Medicare – RJ's Corner

Medicare For All… It Just Makes Sense

March 28, 2017March 27, 2017RJ Walters

Medicare is a system that has been in place for 50+ years. Its approval rating is well above any competition and it keeps the costs of healthcare down. Paperwork which drowns the private sector insurance is very well managed to less than half in Medicare.

So, why should we be experimenting with other often radical solutions to our healthcare network in the U.S.? I will admit that Obamacare was far from perfect. For one thing, it depends on the whim of private for-profit carriers. They say privatizing healthcare will spur competition and therefore reduce costs but that just isn’t happening. TrumpCare, which is at least dead for now, wasn’t any better and seemed to be skewed towards giving the wealthy more tax breaks and abandoning care for millions now covered under Medicaid.

Why should we experiment with very risky systems when we have a time-proven system that does very well? It just makes sense to make Medicare for all of us. Can even Medicare be improved, of course it can. There is too much fraud that could fairly easily be prevented if we just allowed it to happen. Having a law that prevents Medicare from getting discounts in the prescription drug market defies common sense.

Let’s expand a proven track winner and make it for all of us. We could then join the rest of the world in providing healthcare for all our citizens as a right, not a privilege of only those who can afford it. It would also relieve that burden from our business so that they can more effectively compete with foreign competitors. It just makes sense.

I don’t know what it will take to get all those in the beltway loony bin to understand this idea? But whatever it takes we need to work hard to make it happen. The sooner, the better.

It just makes sense…

My Personal Experience with Brain Trauma – Part 3

March 12, 2017March 12, 2017RJ Walters

Before the surgery, I really had no idea who Dr. P was or what he looked like. (I am not using his full name here as I don’t have permission from him and don’t want to intrude on his privacy). Looking at him when he delivered the good post-surgery news I discovered he was a sixty-year-old or so guy with white hair and a neatly trimmed mustache. He came in a couple more times that day to check on me. When my wife was not there to sign for me he always grabbed the paper and pencil to give me a “normal” conversation and that is very unusual for a doctor to do. Most of the time they almost refuse to write things down for me, let alone chitchat. I don’t know why but doctors are especially bad at that, but not this one. Dr. P went out of his way to treat me like one of his friends.

I also noticed that he was wearing jeans and a regular shirt. I later found out that he was one of the most popular of the 350 doctors with the staff at my hospital. He never wears a tie or suit and drives an old pickup truck! He is unlike any other doctor I have ever had. You would never guess that he was a brain surgeon but instead maybe a farmer! It turns out that he also did the brain surgery of a good friend of mine who helps me around the homestead and like me, he simply loves Dr. P. I look forward to seeing him in the future for follow-up recuperation appointments.

Sam, short for Samatha, was my critical care daytime RN for the two days I was in that part of the hospital. We spent quite a bit of time together and I felt I got to know her pretty well. She is a “traveling RN”, that is she moves around the country working in one hospital then another. Her last stint was in Alaska. She works three twelve hour shifts in the CCU and then has the rest of the week off to explore. She is a millennial who shuns high heels and makeup but has a very natural beauty that quickly shines through. She says she wants to be known for what she does, not what she puts on her body. With people like her in charge of the future of our country, I feel confident that it is in good hands indeed. I met a kindred spirit in Sam those two days but she was not the only one.

Keli, the night RN was very different from Sam but just as confident in her abilities to take care of herself. Being deaf, I seem to be able to draw out people with their family stories of adversity and her father has his share. He is my age and facing a very difficult time in his life. I tried to give some moral support.

I interacted with perhaps a dozen different people and every one of them was friendly and very good at their jobs My hospital might not be the biggest one in the area but in my opinion, it is the best. The road ahead for me is not going to be particularly easy but with their support, I will handle whatever comes toward me.

I left out some interesting stories about my stay but I think that is enough for now. I”m sure in the future I will be filling in some holes in this dramatic experience.

Off To The Operating Room For Brain Surgery

March 11, 2017March 11, 2017RJ Walters

My Personal Experience with Brain Trauma – Part 2

In the last post, I left off just before my consult with a brain surgeon. When the ER doctor told me I had a chronic brain bleed because of my fall that scared me more than I have been in a long time. When the surgeon told me he needed to go in and fix it and to relieve the pressure, my life didn’t flash before my eyes but I was thinking this could be the end. After I agreed to the surgery I started thinking about what if these were my last hours?

I told my wife I didn’t want to scare her too much but here is the password for my computer if you need to get into anything financial. I have paid all the bills and have for some time and since she is seven years older than me it was just assumed that she would go first so she didn’t need to know the details. From this lesson, I learned that we need to be prepared for any circumstance so in the coming days I will be laying out what is where and what needs to be done if I can’t do it.

It was about 1:30 pm when I signed the consent forms and then a couple of people came in to start IV lines. I soon discovered that one of them was an RN but the other was a trainee. Long story short, I think they give all us seniors as practice cushions for those who haven’t learned about veins and such as this guy struggled with finding a place to put the needle. When he actually tried to insert it his hands were shaking. After several failed attempt the teacher finally took over and two IVs were in place.

As I was about to go into the operating room at 3:00 pm I told them that I have a prostate problem and my bladder would likely lock up so I suggested they put in a catheter while in the operating room to take care of that. The people taking me in kind of nodded agreement. Then it was off to the cold sterile room to be cut for the first time. I saw several scrub nurses and the anesthesiologist but didn’t see the surgeon before I was put under. I said a quick prayer and then was out.

Of course, it seemed like I then woke immediately up with several people hovering over me mouthing words which of course I couldn’t understand. At first, I thought, “is this what heaven is like?” but quickly lost that thought and realized I had made it through the surgery. I laid in post-op it seemed like an hour or more and then it was off to a Critical Care room. Dr. P., my hero of the day, was there pretty quickly saying that everything went well and all the bleeding was taken care of and now it was on to a month-long recuperation period.

Why Are We Crippling Obamacare with Private Insurance Companies When Medicare Can Do The Job??

December 4, 2015March 3, 2017RJ Walters

A threat by the nation’s largest health insurer to pull out of ObamaCare is a sign of the industry’s growing angst about the viability of the federal exchanges, sources close to the industry say.

UnitedHealthcare’s warning sent new shockwaves across the healthcare sector after weeks of mounting anxiety among private insurers whose participation in the exchanges is critical to the viability of the president’s signature law.

In the last month alone, insurers have learned that the Obama administration has significantly lowered its expectations for new customers and will have far fewer federal dollars to help cushion insurer losses.

Source: New ObamaCare angst as top insurer threatens to bail | TheHill

I can just hear all those nay-Sayers “Here’s proof that Obamacare is a failure!” and in some ways I agree with them. Private insurers are certainly the weakest link in the current system.

I have been on Medicare for about 5 years now and have been paying about $100 a month for that privilege. It covers 80% of my medical costs so I must either pay the remainder or get Medigap coverage for the other 20%. I chose a Medigap policy that started out at about $150 a month to cover that last fifth of the costs. Now that policy is up to almost $200 and will climb to over $300 in the coming years.

It doesn’t take a lot of math to figure out that I am paying a private “for profit” insurer ten time more for the same dollar coverage that Medicare provides. Yes, I know that Medicare is paid as a government expense but it has also been widely acknowledged as the most efficient insurance provider in the country. Single payer systems have proven to be the most economical way to provide healthcare to the world’s citizens. We are about the only first world country that refuses recognize that fact.

It seems obvious to this pragmatist that our country and especially our private corporations would be better off if they could shed their healthcare responsibilities and have Medicare as the country’s single payer provider of healthcare costs. In fact there are many companies that are doing just that. With single payer systems comes economy of scale and also increased leverage over medical manufacturers and such. Aside from a law pushed through by the GOP why do we in this country pay so much more for our prescriptions than anyone else in the world?

As a side note it seems that on a regular basis veteran’s care is attacked by problems of poor implementation. Our veterans are just not getting the quality of care that they deserve under their current system. Maybe it is time to at least fold it into Medicare instead of trying to stand alone. Almost half of our citizens are currently on government provided single payer system. When we finally manage to get the rest there like the rest of the world we will all be better off.

VA Hospital Problems….

June 2, 2014March 3, 2017RJ Walters

Shinseki reiterated other steps he’s taken, including putting the leadership at the Phoenix facility on leave and ordering a “nationwide audit of all other major VA health care facilities to ensure understanding of, and compliance with, our appointment policy.” Some question whether removing Shinseki would address the core problems at the VA or simply serve as a distraction for now.”Is him resigning going to get us to the bottom of the problem? Is it going to help us find out what’s really going on?,” asked House Speaker John Boehner, the chamber’s top Republican, adding that his answer so far was “no.” SOURCE: Shinseki initiating removal of senior leaders at Phoenix VA – CNN.com.

I don’t know about you but it seems I have been hearing the above type problems with the VA almost all of my life. It was pleasantly surprising to see that the top House Republican saying firing another head of that agency won’t fix the problem. If fact it would probably just delay the fixes more.

I’m just a simple guy but it seems that the solution to this problem is pretty logical. Why not just put veterans into the Medicare system? I have been on Medicare for about three years now and have never had to wait more than one month to see any specialist. The article above talks about 115 day waits in the Phoenix VA hospital! Another fundamental question seems to be why does the VA need their own hospitals? Why can’t they go to the same hospitals as the rest of us. If PTSD or other specialists are needed I’m sure they could be hired from the existing VA or trained by the private sector.

I’m pretty sure my conservative friends would jump on this solution as WRONG. Maybe we are reversing roles here. I say let the private sector take care of our veterans the same way as they take care of us seniors. One thing that would be nice to carry over from the VA is for Medicare to be able to negotiate drug prices. VA can presently do that while Medicare can’t. That alone would save us billions in healthcare costs.

Eventually, probably not in my life time, all our health care will be folded into a single payer system as much of the rest of the world has already done. But until that time it just seems to make sense to once and for all get rid of these perpetual problems with VA hospitals. Our young men and women who have been traumatized by their war experiences deserve it. But then again this solution just seems to be common sense and logical so I doubt that those folks in Washington will even consider it…..