Politics of Health

I believe in Democracy, and I believe in Capitalism.

I think that technology will someday make Democracy a reality. Although you'll often hear our system referred to as a great "Democracy," we are indeed a Republic. A Democracy is one vote for every man or woman. A Republic is a representational style of government, where representatives are voted for to respresent your interests.

There's little I would recommend more than getting rid of all of our representatives. The best way is to implement a true Democracy. In Pennsylvania alone, since January, our legislature has passed four bills, two of them were to name bridges, the other two were just as innocuous.

Why am I talking politics?

Well as a cancer fighter I've learned that a majority of my time is spent wrestling with insurance companies, mired in greed and politics. And it stinks. I absolutely, positively, have gone without needed care, and have had care severely delayed because of the greed and politics of the insurance industry.

I don't need to just pick on my company. From my understanding, from talking to other patients, from talking to doctors and nurses and medical staff - this is all normal, no matter what the insurance company, no matter what the patients' condition.

It's an awful shame. It makes us a society that lacks compassion and ultimately greatness. As long as we choose profits over care for one another we are not a great society, or a world leader or an example setter.

Most of Europe has already socialized health care systems to ensure that everyone receives treatment needed at affordable costs. We could learn something from others. It seems like a tough pill for Americans to swallow - the concept that we actually could stand to learn something from some other country. But we'd be smarter to realize that we can learn and implement things from everyone around the world. Afterall, isn't that diversity of intellect what made this country so wonderful to begin with?

I do believe in Capitalism. Competing is part of human nature. And building that natural competition into the scheme of the social structure is necessary. Communism of course was doomed to fail because it went against the very instincts of human nature. And it followed with corruption, competition, and ultimately different social classes within a false promise of a society without classes.

But Capitalism is not always good. And I think that the concept of health insurance is no better example of the failure of a capitalistic structure.

Sick people need care. Health insurance companies need to make profits. The best way for health insurers to make profits is to limit or deny sick people care. Just the very nature of that structure is just bad, bad, bad.

And boy have I experienced it. I've had an important PET scan delayed for over a month. I've had chemotherapy costs completely denied, which delayed my start of chemo treatments until alternative financing could be arranged. As I write this I'm having important medications to control naseau denied. There are no good reasons. Well except for the reason my one doctor quoted yesterday, "They're just trying to put you off because they don't want to pay for anything."

And put me off they have. It was four hours on the phone yesterday. A couple of times I got transferred to the moon. Yes, the moon, but don't worry, no one answered and the line dropped. I've been trasferred from department to department, hung-up on, run around, told everything and anything.

Our healthcare system is not working. We can learn lessons from Europe. I do believe that common products in society that everyone needs (like healthcare) can be socialized. But do we give controls to our government to run these provisions for the populace? Yeah, that thought does scare me too.

Well excuse me on my pulpit. But I do feel that there are some important thoughts to share.

And now I better get back on the line with my insurance company. I haven't eaten in three days because of the naseau. And I'm hoping that maybe four more hours beating myself up on the phone with my insurance company may lead to the pills I need to control the naseau, and possibly even eat lunch today.