Ideally it should be both. But it hasn't been up until now in the U.S. During the Olympics Great Britain Championed it's cradle to grave absolutely free health care. It seems theirs might be the single most efficient health care system on earth. No system is perfect but theirs seems to work better than most.
In the U.S. up until recently, good health care has always been of the rich, by the rich and for the rich. And if you are not rich you may die trying to get health care.
Here I am separating "Emergency Care" from Health care. Let me give you an example: In 1992 I had a panic attack. I had never had one before but it mimicked a fatal heart attack or stroke in some ways. So, when I woke up I couldn't walk, I couldn't talk, and so I had to crawl into the bathroom, turn on the water to the tub, put water in to calm myself and wait to die. This was also the night when it dawned on me my marriage was over because even though I could not walk or talk my wife did not call an ambulance for me. She called my stepson (her son) who was a fireman and an EMT. So, while I dutifully waited to die in the tub trying to calm myself enough for a good death she was talking to her son on the phone. Eventually I was able to talk again and to begin to walk again and I got up out of the tub and got her to drive me to the nearest hospital. Though I had had free insurance a few years earlier when I worked for the state I didn't right then because we owned our own businesses and had decided we were in good enough health to not need health insurance. Besides right then it was too expensive for us to be paying for monthly. So, when I got to the hospital they checked me and told me I should go to a heart specialist but right then they thought what I had experienced was a panic attack. They couldn't know more without a battery of tests which I couldn't get without health insurance or the money to pay for the tests up front. So, for the next few days after that I tried to get ANY heart specialist to see me. None would without health insurance. I was discouraged because I had had a good education and realized something was wrong with me beyond a panic attack long term.
This experience was in 1992 in the fall. In the fall of 1998 I had a similar experience but this time it wasn't a panic attack it was real and I also expected to die this time. But, luckily I had health insurance this time because I had divorced and remarried and had moved on with my life in a good way. So, I called my son to take me to the hospital. Without insurance it is very likely this time I would have died by Christmas 1998. But because I had insurance I was able to see a heart specialist who though he couldn't figure out what was wrong with me he was able to prescribe a beta blocker which I couldn't deal with at all because it shut off all my intuition and since I am an intuitive my thought was: "Shoot me!" So, he was angry I hadn't come to him sooner telling him I couldn't deal with this medicine and put me on Ace inhibitors which thin the blood so a heart can pump the blood easier and since my heart wasn't pumping well because he found out 7 months later by the process of elimination that I had had a heart virus that most people usually died from back then because usually they found out what was wrong posthumously in regard to heart virus.
So, here is my example, because I had health insurance the 2nd time I lived. If I hadn't had it I likely would have died. In England I would have lived as a middle class or poor man. In the U.S. as a middle class or poor man without insurance I would have died. Think about it!
No comments:
Post a Comment