Health Care 2009

I'm not a doctor, and I'm not a member of congress. And I would love for the US to be able to cover all Americans. I just hope a national health insurance program would not work like the US Post Office or the current HMO systems we have in California which feel like national health care but definitely aren't free. Here in California, I often have to wait months to see my doctor or get a mammogram. Here, even though I have a PPO, my doctors are in an HMO. Many doctors here in California are in HMOs to deal with malpractice insurance. And many doctors have 2500 patients. That's right. They deal with a huge amount of patients -- quickly.

It can take weeks to get shots. Sometimes I deal with nurses, the first line of defense, who insist I go to a general practitioner for my immune disorder -- though my GP looks at me with a complete lack of comprehension regarding my disorder. This is how the HMO deals with me even though I'm on a private insurance plan and have been seeing a specialist in my HMO for over ten years. So if this is the future for us all, fasten your seat belts because it's going to be a bumpy ride.

Yet, the French have national health insurance and been very successful with it. They have a progressive program which has given them top status in health care and the best population longevity in the world.

I just hope things improve here, because I miss the old days when you entered a hospital and your doctor came in to do "rounds" and visit you.

Now, if I call my HMO doctors to say I'm ill, they tell me to visit an emergency room. They don't say, "Come in right away."

Even with private insurance, I face hideous staph infections in a hospital and health care workers who refuse to wash their hands, a simple solution to infections.