The Emerald Rose

     Here we are hardly three months out of having a “socialist” health care bill made law in spite of the overwhelming opposition of the people, that’s right, the “people”,… the ones who live in a country that was solidified by, and  with, the three words,”We the people…” that the other shoe is beginning to drop.

         Yesterday I caught an article about the “model” used for the National Healthcare Bill, that of the state of Massachusetts, my old birth state. It went on to say that the insurance companies, the ones mandated to provide “all” Americans with health insurance were beginning to impose certain “restrictions” on what you could do, in terms of where you could go to obtain your healthcare! Ok I can agree a $300 office visit with some witch doctor, or other shaman who is really not a “qualified” medical provider, in fact I’d even endorse that. BUT what they are restricting is access to the “BEST” treatment and treatment facilities,……that is not only way beyond the pale, but mark my words it will eventually result in total outrage.

          What the Insurance companies are saying is well, we will cover you if you go to such and such a hospital or treatment facility, but not the following ones. So who is on the “NOT” list? Guess what, it’s the major teaching hospitals and major treatment centers. Sure we’ll take care of your bad heart, but we won’t let the best physicians and the best staff do it. Go to the “local” community hospital, there’s probably someone there who knows heart surgery,….maybe!

          One of the real prides of the City of Boston, and the crown jewel in it’s “claim to fame” is the myriad of VERY high end medical facilities and Hospitals. Places like Brigham and Womens Hospital, Massachusetts General, Tufts, and world renown treatment centers like the Dana Farber Cancer treatment Center, Massachusetts eye and Ear Hospital, etc. All of these top notch facilities are within a ten square mile area, all competing for the very best talent and most noted physicians to teach, and develop new inroads in healthcare. Across the Charles River from all these hospitals and “creme de la creme” facilities is none other than Harvard University School of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and numerous others, plus some of the best nursing schools in the world as well. Now if you need that expertise for yourself, your child, your mother or father, you can’t get it because it’s not covered by exclusion clause in your health insurance policy?

         How do you think that’s going to fit with a family making $30,000 a year, eating poorly and just trying to survive and try and make things better for their children when little Jimmy is diagnosed with a form of leukemia, or other “top shelf” care necessity requirement? Can you picture it now;

         “Well Mr and Mrs Smith, I hate to have to tell you but we can’t get Jimmy in to the facility best suited to handle his medical care because you policy excludes it. If you choose to take him there it would all be on your own nickel.”

          “What would it cost Doctor, to send him where he really needs to go and send him there?”

          “With this type of situation, and his needs like chemotherapy, transfusions, and special drug protocols, and perhaps as much as two months to get everything working well enough to let him go home,….well,….perhaps $300,000 to $400,00.”

           “But we can’t afford that, what else can we do?”

           “Well you could take him to the local community hospital over in Pace, that’s only about an hour away.”

           “Do they have everything to take care of him properly and help him get better?”

           “Well I’m sure they have good Doctors, maybe not as may or as well educated or versed in this type of treatment and care, as with the nurses, and I’m sure the various drug protocols are not readily available and some are even experimental so they can not be obtained outside of very controled environments which they don’t have,but….they will give him the best care and treatment that they can with their limitations and all.”

          Doctor,…one last question,….would you take your child there if Jimmy were your child with this terrible disease?”

        ……………………………………………….(silence).

        Without the American spirit and the “evil” of free enterprise and all of those aforementioned hospitals and laboratories, and world all star specialists and the environment conducive to the freedom to develope their chosen professions to the utmost possible with the goal of bettering the health and well being of mankind,….well there would be no future.

           When I had to have my Triple By-pass operation on the heart you can bet your ass, literally, I did some heavy research into the backgrounds and ratings of all the Physicians that were going to handle me, AND the facilities. Like any normal person I did not view life and death situations as “rolling the dice”, I wanted the best, and not just for me, but for my wife’s sake, my kids sake, and to be sure I did have the ultimately highest and best opportunity, location, and most well trained and rated Doctors and staff working on me.

         Despite how “cavalier” I may sound, it weighed heavily on me back then. I had to do my part and go into that operating room knowing “MY” team of Doctors, Nurses and the Hospital and it’s facilities and backups were all in place and WOULD do the absolute best for my sorry ass.

         Why should some child be denied access to the best qualified, best equipped and best facility or treatment center because the Insurance companies don’t want to pay? And rest assured it will be in the ittsy, bittsy, teeney-weeney print on page 87 of the policy tucked away so as to be not noticed until the time comes when it’s needed. If you are going to have health insurance and YOU make that decision without government mandate, then you should get what you fully have a right to expect,….the access to the very best there is,…Rockefeller, or John Doe, no difference.

           And as I remember there was a lot of flack over the allegations of the Law creating the equivalent of “death panels” to decide who lives and gets the treatment they need and lives, and who is denied the treatment they really need and die.  

          I just calls them the way I sees them!

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