Our government has been filled with masters of deception ever since it was started. On November 8, 2016, we elected the ultimate master of deception and we are already starting to pay for it. Although, I have to admit that I am not on board with picking at poking at every little detail to try and make Trump look bad. It should not take that much effort to get a guy like that to look bad.
While alternative facts and mysterious inauguration crowd pictures are nice distractions, the biggest distraction of all time has to be health insurance.
What did he say?
He said health insurance was a distraction.
Is he crazy?
I dunno. Maybe he should see if his insurance covers psych evaluations.
I am well aware that I owe my very life to the lovely insurance company that keeps paying those over inflated doctor bills. But that is not the health insurance I am talking about. I am talking about Medicare and the more recent Affordable Care Act. They are both elaborate smoke screens to get everyone worrying about the wrong things while the real criminals sneak out the back door with bags of money.
See...the real problem is the cost of health care in this country. When the a pharmaceutical manufacturer is allowed to sell a life-saving epipen in the United States for $1,500 and then sell the same epipen in Canada for $250, then we have a problem. The costs associated with health care are not regulated, and they never have been. You can worry about health insurance until you are blue in the face, but it means nothing when my cancer treatments cost $54,000 twice a month. Or at least, they used to cost that. Now I am on financially responsible pills that only cost $400 each.
Here...this is from 2009...
Why are other countries getting their health care so much cheaper? Most of those countries regulate health care costs. Japan is famous for regulating its hospital costs for patients, and that country has some of the best doctors in the world. There are pricing controls in place that act as a catalyst to keep other costs under control.
We should check those systems out, eh? Except that our government is so corrupt that the health care system is a for-profit network that has nothing to do with actually curing people. I have had some experiences first hand of doctors and hospitals that fleece insurance companies right out in the open. I had a hospital charge my insurance company for doctors I never talked to (Seriously, how many neurologists does it take to read one chart?), and I had a specialist tell me that I need to go see them every month to monitor a problem that is not quite something to worry about just yet. Last I knew, my general practitioner was the one who took care of monthly maintenance.
Our health care system is all about money, and that is why it will implode. The government gives you plenty of reasons to worry about the future of your Medicare or ACA health insurance coverage, while the medical industry is hauling in billions. How much longer do you think this can really go on?
So the next time someone tells you that it is critically important that we fix health insurance before no one is covered, you can laugh to yourself because you know the truth. You know that no amount of health insurance is going to be able to keep up with the out of control costs in the medical industry and our whole health system will collapse some day very soon. Meanwhile, the federal government looks the other way while pharmaceutical companies and specialists rake in billions in profits.
Sleep well!
George N Root III is a Lockport resident and a guy who sees what the medical care industry is doing to the country. Follow him on Twitter @georgenroot3, or contact him at georgenroot3@gmail.com.