The RN’s current heartache is this feeling that lots of the ER patients “have no skin in the game” and he doesn’t mean this literally, he really means it figuratively. What he is referring to is folks who have no money and who are on public health care . He feels that this is the reason that healthcare is so expensive. If we “the taxpayers” didn’t have to pay, then healthcare could be cheaper. I tried to explain to him that we are in a capitalistic society that values profit more than human life. Because of this, our society allows doctors to make twice as much as Canadian doctors, and hospitals are all about shareholders, not about patients. Healthcare needs to be for sick people, not for the profit that it brings. Capitalism has perverted healthcare almost beyond redemption. When we get treatment, we only get the treatment that will bring the physician the most profit. Why? Because this is America. I may benefit from surgery, I may benefit from a simple procedure, but the physician who is in control of my care will choose based on his/her pocketbook. All will believe that the physician is indeed smart and successful. In the meantime, me the patient, will receive mediocre care that may or may not resolve my complaint. Cortisone shots instead of surgery says the doctor who does not perform surgery; carpal tunnel surgery says the surgeon who owns a surgery center. This is America, capitalism is applied to everything and in every way possible.
The RN insists that America has the best health care in the world. Of course, that is not the truth. I throw out the statistics on infant mortality rates in America. If you are non-white and in poverty, the infant mortality rate is so high in America, that it is comparable to third world country mortality rates. Someone on my left chimes in with, “well that’s the mother’s fault, they are always doing drugs and that is what kills the infant.” Oh my, what a sad thing to say and, so incredibly uninformed. I look at both of these individuals and we are having a great discussion, however, I suddenly see that their perceptions are limited only to what they do and see.
That is another American trait and it is horrible. We all believe that the truth is our truth, because no other reality exists, except the one that we live in.
