Obamacare Wins

I hate Obamacare, don't get me wrong.  The Supreme Court ruling is a bad one, in my opinion.  However there are some good things that MIGHT come out of it.  I think that people will be so upset over the cost of being forced to buy astronomically priced insurance, and pay HUGE taxes, that medical care will be forced to address unnecessary costs.  There is NO REASON for health care to bankrupt the country.

For years now I have railed against the expensive and unnecessary "sedation" costs.   The problems coming out of the insane policy of AMNESIA FOR ALL are many.  Cost is just the start of it.  It costs too much to have to pay anesthesia nurses to administer sedation.  These nurses think that they are equivalent in every way to doctors and are pushing hard to make even more money.  They already have a 6 figure salary!  How many people know that their little nurse who gives them amnesia and forces them to obey is making that kind of exhorbitant salary?  For that matter how many patients realize that the person in charge of their anesthesia is only a nurse? 

Then we have the cost of the "monitoring" the patient after their Versed injection.  The "tiers of care" whereby once the patient's brain has been disconnected by Versed, those same nurses now get more money.  Do the nurses themselves get more money or does the hospital just get to charge more and KEEP the money?  The same nurse, the same job, so why more money?  For some stupid "sedation?"  This must stop.

Why are we paying so many people to do the same job?  I had a one hour surgery and there were at least 18 people involved in my "care".  There should have been maybe 3 or 4.  The point is that we don't need all these people.  Even if most of my so-called caregivers only made 35-50 dollars an hour, with this many superfluous people, it adds up. 

This many people also makes it hard on the patient when they want to minimize medical intervention, like oh, decline Versed and general anesthetic.  I guarantee that no matter how many times the patient refuses or explains that they don't want the completely extraneous "sedation" there are so many people running in and out that it's easy for the medical people to claim that nobody told THEM.  The lure of sedated patients being what it is, these people will seize on any excuse to shoot up the patient.  It wouldn't surprise me if there weren't staff meetings discussing the tactics to use in order to facilitate Versed use. 

If we are going to force people to line the pockets of insurerers and be forced to pay huge taxes for medical care, then we can force salary caps on medical workers.  Especially the midlevel ones.  No nurse is worth what we are paying these anesthesia nurses.  We need to get them down around 80,000 or so.  This is a fine salary for most of us!   Doctors have taken it in the shorts with Medicare, Medicaid etc. and these advanced nurses need to feel some pain.  LOL  Like they will feel any pain even IF they get paid "only" 80,000. 

We need to cap the number of people involved in the patients care.  Floor nurses are fine, we need maybe some more of those, but we do not need more circulating nurses, those OR nurses and all the rest of them.  One nurse can handle the operation.  I know because that's how many there were on my last and AFFORDABLE surgery.  One OR nurse, an anesthesia nurse who was amenable to a Beir block without sedation or g/a and the doctor.  The PACU nurse was also the prep nurse.  Think about it, we cut out at least 14 people!!!!  We cut out sedation and general anesthetic and the savings were enormous!  My 15,000+ surgery was down to less than 5,000 with the new and improved surgery!  That's a TEN THOUSAND DOLLAR PLUS SAVINGS on the exact same surgery!  That aint chump change!

This new Obamacare law, if implimented without some cost savings is going to bankrupt the country.  We are already in bad shape and this law could be the final nail in the coffin.  We need to do away with the 'extra' charges for "tiers of care".  We need some serious rules or legislation about just WHEN sedation can be used as like I said it adds too much to the cost of health care without any benefit for the patient.  We need better reporting requirements to go along with this.  If an anesthesia nurse or physicians assistant is the one performing the procedures then there should be a SAVINGS attached to that.  It's not fair for patients to pay for a doctor, when a nurse or assistant is doing the procedure. 

While we are at it, informed consent is more important than ever.  The patients themselves will be looking for ways to save money.  I was.  My insurance carrier was very happy with me when I challenged some charges on my bill.  I saved them hundreds of dollars.  If there were some teeth in the informed consent laws and some REAL information in them, it will result in a lot less unnecessary money being spent on health care.  The government LOVES regulation and it LOVES information pamphlets, so this shouldn't be so hard to do.  The government can "standardize" informed consent.  We can have a 3 page document just for Versed.  See how many people want this sedation when they know the TRUTH about what it does and the SERIOUS side effects.  (Some of them permanent.)  Think of all the needless medical interventions that Obamacare can prevent.  Maybe it's not so bad after all.  If it means that we can rein in these overpaid ROGUE elements! 

I also want mandatory DRUG TESTING for medical workers and mental health screenings as well. After all these people have the opportunity to be more dangerous than an angry police officer with a gun!  I have to submit to random drug tests to continuously prove that I'm not a druggy!  How much more important is this assurance when we are talking about medical workers?  They have unlimited access to the good stuff for FREE!  Test them.  I have had dealings with more than a few medical people in the last few years and *I* swear that a goodly number of them appear to be suffering from "Narcissistic Personality Disorder."  We don't need these people involved with helpless trusting patients.  Maybe now with Obamacare we can begin to weed these people out.  He who pays the bills, rules.  Let's at least try to turn this Obamacare abomination to our favor.  Write your congressmen and senators at the state and federal level.  Let's get some strict REGULATIONS in place.  Let's 'share the pain' with the people who got us into this mess in the first place.