Healthcare

We all know that the healthcare system sucks. It is hard to get an appointment; you can only go if they carry your insurance, and there is always a battle with the insurance company about being covered before any procedure. You and your doctor do not get to decide what your health needs are, but some random human reading text from a computer tells you that we have decided not to pay for that.

Our system is built to be defensive, not offensive. I have to have a breast MRI every single year after having breast cancer (luckily detect very very early). After a few years, my doctor had to battle the insurance company to cover the MRI. Why wouldn’t they want to cover something to ensure it does not return? If it does return, the cost is higher than paying for a yearly MRI, but more than likely, their data states otherwise. It is all based on stats, and of course keeping the stock price up.

There is something fundamentally wrong with a healthcare insurance company, whose job is to pay for people who need medical procedures or medication. Still, that payment is considered a loss on the profit and loss statement. Anyone who runs a company knows you want fewer losses on your profit and loss statement, so turning people down for care keeps the losses down.

I recently saw a poll showing that most Americans think their healthcare is okay. All numbers are fungible, so I’d like to know if people’s expectations of their healthcare are low. Have we all been beaten into submission? Is that we have all been convinced it is what it is. Concierge doctors have grown from the abysmal system that applies to how doctors make money and patients are taken care of. This is only a price available to some.

After the murder of the United Healthcare CEO, the door has opened, and people are speaking up. Why did this have to happen for the public to finally get people talking about this in open forums or for journalists who will finally do a deep dive into the reality of these companies’ practices? We are all at the mercy of publicly traded companies to care for our health; (and media/journalism caring more about grabbing daily eyeballs) there is something fundamentally wrong with that.