Nikki from Breckenridge Colorado

I think we should only have health care for catastrophic illness, not every day maintenance. However, everyday maintenance should be a 100% tax credit. Likewise, doctors should be able to have a 100% tax credit for uncollectable medical services after 3 years.

For example, After 6 months of orthopedic visits, and physical therapy for painful feet, I went to a free local foot seminar and learned there was a night splint available to stretch the fascia. I went to a medical supply house to purchase the splint and was told I needed a prescription. I called the Dr. office and asked if I could pick up a script, and was told I needed to come in for an appt. When I went to the appt a few weeks later, they would not see me until they took another full battery of foot X-rays, which they did approx 1-2 months earlier. The doctor in all this time, never even touched my foot and he was/is the head of orthopedic surgery at a major hospital.

This entire ordeal for the script, after the already 6 months of PT cost my insurance co. about $1,000 and now the splint is available online for abut $60 without a script.

See footsmart.com and go to the NIGHT SPLINT page.

Incidentally, with the internet, I discovered my condition is called Ledderhose’s syndrome and when it is on the hand it is called Dupytren’s syndrome. I had the classic large nodule on my foot and this high priced specialist never named the condition, nor treated it properly with the splint. I am now about 90% symptom free. The doc wanted to do surgery and remove all the fascia from my foot.

If there was no insurance for all these incidentals and I could have written them off 100%, the entire system would have been better off.

The medical profession raped the insurance company.

Corporatism is alive and well in the USA. Our elected officials retire as multi millionaires (or more) when their salaries average $174,000 per year). Never let people talk about the USA being a Democracy. It was founded as a republic and now functions as a Fascist State. (whether corporations run the government or government runs the corporations you end up with fascism).

Best wishes in your good work.

We are constantly manipulated by the self-serving, self-interested and greedy contingent of what passes for the “human race” via our sleazy media and advertizing industries which want us to buy this, that and the other pill to fix problems we didn’t even know we had!! And they tell us our “health” insurance will pay for them (maybe)!!! Fat chance.

Thank you SO much for your courage & your enlightenment!! I’m in the trenches of “Health” Care every day as a hospital discharge planner and am constantly in a quandary when people ask me “how much is it going to cost me”. I call pharmacies & fax scripts to them but they can’t tell me what the copays or coveragees are until they run them through the computer & fill them — formularies change on an almost daily basis!! We can’t tell people ahead of time what costs to expect because pharmacists can’t tell us & so people go to get their scripts filled & then have to say they can’t afford it & don’t get it & then end up back in the hospital for “non-compliance”!!!! This also totally screws the pharmacies because of the waste of time of having to restock and account for dispensed medications which were not picked up and paid for.

Because the Insurance Companies change policies on a daily basis and have infiltrated Medicare & Medicaid and formularies change daily & no one knows who has any answers because the agenda of the “big honchos” in charge is to deny care in order to preserve profits. PNHP says 60 people per day die because of not being insured and being under insured — don’t know where that statistic comes from, but my 20 years as an RN says it makes sense to me!

So, THANK YOU!!! THANK YOU for speaking out from a position of being an “insider” from the Dark Side who has “seen the Light”!!!

Equally illogical is the system of the insured paying exhorbitant amounts of money to for profit insurance company middlemen who, unlike doctors and pharmaceutical companies, contribute absolutely nothing to healthcare. While administration will be necessary, there is no good reason for these for profit middlemen to be there.

The nature of healthcare is such that for profit private insurance is not feasible. If it were, at some point in the past 80 years a reliable system would have developed. Instead we have a system for those under 65 that continues to deteriorate and fail. Healthcare should be in the province of the public domain and government where profits are not an issue. We need HR676 Medicare for all. Medicare is a uniquely American system that works.