Is Health Care Reform The Lesser of Two Poor Choices?
I don’t think anyone knows if government-run or private-run health care is the answer. Both seem to be the lesser of two poor choices for a variety of reasons. Central among the reasons is the lack of focus on patient outcomes (quality of care) and the need to replace the practice of specialists handing off chronically ill patients to other specialists with a team based approach for diagnosis and treatment.
My perspective is colored by my experiences with many doctors working within a privately run, for-profit medical care system — even before there was managed care.
I became disabled under the privately run, for-profit managed care system because the many many doctors I saw in the last decade did not read or analyze my test results. Each assumed either the primary care doctor or another specialist was quarterbacking my care.
I was passed around, referred for repeat tests, and no one was managing or seeing to it that I actually got medical care. When I complained in writing, the doctors and insurance company ignored and dismissed my complaints. I was unable to get anyone to listen to me.
So I gathered my medical records, studied everything medical and self-diagnosed. What I found was that I have what are typically illnesses diagnosed in childhood: actinomycosis and Hirschsprung’s disease. I’ve been sick that long but my immune system was strong enough to get me by..until I turned 50.
My symptoms of not being able to have a bowel movement without laxatives or an enema throughout my lifetime from when I was a baby was caused by Hirschsprung’s disease (a lack of the nerves needed for adequate gastrointestinal motility). I now have a partial obstruction in the ileocecal area (possible appendicitis), sigmoid colon stricture and abnormal colonic mucosa midsigmoid that showed up on two CT-scans and the SBFT series of x-rays. Doctors didn’t know what to make of the abnormalties because they weren’t surgeons, so to save face or out of pride, they ignored findings rather than refer me to a surgeon who can read and understand what was on the radiographs.
The two CT-scans found that my entire colon was stool-filled. All this waste was being recirculated throughout my system, causing bacterial, viral and fungal infection, wreaking havoc with my immune system, causing adrenal overload, hormone imbalance, cardiovascular problems…on and on. I have multiple lab tests positive for everything from H.pylori, clostridia, staph, candida albicans, Epstein Barr virus, HHV6 infection…. All this waste in my circulation caused peripheral vascular disease and arteriosclerosis making it difficult for me to breath, absorb nutrients and get oxygen to the tissues so I can function properly.
Don’t you think one of the dozens of doctors I saw over the years might have taken note enough to diagnose and treat me? None did.
Doctors groaned when I brought them the inch-thick stack of current test results in the hopes that each would not insist on re-ordering his own tests as so many of them did. They told me that they did not have time to read my test result reports. I was too complicated a case for their specialty so they had to refer me on to another doctor, but never to the gastrointestinal surgeon I needed to see who could address the route cause of my illness.
Doctors who could not answer my questions about what the clearly visible ileocecal mass was that the radiologist pointed out in the CT scan report, simply wrote that they saw no gastrointestinal problems rather than risk losing face due to incompetence or lack of knowledge. No one wanted to deal with me, so they didn’t.
So when my money ran out, and the insurance ran out, I applied for Social Security disability using these same reports that my many doctors ignored. With these same test results and independent evaluation, Social Security employed physicians found in record time that I was severely impaired in so many ways. The most blatant result of not being treated for the infections running rampant through my body was the severe degeneration of my spine. I had no problem being awarded Social Security Disability and not one private doctor nor any attorney helped me.
In fact, I have contacted a dozen medical malpractice attorneys but none will take my case because I cannot pay them. Despite advertising to the contrary, all the attorneys I contacted really only want simple accident cases — not cases involving so many doctors, labs, hospitals, insurance companies, etc.
Law is really only a big poker game. Each side keeps upping the ante (cost) with pretrial motions that have nothing to do with me or justice, but with court procedure and rule making. It’s a big, costly game. No attorneys are handling cases like mine pro bono (too costly) or on contingency even when I offered to up their fee to half the award rather than the standard third. For them to take the case, I needed to put up an initial deposit of $20,000, which I don’t have.
I have since learned that attorneys’ reluctance to take on such cases as mine has to do with how convoluted health care law remains. There is no consensus about standard of care, whether the case should be tried in federal or state court, or even who the responsible party is when a patient is harmed due to negligence.
Based upon my readings, I’m surprised any medical entity is ever found guilty of medical malpractice.
I know what is wrong with me, and I know what it will take to get me well as long as disease hasn’t metastasized to cancer. Simple laparoscopic surgery, some penicillin, and other antibiotics, IVs to flush my system of pathogens, and nutrients to rebuild. The rest is up to God.
Recent studies found that spine and brain degeneration injuries previously thought to be permanent have now been found to be curable. The body does heal itself with a little help.
I’ve been doing what I can with vitamins and herbs, cleansers, etc. to try to dissolve whatever is in that ileocecal mass (redundant cecum) since I can’t do surgery on myself. From what I can gather, it appears to be an infected appendix that has grown trying to deal with all the toxins and waste in my system. (I am very nauseous and light headed almost all the time from die-off.)
To me, it is unbelievable that no medical professional will help me or even review my patient records to verify what I am saying. I watch doctors quickly flip through the test results, even new results from tests they themselves recently ordered, and ignore such findings as coccobaccili and heavy growth of e coli indicating enterocolitis… The pages turn so quickly it’s impossible for even the best of speed readers to grasp what is written on the pages.
I’m without funds or medical insurance now. Social Security makes all but select Disability beneficiaries wait 24 months before qualifying for Medicare. I qualify for Medicare this August, just about the time I’ll be homeless due to foreclosure.
Is this a nightmare or what? When doctors keep referring a patient, the patient gets a rap of being a hypochondriac that no one takes seriously. Most people side with the doctors because they assume someone who went to med school and paid all that money for a degree surely must know more than a silly patient who looks like a child.
I’m taking bets on whether I’ll get the same run around with doctors on Medicare or whether a competent doctor will finally refer me to a competent gastrointestinal surgeon or by then, a competent oncologist.
If I was paranoid (which I am not) I would think this was a conspiracy against me, but I’ve seen too many other people in the same boat. We’re all ignored. Many patients just haven’t made the effort to assemble and scrutinize their patient records and research to figure out what all the test results mean.
There is a cause for most disease that is curable if addressed before it metastasizes into cancer.
What I really want to see is enough good hearted, competent doctors get together, acknowledge the repercussions from the system’s limitations, and come up with ways to change for the better. I’m certain that if a group of doctors presented a plan purporting a better way to provide health care to a venture capitalist, those doctors could raise the money they needed to put their idea into action. This could be a prototype that could be expanded if it succeeds.
Obama isn’t proposing doing away with private health care. He just wants to provide people like me an alternative because he knows that government ends up paying — in disability benefits and Medicare — for private health care’s mistakes anyway. I’m proof of that. Why not try to put something into place that might prevent someone like me from having to become disabled in the first place?
At least the Social Security employed doctors read my reports. It only took them one month to figure out what was wrong with me. I’ve been seeing private doctors for 55 years, and they still haven’t figured it out.
I believe isolating each of the specialists is the main problem. The specialists need to talk to each other to understand what’s going on systemically in a patient’s body. The pathogens that cause infection don’t stay in one area. They travel via the lymph, bloodstream, even tissue to other parts of the body and cause secondary problems.
How are doctors expected to diagnose anyone if each is limited to inspecting only one area or one organ? He’s working with blinders on, running to a finish line based upon the narrow view of the road he sees without the benefit of peripheral vision. No wonder there are so many medical mishaps, most of which go unreported.
I’ve always believed in the saying “Do what you love and the money will follow.” I never got rich, but I loved my work and made a comfortable middle class living. Well, it seems doctors aren’t doing what they love if they have to spend so much time chasing insurance money. To me, medicine has become a business about money — not about helping people heal. No wonder everyone is miserable.
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