US Healthcare implosion

If you didn't already know I work for a private ambulance service contracted by a dozen southern MS counties for 911 emergencies and inter facility transports. I've worked in the health care field for over 20 years as a paramedic, and what I see about to befall this country is no less than a catastrophic meltdown in health care. The supercomittee, an oxymoron is there ever was, has failed to come to any resolvable solution for our current fiscal woes. It just isn't possible to cut the fat out of government spending without causing immeasurable social misery and hammering GDP (20% of which is government spending)to the point of collapse. That's what happens to a nation that has generated economic growth with debt spending instead of actual productive capacity for the last 40 years. Instead of having a simplified universal health care program paid for with tax dollars we have a hodge podge mish mash of wacky private insurers paying percentages, deductibles, and what have you, a medicare system for the old, and medicaid for the poor, and a lawyered up rule book governing the administration of it. That doesn't even consider the state to state differences on what is paid and isn't paid. It's completely unsound and just plain nutz. Most Americans really don't know how bad their health care system is until they find themselves old, disabled, or poor. A group that is expanding since, well since we were counting. Now that we are forced to address our debts and make the necessary cuts these gross facts are going to feel like a rock to the head to anyone unfortunate enough to be old, injured, sick, or just plain dealt an ill fated deck since birth. Just one example of which I could tell you about is a young man that I run on frequently. Just eighteen years of age who is seeking gainful employ in a rural MS town. He has seizures, bad ones, and he requires Kepra to control his seizures. $1500 a bottle! Does he have the money for them? Obviously not. It's hard as hell to find a job right now and made even harder by the fact he has a preexisting medical condition that most employers care not to have behind the forklift. So he's on MS state medicaid and receiving food stamps. What does medicaid pay? Well about $600 towards his prescription and he receives about $100/month in food stamps - them rama noodles make good eaten, huh?  $600 is not $1500, so he has seizures at least twice a week. He has busted his nose twice, stitches to his head, and now has a broken elbow. Is it his fault that genes dealt him a ill fated hand? Obviously not, but he is also unfortunate to have been born in the USofA. If he was Canadian this would not be a problem at all. He would get the prescription he needed and he might even find a job because his seizures would be properly managed. Then maybe the rama noodles might be replaced with fresh fruits and vegetables, and some quality meat.

But not America! We have bombs and bullets to make! We have trillions to spend in our global policing. Taking care of each other is socialism, that dirty word. We can't have that. Instead, what we're going to see unfold here is a bureaucratic implosion in what is paid for and what isn't, and if you're the unfortunate one falling in the ever widening crack of doom than you will be swallowed up utterly. Bereft and dead in the land of the turkey eaters.  Meanwhile, in the field of health care, there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth in the ranks of the providers as their previously untouchable professions will see widespread cuts and reduction in pay or benefits. A sizable amount of all health care spending is Medicare, it's old people, it's people who have been dealt bad hands, and then it's a growing group that is psychologically ill. What do you expect when the American dream becomes a nightmare? People are losing it! Trust me! I'm seeing it right now!

Who calls an ambulance most of the time? Old people! Old people with their strokes, their falls, their chest pains, their smoking related COPDer's, their GI bleeds, and everything else that infirms the human being as they wither and die. Medicare or Medicaid! Medicare pays the bill, it pays for the ambulance ride, it pays the wages to the medic, it pays for the treatment, it pays for the ER visit, it pays for the doctor, it pays for the hospital treatment. It pays. The guy shot in the projects isn't paying their bill. The working stiff at the corporation paying for his United, Blue Cross, and what have you isn't the one getting sick and calling an ambulance. That's a rare 911 call indeed. So listen to me, it's old people, and old people are not working people. They've done their time for the most part. They have what's saved, pensioned (a source being attacking on all fronts), and provided for by social security (also broke and defaulted), and that's it, but they're the ones that need health care. So it's medicare not United, that's paying for the bulk of the entire medical industry, and if Medicare - no, not if, but when - is cut it'll also be cutting the primary source of revenue for doctors, nurses, medics, technicians, hospitals, clinics, rehab centers, psychiatric wards, etc. It's the one American industry that has been a solid source for jobs in this land of job scarcity.

Not anymore! Game over folks. I pray that you are well, that you are fit, because this nation is so up the creek without the proverbial paddle that millions will be doomed to old school medicine and hope for the best bedside prayers.

It won't be military cuts coming despite what you might have heard on the news. A world war is the making, and it'll crop up at the opportune time to pour every cent into its bloody endeavor. Old people, sick people, disabled people, nothing more than unproductive refuse, capitalistic rust, and dead weight to the 1%ers and their American corporate fascist scheme. Trust me.

"We can't afford these people!"

(As he himself gets complete coverage)