Healthcare Reform Should Be About People Not Politics

As the healthcare reform debate rages on, we have heard nonstop chatter coming from the White House, congress and the insurance companies. Even doctors have chimed in wherever they can get behind a microphone.

As important as the opinions of these people might be to making the healthcare system more efficient and secure, one group of people is relatively ignored in the big picture. Nurses, technicians and other support staff do the majority of the work involved with patient care but they are paid the least and generally considered by those in the social upper crust as the "blue collar" side of medicine.

How does healthcare reform affect these people? What does that mean to the overall care we receive in the hospital or the doctor's office? Chances are, the big wigs up on Capitol Hill haven't given these people a second thought. Well I have, not that it would matter to congress.

When my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's three years ago the job of managing the disease and all of the associated issues involved fell to my father. He takes care of her at home and, until recently, she's been in relatively good physical health.

Last week, however, she took a bad step and broke her right hip. Surgery corrected the problem the following day, but her recovery is complicated by the dementia and her inability to understand where she is and what's happening to her.

While my mother was in the hospital, the people who saw to her day-to-day care were not doctors or insurance representatives or members of congress. They were hard-working nurses and technicians who put in 10-12 hour days, and not sitting behind a desk. These folks are on the move constantly, seeing to every need of every patient to the best of their ability.

While in the hospital, you see the actual doctor guiding your care maybe three times in the course of five days or so - and, in our case, it was never my mother's primary physician. It was always an associate or a resident. Of course I'm not minimizing what the doctors do, they go to school a very long time so that they can bill you $500 for five minutes of discussion and let a nurse or patient care technician see to your actual care for about $10 per hour.

I think congress should stop taking advice from the heads of insurance firms or Ferrari-driving heart surgeons and start talking to the patients and those who have to do the majority of the work. Ask if patients are getting what they need and what can be done to improve the situation where it is lacking.

Healthcare is a business and the patient is the customer and the nurse is the sales representative for the hospital. If the patient is not happy, the nurse is the first person to hear about it. They take most of the abuse and listen to the majority of the complaints.

Healthcare is also about people and it's too bad that congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle see reform as some kind of political Holy Grail instead of a necessity to benefit the people. Everyone wants to be first in the race to a better medical system and there is real potential here to do something good, but they need to slow down.

The impatience of our politicians is likely to generate a good deal of short term hype, but long term ineffectiveness. Any plan that is to have long-lasting success should be planned carefully, not thrown together in one day so that some senator can get home to Cape Cod in time for a party.

I have dealt with the healthcare system in many ways over my lifetime, as both patient and caregiver. I know how taxing it can be on the finances and the spirit. The government and the media have people scared, particularly the elderly, and it needs to stop. The system needs to be reworked but not in haste and a fully-socialized healthcare option is not likely to be the best answer.

However you look at it, it's ridiculous that we have more say in what's on our cheeseburger at Burger King than how we are treated by doctors. Unfortunately, no matter what system we end up with, that is not likely to change.

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