Posted by
Catmman on Tuesday, September 29, 2009 10:52:44 AM
According to the Washington Post, rationing isn't such a bad deal. All they want to do is make sure you get the health care you need. Of course the phrase "the health care you need" is the big pink elephant in the room. When anyone, especially if they are proponents of government-controlled 'health care', talk about giving you only what you 'need' they are talking about the very thing they are trying to convince you they aren't - to ration your care.
But these kinds of stories are rare. Right?
You know, I've had my own dealings with this kind of system being in the military, and it nearly cost me my voice. It was discovered in 2005 that I probably had hyperparathyroid disease. The disease results in an increase in blood calcium levels. Initially, it isn't noticeable by the patient. Over time if left untreated, it can lead to bone weakness. osteoporosis and other degenerative disease of the bones. In other cases, it can cause seious complications with the skeletal and nervous system. Sometimes it is an indication of cancer.
Anyway, in 2005 blood tests revealed I may have this disease. Imaging studies didn't reveal a possible tumor in my parathyroid glands (which are located in the neck, behind the thyroid gland itself). At that point I was asymptomatic (not showing symptoms) so the decision was made to 'watch my condition' and see what developed. Over a period of three years, my blood calcium levels remained high. I became vitamin D deficient. And the parathyroid tumor that wasn't discovered in 2005 continued to grow.
In late 2007, I suffered from a cervical problem which caused nerve pain in my bac, neck and shoulder. It was excruciating. On a trip to the emergency room, the doctors decided to do a CAT scan to rule out the possibility that I had developed a thrombosis in my lung which they said could be a cause for the pain. The CAT scan turned out negative, except for finding a spot in my neck. I knew immediately, a gut feeling, that it was a parathyroid tumor.
A follw up ultrasound confirmed the presence of a tumor in the area of the parathyroid glands. Subsequent imaging consisting of a sestimibi scan and a attempted biopsy of the site showed no tumor present. The doctor was still hesitant to perform the surgery since I was still conventionally asymptomatic and my blood calcium levels weren't traditionally high and there were no other real indicators of a parathyroid tumor. But the ultrasound and CT scan found something, so the decision was made to operate.
During surgery, the doctors confirmed it was indeed a parathyroid tumor. It was the size of a walnut. A normal parathyroid gland is the size of a grain of rice. The only problem was that the tumor had intertwined itself around my right laryngeal nerve (there is one on either side of the neck). This nerve controls the larynx, or voice box. Your larynx does more than simply give you a voice. It is a valve which helps with respiration and the swallowing of foods and liquids. If the nerve is severed or damaged, not only can the ability to speak be lost, but breathing and swallowing can be affected. A normal parathyroid operation with an experienced doctor should take less than an hour. My operation took almost three times as long. It took the doctors so much time since they had to remove the tumor from my laryngeal nerve. The tumor they should have found three years earlier.
I've blogged about this before, but it is a good personal example. My own experience with medical care are mostly of the military health care system over the last 22 years. It is a government run system. It is 'free'. My experience isn't so much an example of rationing as you see in the attached videos, but an example of dealing with the waits imparted on the system due to bureaucracy and doctors who are overwhelmed. In fact, I take that back. It is an example of rationing. The military health care sustem has finite resource and people within the system must wait for what is available.
Was the ENT doctor motivated to not do anything more than wait on my parathyroid due to being overwhelmed? Due to my lack of symptoms, he had other pressing matters to deal with, sure. But his schedule didn't allow for a real evaluation of my case, a real personal one on one which may have led him to think mine was a special case. The system also didn't provide for any type of referral to a specialist or a civilian doctor either.
In every instance where major injury or surgery was needed to resolve a problem, I've had to wait an inordinate amount of time. Three years for resolution of a parathyroid tumor. It took almost seven months to get a shoulder repair surgery - in the intervening seven months, my arm was in a special immobilizer and I was on pain medication. Incidentally, I was on pain meds for another six months after the surgery due to rehab and recovery. I was prescribed pain meds for over a year which almost led to a whole host of other problems, but that could be fodder for another post.
Imagine this kind of system servicing over 300 million people. All governed by bureaucrats. Those bureaucrats deciding what you can get, when you can get it, or if they are even going to bother with your case. Then re-read the WaPo article extolling how rationing will be just fine and dandy.
When the government is in control of your 'needs', they become secondary to the needs of the government.
(H/T:
Gateway Pundit for the videos.
Hot Air for the post title)