Speaking Freely airs 9am to 10am on Saturdays. Jim and I will be discussing health care reform with Albuquerque-based doctor Torre Near, MD. Dr. Near recently wrote a great opinion piece on health care that appeared in the Albuquerque Journal.
Tune in to the show and feel free to give us a call at 505-265-1550. It is sure to be an interesting discussion.
I have recently become disabled and now know what it means to be on Medicare. All of my previous health care providers no longer except Medicare because they cannot get paid. Many have been in the situation that to continue would put them out of business. Try to find a dentist who takes Medicare or Medicaid, good luck.
How would you feel about having your brother have terminal cancer just because the doctor did not want to order an MRI to find out why he had been in chronic pain for over a year. This physician was the chief of staff at a rural health care hospital and every month he had to attend meetings where the first order of business was to discuss how much had to be written off for patients without health care and how they were a year behind in getting paid by Medicare or Medicaid. So every time my brother went to see the doctor he got out his perscription pad and wrote another RX for pain medication. When the pain got so bad after a year that pain mediation would not work he told him to go to the only other clinic in town as he could not help him. The doctor at the other clinic in this town immediately ordered the MRI and the hospital had to run the test. Within 24 hours my brother found out he had advanced liver cancer that had now spread to his spine and he was diagnosed as terminal. He is 53 years old. It happened in part because he was self employeed and had no health insurance. I unknowingly recommended my physican who was the chief of staff at the hospital to my brother, not knowing that I had health insurance and received care that would not be available to my brother. He has lived for over a year with his cancer, if you can call it living. Every time he has to start a new medication he can’t get it as it is not preapproved or not on the list. They had to change his pain mediation as his cancer advanced and the pharmacist called him to tell him he was sorry but Medicaid would not pay for it. How would you like to be in excruciating pain for several days until some person decided if you would get medicine? How long would you want to go on living like that?
THE WITHOLDING OF MEDICAL TEST AND TREATMENT FOR MEDICARE AND MEDICAID PATIENTS TO SAVE THE TAX PAYERS MONEY IS KILLING PEOPLE AND MAKING IT IMPOSSIBLE FOR MANY TO EVEN FIND A DOCTOR THAT WILL ACCEPT THESE PROGRAMS. The exhisting Medicare system is disfunctional for the same reason all governmental programs are a mess. It is always open for crooks and unscrupulous people to find a way to steal. Look at the news and the newspaper in New Mexico. The corruption being revealed only rolls out when it is election time.
Don’t think what happened to my brother or myself can’t happen to you or someone you love. I worked for 35 years and now I cannot even get dental work done or get my cataract operated on as the insurance companies say it is not bad enough yet. When I cannot see to read they will see if Medicare and my supplemental insurance might pay for it.