Michael Moore gets great PR. No movie is released yet and he already gets busted for smuggling people into Cuba to get treated by Fidel Castro's health care system. From what I hear of Fidelcare, that was probably not the soundest medical decision ever made. The picture of Mike slipping on a latex glove on his website also makes me feels like getting fitted for a chastity belt and relying on herbal remedies for all that ails me....
That said, want to raise a glass to toast the passion of mehamo's diary today. There's some issues to discuss, though....
First, so everyone knows, unlike mehamo, I am an attending physician at a very large specialty center, and am therefore am older and have had a longer dysfunctional relationship with a system that beats my soul up on a daily basis but does, indeed, pay my mortgage. Understand that just a very small tip of the health care iceburg we've run into is being addressed by mehamo, and even Michael Moore. Healthcare in America can be seen as a kind of late night culinary Mexican standoff between a bunch of money-strapped teens at a Denny's, each trying to stick each other with the dinner tab. The potential dine and dashers are as follows:
- Hospitals/Outpatient clinics
- Doctors (not the same as hospitals/outpatient clinics, although doctors are now ferverish buying their own hospitals)
- Nurses and other allied providers
- Third party payers/health plans
- Drug companies/medical equipment companies
- Government agencies (municipal, state, and federal)
- Sick customers
Obviously, I've left some people off this short list. And there are many more problems lurking under the table, some of which are being passed off by the government to private sources, such as funding of medical research. And from employers from employees (including ridiculous tax credit provisions put in place by the recent MMA legislation). And from private insurers back to the government (Medicare Advantage anybody?). And what about veterans' benefits--isn't this health care related? In his/her diary, mehamo is pissed at #4, and to a lesser extent, #6. I can take issue with some of the specifics, but the insurers are no more at fault than the other good-for-nothing teens at the table. The entire system is broken. And greed is not the primary reason for it. If only it were that simple.
Mehamo--please do not get "sick of this culture". We need doctors like you in the biggest of ways. Remember that there is nothing on the face of this ball of rock and water that is as inexcapably human as medicine. Humanity is messy--this probably is the underlying reason we're in this mess. And there are answers to get us out of this--a hint, it is undoubtedly going to be single payer system(you are welcome, dr.steveb).
That said, I want to say that I cannot tell you how proud I am of mehamo for being pissed....I know how hard you work, dude. Its amazing you have the energy to write this at all. Remember what Howard Dean used to do for a living....