As some of you know I have a daughter who has disabilities. She's 22 years old and has had multiple surgeries due to a brain injury she received at birth. She also takes several medications for seizures, etc. For several years now she has been on the Medicaid program that pays for all medical bills and prescription drugs she needs. I was very hesitant about getting her on this program but several years back when I found myself temporarily unemployed and unable to provide her with private insurance I caved into the government sales pitch. I don't think I've regretted anything so much in my entire life because now, even if I had the option for private health care she would not be allowed on the plan due to her age and disabilities. She's already been rejected by two.

The doctors that sign up for the Medicaid program are often the ones who graduated at the bottom of the class in medical school. Those who stay on the program are the ones who have pretty much proven they lack anything resembling the skills of a professional physician. My daughter has been “assigned” to two different clinics where no one spoke the English language and there is only one hospital in all of Oklahoma that Medicaid will cover with regard to my daughter's brain injury. That hospital is the government owned and financed OU School of Medicine. There are other, much better hospitals here but they are not required to get on the Medicaid program and choose not to, obviously because Medicaid pays a LOT less than private insurance carriers do.

Twice now my daughter has come close to losing her life because the doctors Medicaid provided her have refused to see her when she needed immediate attention. Twice she has nearly become a horrible statistic of medical malpractice. The first time I didn't even consider getting an attorney, but the last time I did and this is what I was told. If I filed a suit against the doctors at the government run hospital I would first have to get permission from the state of Oklahoma to do so. If the state approved and I won the case I would risk losing her Medicaid insurance. So what they were telling me was that because my daughter was on the government run medical program she was forced to receive less than quality medical care that has twice nearly cost her life and if we sued the doctors who were incompetent then she’d be kicked off the program and have no insurance.

For a while we had my daughter’s prescriptions filled at the Wal-mart pharmacy near our house. But it got to the point where it was a major pain to go there. The girl behind the counter was incompetent and despite having three cash registers could never bring herself to help more than one person at a time. So, if there was an issue with someone’s insurance everyone had to wait in line until it was resolved; and there was ALWAYS an issue with the insurance. Generally speaking it took anywhere from 30 minutes to 3 hours to get prescriptions filled. So, several months ago I started taking her prescriptions over to the local privately owned pharmacy and the difference was amazing. Ten minutes is the longest I’ve ever had to wait and they never seem to have major insurance “glitches”. But today, the same day an article comes out in the paper saying that Wal-mart was going to go to the $4.00 prescription plan in Oklahoma, I received a letter from DHS informing me that Medicaid was now going to require my daughter’s prescriptions to be filled at Wal-mart.

The government has been testing this program out on people like my daughter for years and this how they have learned to run it. I had a sit down discussion with the lead case manager at the Department of Human Services here awhile back and she says that all states have been hashing over how they will put into effect a similar program for the general public. I was under the mistaken impression that if we ever went to a government health program for the public they would do whatever they could to bring in more qualified doctors and that all hospitals and pharmacies would be included in it. But make no mistake; that will NOT be the case. The most sought after hospitals and doctors in their fields will still not find their names on the list of government paid physicians and good pharmacies will not either.

This is the kind of medical care that everyone in the U.S. will receive if we agree to a government owned and operated healthcare plan. Is this what you want for you and your family?

staying the course is not the answer any idiot can say what they don't want,but the system is broke,and it won't be fixed till everybody is covered,and american businesses can compete on the global market!

There is no doubt about the health system is broke. But show me in the constitution where every one is authorized goverment health insurance. I want the goverment out of my life as much as possible.

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An informed voter scares the Goverment lackeys.

An American first and always a Conservative.

You could argue that health is too important to be left to the market. It is unfair the poor can't afford it. It is a merit good under consumed at a the level of the market. You say that private health care has the best doctors, this is because the good doctors pick the highest paid jobs. If 80% of health care market was funded publically then this would be of much smaller significance.

Personally I would have healthcare free at the point of delivery, delivered by private contractors. Or failing that simply nationalise the hospitals.

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Remember that you are an Englishman, and have consequently won first prize in the lottery of life.
- Cecil Rhodes

All that's necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing.
-Edmund Burke

Kix there is a vast array of choices between National healthcare and the present system. Your situation sounds like an extreme case. I am not quite sure what to make of it.I work at a Regional Healthcare Center that accepts all patients private and medicare/medicaid. We receive awards for being in the top 100 regional medical facilities and treat anyone and everyone with no varience in quality according to payor.

I view our present system as extreme socialized medicine. In other words a few people are paying for the majority that have no insurance. I often have read people speaking as though there are only two choices.This is not the case and lobbyist want you to believe it is. Medicine is a giant industry and a lucrative one.

At the very large hospital where I work every patient is treated the same and unless reviewing the chart one would not know medicaid/private ins./no insurance.I do not have time now(getting ready for friends coming to watch OSU vs michigan) but at some point would like to start a thread on all of our options and the pros and cons. I am sorry for your daughter but changes in the current system do not have to lead to medical care as you describe. In fact current medical care policy may be the root cause for the poor care your daughter is receiving.

I have no doubt that I have as much a chance of getting quality healthcare for my daughter through the government as I have of winning the lottery (which I don't play) and being able to pay for her healthcare out of pocket for the rest of her natural life.

I can't find where anybody is saying stay the course on the current healthcare system. But I don't want the goverment taking over our healthcare system. Just look at how many people are coming from Canada to have elective procedures done in the US because of the long delays in their own country.

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An informed voter scares the Goverment lackeys.

An American first and always a Conservative.