Grannymar wrote an outstanding post Thursday on the healthcare debate going on in the states.  I found her story to be refreshingly honest, a quality so rare in people these days.  I am sick to death of reading articles where within two paragraphs I know which side the author is pulling for.  Journalist need to go back to school and learn about a wee thing called independent news reporting.

In order to properly ascertain my perspective of the American Healthcare system, I’ll give you all a little background about myself.

In early 1972, I was born a healthy screaming baby boy in a maternity ward at Saint Francis hospital.  Twenty-four hours after I was brought onto this earth, I contracted spinal meningitis from someone on the same floor as the maternity ward.  Common sense would tell you not to put sick people in the same ventilated area as babies.  Sigh…

For several weeks I teetered back and forth between life and death.  In fact, nurses told my mother on several occasions to go ahead and start making funeral arrangements because I would not make it.  My mother refused to give up on me.  I spent three months in the hospital gaining my strength, while my mother worked two jobs and father worked three just to pay for my hospitalisation.

The constant high fevers did irrefutable damage to my young anatomy.  My parents were told that I was deaf and blind and should be sent to a home for disabled children where I could be properly cared for.  They took me home and dealt with nightly seizures along with a myriad of other complications.  But, the doctors were wrong about me being deaf.  I could hear just fine!

The bills kept climbing as I grew older.  The sometimes nightly visits to the emergency room grew tiring on an already weary couple, but friends and family stepped in and helped all that they could. 

In 1977 a fresh out of med school doctor saw me in the ER and subsequently diagnosed me as having hypoglycaemia which caused the horrific seizures.  I was very small for my age, so he sent me to a specialist that specialised in all sorts of childrens growth disorders. 

That doctor diagnosed me with having hypopituitarism and hypothyroidism in 1979.  To put it into laymens terms, your pituitary gland controls almost every aspect of the body, from growth to how much food your body can turn into energy.  Studies have shown that it is our internal clock.  Mine was severely damaged and was barely secreting the hormones needed for life, much less growth. 

By this time my parents had health insurance.  I started taking HGH in the backside with a one and a quarter inch needle every other day that year.  The folks had to pay additional fees for the injections but were doing financially very well.  I started growing like a weed but always failed to catch up with my classmates. 

I saw my doctors regularly and grew into a short yet vibrant lad.  In 1990, I was kicked off my families business healthcare group policy due to a cost risk assessment.  We tried to get healthcare elsewhere but was rejected at every turn.  I didn’t worry about it at the time and went off my costly medications.  It was a dreadful mistake, but I won’t go into that at this juncture.

In 1998, I found myself in the hospital due to an asthma attack that almost killed me.  I had been sick with the flue trying to wait it out, when my asthma kicked in and sent me to the hospital in the middle of the night.  At this point, I had no insurance due to pre existing conditions, not stupidity or desire.  I spent two weeks in the hospital.  The bill was in the tens of thousands of dollars.  Mother had full power of attorney over me, so she told the financial consultant of my plight in life.  My bill was paid in full by an anonymous person.  For that I am eternally grateful! 

About seven years ago, I was finally approved in a group policy.  I am a very large liability for the insurance company.  They come up with new and inventive ways every so often to drop me, but to no avail thus far.  I have signed enough papers and read enough laws to not be an easy target.  I now know the ins, outs, and backdoors of the system. 

With insurance, I pay around $500 US a month in healthcare cost, without insurance, I’d pay around $2,000 US.  A stark difference, if you ask me.  One medication is $1,400 a month without insurance.  That’s effing ridiculous!  If they are ever able to drop me, I’ll be screwed!  But, there are programmes and help already provided by the government.  By nature, Americans don’t like handouts.  We tend to think that we’re going to have to give up something, if we’re going to take something.  For the most part this is very true. 

I am very nervous about this entire fiasco going on in Washington D.C. and all over the states.  There is no doubt that there needs to be oversight over the insurance companies.  They should not be able to drop someone because he or she may be susceptible to cancer because of family history or declined because of pre existing conditions.  You have to take the good with the bad.

However, let me also state that I don’t trust the government to implement a new and extremely large national healthcare service.  They can’t fiscally run the mail service.  Do you really think they can properly watch over 307 million people?  Besides, we already owe China more money than this generation can ever repay!

There are good and bad points to having a NHS.  I won’t go into that today.  I need to study on it some more. 

P.S.:  All remarks will be appreciated but try to keep the left and right wing rhetoric to a minimum.  I could give a fuck what the left and right wing nuts on TV and radio are saying!  I make informed decisions on raw data.  I’m not easily influenced by smooth talking politicians!