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Re: The American Healthcare System
My experience with American health care is unrivaled. From seeing how good a health care plan can be, to seeing somebody robbed of their VA benefits, to getting in a fist fight with a deputy sheriff because he was trying to look up my sister's skirt after my father suffered a severe stroke, I know about health care.
When my uncle got sick, they treated him like dirt and, ultimately, killed him. This was a guy that volunteered for Vietnam and got 3 Purple Hearts, but the VA denied his benefits because he went to prison. Of course, he had been to prison before they took him in and got him shot up (though, to be fair, he was shot 4 times and stabbed 29 times. One of each in Vietnam)but they denied him. So he ended up in Phoenix Memorial hospital, at the time one of the worst in the nation. Insanely incompetent.
Then we went to the county hospital, where he picked up the infection that ultimately killed him. Plus, they collapsed his circulatory system twice due to mixing and matching meds. We ended up at the Maryvale Hospital; his doctor there (this doctor had a sister that is quite possibly the most beautiful woman alive) filed several complaints with the state board of ethics over my uncle's treatment. I went to jail because my uncle's primary doctor would make jokes about his condition- when your liver is bad, your ammonia levels get high and you get goofy- but would not sign off to send him to a specialist. So I beat him up.
My urinary system collapsed and I ended up in the hospital. The cardiologists told me I had had two severe heart attacks and needed open heart surgery. In 2011, 6 years later, I did have heart surgery, and my surgeon told me that I have never had a heart attack. There was no way, he said, that my condition in 20o11 existed in 2005. But I had insurance.
In Arizona they have a state sponsored health care system. After years, my whole life, of carrying two health care plans, I let them lapse. Starting a new business and spending 6 days a week in the gym, oops. My girl got me on the state plan. Once you are on that plan, you become a target. They do shit to you, or want to, that doesn't need to be done because they'll get paid for it.
Now, I have pre-existing conditions, but I have insurance. I work 3 nights a week in a grocery store; the union plan says 80 hours per month gets you covered.I have been self-employed my whole life, since age 23. Working in that store is fucking degrading, but I have put about 350,000 dollars on that plan to get me healthy. And my care, from urologists to cardiologists, from Salt Lake City to Billings, Montana, has been great.
As an aside, when I had my quadruple by-pass, I was in the hospital for several days before the operation. That hospital is a top rate facility. My nurse for those days, Angela, was ridiculously beautiful and great at her job. We got on well; on the board in the hall, next to my room number they wrote "Angela's patient" rather than my name. They also had good food.
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