Let’s Stage A Sit-In
There’s certainly plenty we don’t agree on in the blogosphere–but plenty we do. That our primary care system is falling apart; that our Emergency Departments are severely overcrowded; that some laws and regulations (HIPAA, EMTALA, among others) need some serious re-thinking; that our health care system as it currently stands may seriously fail its citizens, especially with the coming-of-age of the baby boomers. The list could go on.
And yet our representatives in Washington have done nothing, and are not listening. (Granted they have plenty of issues on our plate–but if this one is not addressed soon, it’ll be too late. It may already be.)
So I say let’s stage a sit-in.
Of a certain variety, of course. We can’t simply ignore our patients. Many often depend on us to keep them… alive.
I suggest we demand all of Congress to spend a week of their vacation with the health care US health care system. Where and how we work in the United States, they sit and watch. 2 days with a primary care physician. 2 days with specialists. A day in the ED. And follow a patient from admission to discharge.
They’ll see how swamped we are; they’ll see how sick our patients are, what treatments are recommended for them, and how it’s impossible to provide proper care in 15 minutes. They’ll see how overcrowded our hospitals are. And that we must. Do. Something.
Our representatives in Washington aren’t listening? That’s because We The People aren’t speaking any language they understand, while the people who are deriving immense profit from the status quo have their lips permanently glued to the representatives’ ears.
That suggests a more practical and efficacious solution than your sit-in:
Have everyone (in or out of the blogosphere) who is pissed off at the current health care situation in this country send you a dollar (or more if possible). Then you take the money, and do whatever is necessary under the official legalized bribery scheme that funds campaigns to bundle it up and buy the same access to our so-called representatives that the insurance and pharmaceutical industries now enjoy. A lot of people are pissed off, so you could very likely outbid the entrenched interests. Then the politicians who previously ignored you will rivet their attention on every word you say, and we’ll have a single-payer system in place before the next election cycle!
It’s an unfortunate fact that the “one dollar, one vote” version of “democracy” is the one that irrevocably operates in this country. I’m surprised that the large number of people who oppose the status quo haven’t simply taken up a collection and bought themselves a majority vote just like the lobbyists and CEOs now enjoy.
You can’t seriously think that some suit following me around for a day would mean he has any insight into how to “solve” the ER overcrowding crisis?
It would be like me sitting in on an Apple computers meeting and declaring that “I sat in on a meeting, I can tell you exactly how to build the next best iPod!”
No, I certainly don’t, Kelly, but I think it would at least put it on their radar screens. Make them wake up and smell the napalm.
Um. So if they don’t get it now, and won’t get it after watching…what gives them the qualification to have the most say (via a whole ton of cash at their fingertips from all of us working grunts) in what goes on in the health care system?
For instance:
Single-payer=Having all those people who you think need remedial health care education get 100% control of payment of health care services in our country, up to and including a blank checks in the form of whatever tax rate strikes their fancy to pay for it. To you, that sounds just…to me…that sounds looney.
Well, they’re our representatives, and unfortunately, that’s how this country works. That’s what gives them the qualification to have the most say.
It would do no good for them to follow you around for a day. They’d just be gladhanding everyone, staff and patients, acting like pols on the campaign trail, which they all are all the time.
Instead, we can demand they use the very same health insurance the rest of us have instead of the marvelous special health insurance they voted for themselves which we pay for, whether we have any or not.
You’ve almost got it. Where you miss is that politicians care only what their constituents think, not what it is actually like “on the ground” in the medicine.
To the extent that we vote for our congressman, she or he cares what our lives are like. Otherwise, they don’t particularly care how hard we work, how sick our patients are, or how pressed for time we are with each patient.
The answer, I am afraid, is not for congressmen to take time to visit our clinics, but rather for us (and for our disgruntled patients) to call, visit, and write to representatives and tell them how unhappy we are.
Unhappy enough to not vote for them next time is all that matters; and all that is needed for them to do something.
Love your blog by the way and have added it to my blogroll.
All the best,
Jeff