Wednesday, September 30, 2009

It Just Won't Work

How do I know that government run health care would fail and cost American taxpayers millions, billions, or even trillions of dollars? I WORK IN GOVERNMENT RUN HEALTH CARE!!

I am in the Navy and I am a hospital corpsmen. I work in a clinic that sees both military members and civilians alike. Navy Medicine is a government run health care system and I can tell you first hand that it sucks!

While at work today I took a glance at our schedule of patients and the reasons for their visits. Out of the 59 patients that walked through our doors today 6 may have actually needed to be here. Ok, let me be fair, 10 of those 59 were here for physical exams so lets not count them. That leaves 49 patients...8 out of 49 people had legitimate reasons to be seen by a doctor.

I will give you a break down of some of the reasons for visits today:
- 5 people had a headache
- 7 patients complained of basic cold symptoms (sneezing, cough, runny nose or congestion-- NO FEVER)
- We even had one person come in with a...wait for it....drum roll please.... A MOSQUITO BITE!

This, America, is your tax dollars hard a work. Instead of running to the store and grabbing a bottle of Motrin or some Dayquil and self medicating themselves they run off to their "free" clinic to get a prescription for things like TYLENOL.

If the government was to offer this kind of health care to the general population, America's debt would very likely double in the first year. People would come out of the woodwork for "free" health care. If someone has allergies and doesn't want to pay for the $12.00 for a bottle of Claritin, all they have to do is go to the "free" doctor and get their "free" medications.

And don't even get me started on the quality of care. Most (not all) of the doctors I work with get so sick of seeing patients for bogus aliments that they just stopped caring. And why should they care? In the current health care system doctors have to work to build a relationship with their patients and be sure that they deliver a high level of quality care to ensure that their patients want to come back again if they need. In a government run system, you as a patient would be assigned to a doctor, you don't get to choose. If you don't like that doctor you may be able to request a new one but not before you fill out mounds of paper work stating a valid reason for your dislike. If the doctor knows that they are going to have a steady flow of patients
no matter what then why should they have to give the slightest damn about weather or not their patients leave satisfied with the level of care they received?

Government run health care is a bad idea. It will cost American tax payers unforeseen amounts and the money would go toward quantity of patients, not the quality of care given. I see a government system of health care every day, I have seen first hand the patients who abuse the
right of "free" health care (see examples above) and I have seen others who are down right fraudulent (faking pain to get "free" narcotic pain killers).

Please don't let the American health care system come to this. Contact your representative and urge them to vote against a public option or any other form of government run system. Let your voice be heard!

5 comments:

  1. Government run anything is mostly a bad idea. But the US still has a navy,army and airforce-right, Police Forces ,are they Government run?

    I'm a UK person and ,as with you have a fair number of horror stories about the British Health Service. However I tell you in honesty,99.9% of us want to keep it.

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  2. Found your site on the followers message board & liked what I've read so far so following ya!

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  3. Your argument seems more grounded in hypothesis and right wing talking points than in actual facts or observations of other universal healthcare systems. Perscription drug coverage, doctors incentives and the like all have examples of how they can be conducted with a decent amount of efficiency.

    On problem you will never fix are the idiots that will show up for all the small things, or the drug users trying to score a free hit. It doesn't matter what kind of system you run, they will still be there because (A) they don't have the least bit of understanding about illness or (B) They are junkies that are desperate for their pills.

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  4. I'm very much in sync with your thoughts on Govt. run health care, AllAmerican. What Andrew from the UK is not taking into account are two facts (1) We Americans are not Europeans and do not like being herded like cattle, nor do we easily accept being how to run our private lives. (2) Physically we are a huge country and it's just a fact that those of us who live in rural (nearest town is 100 mi.) are going to get the short end of the stick.

    And the "worried well" will become more and more of a problem when they don't have to pay. It's just the nature of the human animal to take better care of what they have a vested interest in.

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  5. Sorry, it's dedsure that is from the UK, not Andrew. My opinion remains the same.

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