Musings on health care

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/09/us/09deport.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

The link above is an article form the New York Times from Nov. 9, 2008. A woman in my hospice class gave me a hard copy of the article and told me that it was a good way to bring healthcare and immigration issues together. I know it's a little long, but it is definitely some food for thought for people interested in either issue (or both).

Today, at Saint Catherine Laboure Medical Clinic, I spent quite a while on the phone with a man named Steven. He called looking to make a new patient appointment because he is having trouble with double vision. I asked when it started, and he said that last Sunday (so over a week ago) he fell down the stairs. He is uninsured, so he decided to wait it out and see how he felt after a few days. However, on Tuesday (8 days ago), he started experiencing double vision. He went to the emergency room at Chestnut Hill hospital and the doctors did a CAT scan and MRI. They saw a "dark spot" on his brain, which indicates a bleed. This is most definitely the source of his vision problems, but the doctor said it should get better and he just needed to wear an eye patch on one eye. They also determined that he had broken four vertebrae and discharged him with some analgesics. When Steven called today, he said that his double vision has been getting worse, and that the doctor at Chestnut Hill referred him to our clinic. Chestnut Hill is a for-profit hospital that probably did not want to deal with a patient without health insurance, but they know very well that our clinic does not have the technology to deal with brain and spinal cord injury. As I continued talking to Steven, I calmly told him that he needed to go to an emergency room because Dr. Davis said that the bleed could be getting worse. He said that he was going to the VA hospital because he was a war veteran and because Chestnut Hill probably wouldn't serve him.

When I relayed the entire story to Dr. Davis after I got off the phone, she said that we would probably never be able to see Steven because technically he has veteran's healthcare. Then she paused and took her statement back. She said that, in reality, the benefits that veterans get depends on who is currently president and what their policy is. Therefore, people like Steven might go from having full health coverage to very limited assistance in a matter of four years. As veterans age, it obviously does not get any easier for them to pay for prescription drugs or get access to other care they may need.

What does it say when one of the wealthiest countries in the world with huge expenditures on military does not guarantee its veterans care for after their service? And what does it say when we cannot be consistent from state to state about whether or not people deserve healthcare if they live and work there legally? (People who are not there legally adds a whole other element to this discussion.) It seems like the world of healthcare is full of contradictions, and it scares me that I will probably be entering that world at some point in the near future.

It will be interesting in the coming months, now that we have a new President, to see what happens with situations like these.