Worst Healthcare Nightmares

The medical profession in the United States is fraught with health care nightmares. In recent years journalists have been reporting with greater import various accounts of medical mishaps and insurance denials that have had disastrous effects. More people are aware of botched surgeries or medical malpractice than ever before. Now some are learning about the control the insurance companies have over the very health care people get in this country.

Just recently a man was treated for bleeding on the brain and the wrong side of this poor mans brain was worked on. And there was the celebrated case in Florida a few years back where a man had the wrong leg amputated. There was also a famous comedian who underwent cardiac bypass surgery and the doctor operated on the wrong blood vessels. Some patients were told before surgery to actually write on the part of the body that needed surgery!

All-in-all nearly 50,000 people die through medical mishaps in the United States every year. To put this In perspective approximately the same number perish each year in automobile accidents. And in all those terrible years during the Vietnam War this was about the number of precious lives lost during that entire conflict. This is both astonishing and shocking at the same time. In such an advanced nation such as ours this should be unacceptable. And to the public it really is.

According to some nurses it appears that the doctor is not always at fault. They are under a great deal of pressure to do their work at certain times with certain guidelines and even the use of some equipment. And the nurses say it is the insurance companies who are constantly exerting a tremendous pressure on the medical community as a whole. To the insurance companies it is all about the money. The bottom line is not to spend one red cent more than is necessary to get the job done. In fact most insurance companies want to get the job done under a certain dollar quota. Most doctors do in fact want to do what they trained many hard years to do and that is being doctors. But the hospitals and insurance companies they work with are holding the purse strings.

The new movie/documentary SICKO by Michael Moore exposes these troublesome facts in some detail. His take is a little different but nonetheless it puts a spotlight right on the insurance companies. And apparently this is not a good situation for them. Only time will tell how the American public will react to this and other news of the same ilk.

It is well known there are many many families, from grandfathers down to infants, who do not have medical insurance in this country. Why is that? And it is a fact that their health suffers greatly because of this. In a country with plenty of billionaires one wonders why some poor little kid cannot have his disfigured jaw realigned because it is not a medical necessity? Why must a poor man have his leg amputated because it is too expensive to save it? Why must a woman die of cervical cancer because she cannot be seen until it is too late?

There is something wrong here that needs fixing. It is up to the government to look into the insurance industry and medical coverage for those who can barely afford the cost of food an the table