enough rope to hang itself by its own petard while rea­soned and calm adults (like the rest of us) edu­cate and debate amongst them­selves.

If you made it this far, thanks for read­ing.