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.