No wonder 70% of Americans favor a shift to National Improved Medicare for All. All but a handful of us have high premiums, high deductibles and poor coverage – or no coverage at all. We all know someone who is struggling with a choice between health and financial solvency.
It’s a chaotic system, not designed for patients, but for profit.
A friend’s twin granddaughters were born premature, their lungs undeveloped at seven months. They – and their very stressed parents – rotated in and out of the hospital to address breathing issues. Recently, one twin was admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit closest to their parents’ residence. Shortly after, their mother realized that the other twin was also suffering respiratory distress, but she had no car, so she had to rely on an ambulance to reach the ER. As frequently happens with for-profit health care, the ambulance company only served one hospital – the hospital across town, not the parents’ preferred provider. So the twins were split up, admitted across town from each other, which required separate visits from their parents.
This sort of scenario would not happen in any other developed country. Why? In all other developed countries care is centered on the needs of each patient, not on the competing claims of provider clinics in their effort to stay afloat. With NIMA, all citizens can go to any provider. Their records are available in one database, dramatically cutting administrative costs – and insanity.
Kirby MacLaurin
Durango