That emergency appendectomy happened when I was in my 20′s, very healthy, and I was in a 30 day window between jobs. I didn’t want to pay for Cobra. What could possibly happen to a healthy young woman in 30 days? Well, I found out!

I was not denied treatment. I had my appendix out within 6 hours. I worked out a payment plan with the hospital, and I paid it off. It took a couple years, but the hospital worked with me.

Most of the time I’ve had a personal physician to help me figure things out. What a blessing that is! A one-on-one relationship with a doctor who KNOWS you, wants the best for you, and a person you TRUST and are comfortable with.

I had one physician who really screwed up, so I found another (ob/gyn). I was free to do that, and I found an excellent ob/gyn with the help of my primary physician.

These experiences are soon to be history, if we get Universal healthcare.

I’m in the military healthcare system now. I don’t have a primary physician. When you have a problem, you get who you get, and it’s usually a P.A. If your problem (in the PA’s opinion) requires a Physician, it’s like a box of chocolates, but it’s the only option you have. Sometimes, you get lucky, and sometimes you don’t.

When my mammogram came up with a possible problem in each breast, it took 3 weeks to get the results that simply said I needed a biopsy in one, and a lumpectomy in the other.

When I had a biopsy on one breast, I told them that locals don’t work on me. They told me they’d give me enough for sure to numb me. I felt EVERYTHING, and it hurt like hell.

At least with the lumpectomy, I was under general anesthesia.

A friend in the same system had breast cancer, and a double mastectomy. Then she developed new symptoms. She was told it was psychosomatic, and they sent her to a phychologist. During that 6 months, precious time was lost. The bone cancer was accelerating like mad. What did the military system say? “We’re sorry. We made a mistake.”

You can’t sue the government, and this lady is dying now. She has 3 kids still in school. She found a hospital near Bethesda which has good results with her type of cancer. The military system agreed to send her there, but then they changed their minds. Too expensive, and not likely enough to work for the cost.

Universal Healthcare will make the military system look like the greatest plan in the world. If we let this pass, we are screwed!

I truly fear a nationalized system. Under the current system we couldn’t even qualify for respite care from the state because none of my children is mentally retarded, and we don’t make little enough to qualify for other services as well. I cannot imagine to what level of hell our family life would descend if my boys had to go off their meds to save the federal government some money. It would almost certainly break up our already-strained marriage.

Reducing the risk of getting a disease is a rather different thing. Of course the entire alternative medicine/herbal therapy industry claims to do this — virtually without evidence, yet it remains very popular (and highly lucrative).

Treatment of high cholesterol is probably the most easily given example of preventive medicine with a known benefit. But this benefit comes at very high cost per disease incident prevented. We as a society have said this is worthwhile (especially since others pay the brunt of the costs), and have seen longer lives because of it. But it surely has not saved money — quite the opposite.

Preventive care and maintenance can and does work well. But it only does so when people pay their own money for at least some (preferably a lot) of their own medical care. That gives them an incentive to change behavior if necessary. It also provides an incentive to find the doctor who will give the best long term care for the lowest price.

Unfortunately, Obama hates the idea of a person paying for his own care. He may even try to make it illegal. At that point, what preventive care has going for it will be completely destroyed.

James