My Big Fat Orange Cat

I really don’t understand the argument that healthcare is a responsibility.   Saying we don’t have an inalienable right to healthcare is like saying we don’t all have the right to be alive.  Literally.

I find it frustrating that these are the same people who fight against higher taxes and government spending. Don’t they realize that when poor people get sick enough they will eventually find a hospital that is state run and required to help them and we, as tax payers foot that bill?  And that we could have saved ourselves a huge amount if we had offered general healthcare because we would have paid to have the problem treated BEFORE it became life threatening which was a lot cheaper?

Everyone is worried that people want handouts People do not want handouts. I will treat anyone for whatever they can afford. It has to be something, but I’ll slide down t $10. As a beginning practitioner I offered.  No matter how good people were feeling they wouldn’t take me up on that offer. I had a woman who was the most incredibly injured person I had ever seen but because of a loop hole in the insurance she wasn’t covered by her car insurance and because it was a car accident and should have been covered by her car insurance her personal health insurance refused to cover it. Her attorney told her she didn’t have a case.  I treated her for $25 a treatment. I would have gone lower but she said she could afford that.  Instead of treating to get her better, we worked on maintenance because she could only afford to come in once or twice a month–sometimes three times. She really needed to be seen several times a week.   But she was proud and didn’t want a hand out.

I’ve seen the difference in people in my practice before and after treatments and when they can’t pay because their insurance decides they aren’t really covered, I’ve offered low cost or no cost treatments but they don’t want charity.  I’ve offered trades but they feel they have nothing to trade.

People aren’t looking for a handout.

As a provider I also see the other side.  The insurance company who covered a patient seeing me for years and then said–oops you aren’t a provider and stopped paying me and tried to get me to pay it all back.  We went to the insurance commissioner.

My friend who has health care but a long illness means the company tries to deny claims for all sorts of reasons–even requiring that she go to a second doctor to confirm a long standing diagnosis to avoid paying.

I have another friend with a pre existing condition who can only live in one area because that’s where her current insurance covers her and she can’t get insured with another company with the condition she has.

Finally I have a friend that I haven’t heard from in a month.  She’s 41.  Her husband 63.  He had a stroke.  The insurance won’t pay for full time care because he can walk (but not much else). She works full time.  She can’t take care of him and work.   Assisted living homes won’t take him and she can’t afford the ones who can.   She was told to divorce him and leave him on the street and someone would have to take him in.   To save a life I have to treat my life partner this way?

These people work.  They pay for healthcare.  They all deserve better than what they are getting.   Health care is absolutely a right and I will not sit down and shut up when anyone says anything otherwise.