Well, I am once again on quarters, lamenting the deplorable state of military medicine. Four things have happened that make me truly frightened about what our so called political leaders are getting ready to do to our health care system.
I am currently seen under the military health care system. It used to be one of the best systems out there and was one of the benefits to recruit, retain, and get Americans to commit to a 20+ year career to the US military. Sadly, when I first came on active duty in 1993, it became the place where Hilarycare was introduced in the form of Tricare. This is the system of medical care that told me my type 2 spondylosthesis was all in my head (my L-5 vertebrae was pressing on my spinal cord and moving back and forth...I went from being a very active 31 year old to a woman who could not stand without assistance or walk without fear of falling down with no notice.) That flight surgeon suggested I take anti-depressants and refused to prescribe pain killers for fear of making me dependent. Six months later, an Army doctor from the old school (he had served almost 30 years at this point) attempted to fix my back. While the fusion did not take completely, I at least returned to a somewhat normal life.
Six years later, we are going through the health care debate and the hyped up fears put forth by big-pharma (get your vaccine now or die from the swine!), the CDC, and the government (cough into your sleeve!) My son and I have been sick off an on for a month now...they refused to test him for flu but prescribed him 5 days worth of tamiflu (please read up on how long you are supposed to take the medication versus taking any advice from this blog) which made my husband and I pause. Needless to say, we did not give him the tamiflu and he is doing fine now.
This morning I returned to the clinic for a return of symptoms (fever, body aches, headache, sore throat) and was seen again by the same physician's assistant who saw me two weeks ago. He just put me on quarters and sent me home. No direction on what to do. No identification on what is going on other than "your ears are clear, throat is red but I do not think it is strep." Now, the last time I was in, I had fluid on my ears which he gave me dichotimine which made me dizzy and affected my sleep. I went in and saw a nurse for the dizziness who confirmed I had fluid on my ears and gave me sudafed and afrin. Notice a trend? I have yet to see a doctor.
You see...we don't have many doctors anymore. My primary care provider is an NP (and she is great, don't get me wrong) but where are the doctors? My husband has seen the flight surgeon for the laryngitis he has had for over a month and was told to take flonase. It was only because I nagged him to go back did he finally get an appointment to the ENT specialist...but that took 2 weeks to get the referral in (and he had to go bug Tricare for the letter.)
Imagine what is going to happen when many Americans (who through choice have opted out of health insurance) and those here illegally all of sudden get "health care" coverage. 45% of doctors are indicating that they will leave medicine in order to avoid the certain devaluing of their services.
Here is a radical idea for fixing health care: institute tort reform (won't happen since trial lawyers are running the show in DC and donate to both parties but especially the Democrats), separate insurance from employers to force insurers to compete on the open market, and allow cross state line competition (instead of the government dictating that elective procedures be covered such as gastric bypass which you can even get under Tricare.)
Oh, and mark Sunday on your calendar. That is the day the Obama administration declared war on media outlet Fox News. Apparently, they reject the notion of the "freedom of the press."
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