What do you think of the US Healthcare System?

what us health care system?

Today I had a heart to heart talk with my son and I encouraged him NOT to join our military forces. The reason is that in my experience the administartion is NOT keeping America's promise to those who have defended our country. My grandfather fought in WWI, My father in WWII, myself in the Persian Gulf, but my family can no longer support the fight for a country that has so wrongly treated this veteran, and denied my family the kind of future my forefathers and myself so wholeheartedly defended.



The VA health care system has more than misdiagnosed me, they have totally ruined my family's and my life!!! The VA has killed the Martin Family dream!!



In April of 2007 I drove to the VA emergency room with heart attack symptoms. The doctors and nurses in the ER acted annoyed that I was there and I sat for a while in a wheel chair with chest pains watching them conduct administrative functions of some kind. They finally got to me, asked me a lot of questions, did some blood work, I think they gave me some nitro glycerin, and when the symptoms subsided suggested it was pleurisy without doing any other prudent testing such as stress testing or echo-cardiograms or anything. I was discharged a short time later with a instructions to take 800mg of motrin every 6 hours, which may have even worsened my condition and accelerated the deterioration of my cardiac function.



A month later I had to call an ambulance from work and was subsequently sent from one hospital to another for emergency cardiac catheterization on all three of my coronary arteries. It took two separate procedures to finish the surgeries and frequent emergency transport. There were also vital procedures and tests conducted during and after stents were placed which were vital.



Now The VA has unjustly denied my claims for payment of these services under the Millenium Healthcare bill/act. I called the VA and did exactly what I was directed to do and gather all the discharge summaries prior to submitting my claim. Then was told afterwards that I was too late, and that I only had a 90 day period had expired in which I had to make the claim. I was NOT told there was a second window in which I could apply which was applicable, and now they are sitting on my appeal.



At this time me and my family are financially devastated. I am being sued, have to file for bankruptcy, can never buy a house-car-or education for my children .... ever, my credit worthiness is in a state of complete ruins and cannot be redeemed in any way, we cannot afford rent, heat or food, and I lost my employment because my health concerns were not discovered in a timely fashion while I could still perform my duties at work.



My family will NEVER realize it's dreams or goals now because the VA Health care System failed in their mission to provide adequate treatment and care. Also they VA health care system has failed to fix their first mistake and at least pay the bills from other health care providers. We need help very badly and in our opinion are being victimized by the very agency that is supposed to reward me for my service to the United States of America.



I can't begin to describe the level of betrayal my family feels at the hands of the United States government agencies, and this wartime veteran cannot help but cry.









Matthew John Martin

LT USNR

quote:

Originally posted by sandidge:
what us health care system?

The system through free enterprize is still the best of whats around. If the Government and greedy insurance would get their meddling nose out of it, health care would be a non-issue. However, government busybodyies and ambulance chasing lawyers have put the FUBAR on it for years now. As for Government health care, what you would get would be the V.A. style on a larger scale! Geeze!

I agree with you, Top. Let the free market set prices and services.

The US Healthcare system may have its faults but I think it is the best in the world. Many will say we need a system like Canada or Europe... socialized medicine is not the answer.

I am far from any healthcare expert but I will share with you why I think socialized medicine is bad.

I worked in Toronto for 2 years (1999-2000). Worked with a man who had been in a bad auto accident and needed a hip replacement. The guy came to work every day on crutches and in great pain (he couldn’t get disability for some reason). He was on the waiting list for a hip replacement (scheduled a year out). It got so bad he paid his own expenses (and wife’s) to have the surgery done in Nova Scotia where the list was much shorter…he could get it done there but not Toronto…the system paid for the surgery but he had to pay for all the travel and living and recuperation expenses in Nova Scotia.

The Toronto Star is a great newpaper … read it daily. This was a daily item for about a month (in 1999, I think). There was the healthcare version of a strike. Since nurses are not allowed to strike, they worked to rule as a protest. Emergency rooms apparently were calculated by the bureaucratic healthcare system to be able to handle X number of emergencies per shift. When they reached that quota amount, they refused any additional emergencies. Ambulances were roaming the city trying to find emergency rooms for their “passengers”.

I also remember numerous articles in the Toronto Star about the doctor shortage and many Canadian doctors were coming to the US because of the controls of the system on their income as well on how many patients they had to see a day.

Also remember reading articles about the buses that run daily from Toronto to Cleveland bringing cancer patients and their family to Cleveland because they couldn’t get the treatment in Canada.

I would hope there is a good side to the Canadian system but I never saw or read about it.

As far as the European system…my daughter lived in the UK for 4 years (2000-2003). Flying back there from the states one time she had an attack of severe pain in the abdominal area. Suffered for over 10 hours… got home…doctor came to the house (she had private insurance) and had her admitted to the hospital. She waited there in pain for almost 24 hours…waiting for an ultrasound. No doctor saw her as they don’t work on weekends. She was told that she had to wait for the ultrasound because there were others ahead of her who had been waiting for 6 months to get an ultrasound. When she finally got the test, they rushed her into the operating room…her appendix had burst many hours before and she was loaded with infection. Nurse told us she almost died.

Don't believe Michael Moore either.

I think blood sucking lawyers have done more damage to the healtcare system than we could ever measure and a major contribution to the costs problems.