Sick and Tired

I haven't posted in awhile. I've been very sick for about 3 months now. After a couple of doctors and numerous appointments I now know I have a really bad stomach infection. I'm finally getting the medicines I need and I'm on my way to a full and complete recovery.

However, this whole experience has taught me quite a bit about the American health care experience. Three months ago I would not have believed that an insured somebody in America could walk around for months undiagnosed and untreated. I thought that happened in Africa. But when it takes 3 weeks for the specialist to fit you in, and 4 weeks for the anesthesiologist to fit you in, well you can just savor your chronic nausea and gripping abdominal cramps for a while.

Some other observations:

• Each doctor spent an average of 3 minutes talking to/interrupting me.
• Over the course of figuring out what I really had, I was told I might have three other diseases. Theses other diseases were told to me in purely clinical terms, so that I could go home and look them up on WebMD/Wikipedia for myself. I was never told why I might have gotten these diseases, how I might gain some temporary relief from symptoms, or what a lifetime of having "X" disease was going to entail. Instead, around the 2:45 minute mark, each doctor would announce "It sounds like you have "X" disease", write out a prescription, and then promptly scurry out of the room.
• Each visit charged insurance about $200.
• When you are sick, your insurance provider will become worse than any bill collector/stalker ex-girlfriend you have ever had. Our insurance provider started a massive phone and mail campaign to me and my husband, demanding to know why this full time college student didn't have any other insurance provider to bill. At one point, they denied all the charges for one of my appointments. When my husband called to question this, our insurance provider told him that I "had called and cancelled my coverage." I am not making this up. They resorted to outright lying to try to avoid paying benefits.

What kills me is that my husband works for the largest hospital in our city. We are not uninsured. We pay for the best health insurance package his employer offers. And what does the best get you: indifferent, cold doctors / harassing, parasitic insurance companies. And for all this, I still can't imagine the horror of going through something like this with NO INSURANCE. We would be bankrupt by now.

I'm no Michael Moore lover, and I don't think he knows what's best for this country. But he does have a point: health care is a joke in this country. And the last laugh is, as usual, on you the consumer.

I know what single issue I'm voting on in two weeks.