The health care debate makes me feel like hiding under a rock. I am against a single payer insurance system for efficiency reasons and because I don’t want to pay for someone’s abortion or other morally problematic procedures with my tax dollars. But I am a recipient of government healthcare as a dependent of a member of the military, and it hasn’t been all bad.
Granted, there are not many people who love Tricare, the military insurance. But there are also not many people who opt out of Tricare unless the dependent spouse works for a place offering a better plan, and there are a lot of retirees who prefer it. I complain about long wait times and subpar care, but I haven’t yet opted out.
Here is what we get with nearly costfree government care:
- Tired military doctors and nurses. There are a few good ones in the system who are beneficiaries of the free education, but they seem to drop out and join civilian life as soon as they can. My worst experience was my last delivery when my baby was nearly born on the floor because the staff was unprepared. I happened to be triaged at shift change, and apparently no one was checking the lady having her sixth kid. Guess they thought I could do it alone. One of the attending residents had never seen a natural birth.
- Trouble getting claims filed: During another pregnancy, I had to resubmit a claim for maternity care over and over because the civilian doctor didn’t want to reclassify the visit, but Tricare would only honor the claim if it billed a certain way.
- No continuity of care. I am constantly repeating our medical history. Blessedly, we don’t have any chronic problems that require special attention.
- Long wait times. When a trip to the ER is free, people take advantage of it. On our last trip for stitches, I was glad I had the GermX with us because everyone in the waiting room was there with the flu. Maybe because of the Swine flu, people are anxious, but didn’t you used to just sit at home and wait for the flu to be over? Unless you’re dehydrated, do you really need to see a doctor to be told you have the flu and to get a prescription for Motrin? The system is abused because it’s free.
- Long wait times to see a specialist. Apparently this has gotten better, but you still have to jump through hoops to see the kind of dr you need to see. And now there's a bill proposing cuts to the amount Tricare reimburses civilian doctors, which mean fewer will accept Tricare and fewer appointments will be available.
If you don’t mind waiting for appointments, for prescriptions to be filled, for test results to be returned, and you don’t care if your health care providers are grumpy and treat you as a number, you won’t mind government healthcare. There’s a part of me that feels like health care has become too luxurious anyway. When the private hospitals offer labor suites with fancy coffeemakers and gourmet champagne dinners after baby is born, and ultrasounds are ordered up every month, but people still sue their doctors when their babies are born with disabilities, you don’t wonder that the insurance business costs keep going up, and malpractice coverage keeps going up.
But isn’t there a better way to control the costs without turning them over to the government?
