Writing Journal/ Blog ~NurseWriter~

Health Care Reform

Disclaimer: I want to be clear as you read this, this in no way reflects on my current place of employment.  I am not pointing fingers at our facility, or any physicians I may work with.  This is purely my opinion, being exposed to MANY areas, over my years of nursing. 


I've been a nurse for 28 years.  In those years I have seen a health-care system that is doomed to fail. Hospitals struggle to stay alive, through what ever the current rules and regulations are. Insurance companies make money and they are always looking to make more and pay less.  There are few physicians that actually practice what I consider, "good medicine".  Supply companies, charge astronomical cost, while going outside our country to produce these products.  All that is wrong with our current system, leads me to believe you can not revamp the current system, with the same players at the wheel.  If you believe the government is going to control this system any better then it did the current system, I fear you are sadly wrong.

As you read this article keep in mind that no one wants to run a business for the well fair it provides to the community. The idea of that went out years ago, before insurance, before our wonderful so called medical advances, that have brought along astronomical cost.

Lets understand something right off the bat "votes" may be the premise of reform, but in health care it is all about the dollar. 

Institutions and private practice are there for profit, to support employees, as well as the lifestyles they are attempting to attain.  Let's not forget the cost of malpractice and liability insurance, a motiviating factor in forcing some to practice differently then they may have in the past.  With that said, lets look at what we have. 

We have a system with the "potential" to provide care to all. Some where along the line cost became a factor.  Again, business, profit, gain.  Keep that in mind vs. the picture of the endearing saturday evening post doctor, listening to a doll with a stethoscope. In comes regulation or re-form, just as before.  Medicare was created to provide affordable health care for the elderly.  Medicaid, coverage for the low income population.  Charity or indigent care, provided by hospitals with some form of government assistance.  Then we have HMO's to throw into the whole private insurance mix and wallah, you have our current state of medical coverage. 

Those of us that work and pay for our own insurance, get a double whammie.  I say this as we pay for our own insurance, and our tax dollars are ALREADY paying for a failed health system, that was supposed to provide for all the people.

If you key into the words, "already paying for a failed health system", you might understand why I feel the thought of health-care re-form, as almost idiotic.  Providing care to all, through the means of taxing the working people MORE to pay for it, does not equate to the providers changing practice to provide this care.  If the current practice is not changed, do you not see the same revolving problem just on a bigger scale?

I have heard physician after physician talk about this new plan.  They think this is a joke.    How are you going to change practice, that has become what it is, by telling the providers they are going to do MORE, for ALL people, with less compensation?  The answer is, you will not.

You may provide false hopes to many, while still playing the same game. I hope you understand that sentence.  False hopes, as in I have health care.  What will it be worth?  Each player of the health care system will continue to figure out what they must do to MAINTAIN their current status.  A reform will not change this.  Adding more people, to fully cover, will not make health care any better. The ultimate reality is we will all wait in line for care, and it will be the same abused care.

I do not have an answer, I just know what I see.  People we are in a downward spin, like the water in your kitchen sink.  Eventually it drains completely and you have nothing left.