The Health of the People

Today, I've chosen to make a commentary on my classmate's blog where she talks about the state of the health care system in our country. As someone who has had a severe disease when I was born, and had to undergo very costly surgeries all through my 11th year of life that left my mother and I quite poor and very desperate to make things work, I understand the plight of those that are scraping the bottom and are just a sickness away from complete destruction. Many American's today are either uninsured or under-insured and not aware of it. I saw this first hand, because even though my m other and I were covered by our great countries Military insurance-some of the best insurance there is-my disease was labeled as something that didn't need fixing, that the tumor in my lip was merely cosmetic and that it was all in my head that it was growing each time I got sick. I should tell everyone right now what disease it was, it's lymphangioma for those of you who don't know me personally outside of the interweb, and not just any lymphangioma, but cavernous, the most aggressive kind. My doctors told me it was a miracle that the tumor hadn't ballooned in size throughout my life and taken over my face-that he had seen people come in with my type, where it had formed, that had left them massive scars and medical difficulties. Because it was labeled a cosmetic reason by the insurance company, and they wouldn't budge on that ruling, my mother ended up having to pay for 80% of my surgeries.

Now, I want you to imagine something. Imagine how expensive it is to just step foot into an ER. Go on. Even if you're insured, if you don't have a very good plan, it costs you $500 to step foot in the ER. Now, I didn't go into an ER, but I did have to stay overnight in the hospital after my first eight hour surgery. Not just one night, but a full fortnight of them, and that does not come cheap. The first surgery alone set my mother back twenty-thousand, 20K, 20,000, dollars. That was the first one. After that came when the skin graft was rejected by my body and died on my face, the newly accepted tissue separating from the rest of my face one night when I was drawing, and finally a feeding tube coming lose and an emergency nurse having to rush to our house or I wouldn't be able to eat or have my pain meds the rest of the night. Mom won't tell me the final tally, since she knows it makes me sick to my stomach to hear the whole number, and because she knows how angry I'll get.

But, my point is, in a country where we spend 15% of our GDP, like Rachel said, we shouldn't be having stories like mine. She presents very good facts and statistics and makes it very clear for her readers just how she feels. She brings up the point of price regulation, and this is a very important part of the U.S. health care system that needs to be reined in. Surgeries like mine shouldn't set someone back for the price of an entry level luxury sedan. When my family still lived in Germany we had a consultation there with some of the best doctors in the world at the time, and they quoted my dad a much, much lower price for my surgeries than what my mother ended up paying here in the United States. We pay more for the same procedures in this country, and sometimes with inferior results.

From how much doctors make here, to how much GDP we spend on our health system, to how we should all be supporting the sick and not making them feel like leeches on the system I agree with Rachel's post, and think she does a great job of presenting her argument. If we want to remain a Great Nation, if we want to stay in the world scene as a leader, we need to change. As someone who has lived in other 'socialist' countries, I have to say that though they have their own set of problems, their citizen's are healthy--and at the end of the day, your health is your wealth.