Health care rant

[hppygr8ful]

Ok so you all know how I feel about health care reform and keeping the government out of our healthcare but here's a real life example of how the government handles the healthcare it already controls.

I work with developmentally delayed adults - who live group homes and work (for pennies on the dollar) in the community. Most are covered by Medicare and or Medicaid (in California we call it Medi-Cal.) Most of the workshops pay them an average of 75 cents an hour.

Because of the budget crises in California there have been deep cuts to Med-cal. The adult clients can no longer go to the dentist unless they have an actual problem and then they just pull the tooth and send them home without even any pain meds. So no preventive dental care is offered.

Most general practice doctors won't even see my clients anymore because of cut's already made to Medicare and Medicaid. Last week I had a client with diarrhea for 3 days. I tried to send her to urgent care and they turned her away because they don't take Medicaid anymore, so we sent her to the county clinic who turned her away because they could not examine her due to her behavior (she's severely autistic, in pain from abdominal discomfort and combative). So we go to the ER where they can't turn her away and wait two hours for a Dr to spend three minutes with her. We did get a prescription for her finally and she is doing better this week.

Same client also has a very severe seizure disorder. Midi-cal keeps switching one of her meds to generic. Whenever they do this she has seizures that can go on for hours requiring rectal diastat and magnet application to her VNS. The neurologist has written orders and pre-authorized her to receive only the name brand medication (because there are over 50 generic versions made in 8 different countries so you never really know what you get). So Medi-cal gets the cheapest one each month. The rationale is that because my clients are mentally disabled they are "allowed to fail" on their seizure control because as a state employee told me last week, "It's not like they are driving or anything."

Another client who has no family or living relative and has now waited over 10 weeks for a CT scan of her abdomen for possible liver CA. I finally called and begged a teaching hospital to take her. It's a big research hospital and they have taken an interest in her case - So she gets her CT scan on Next week. But they have already told me she may not be a candidate for aggressive treatment due to her disability.

Remember all these cases are people who have Government funded health insurance and they ( the legislature) are talking about making even deeper cuts to what Medicare is already paying Doctors. Outside of New York California currently has the 2nd highest taxes in the country. And the average household in the US will pay 33% higher taxes if the proposed healthcare reform goes through. So we will pay more to get less.

OK I think I got it off my chest.

Peace and Namaste

Hppy