The Doctor is Out

Healthcare in this country is a complete travesty. It truly has become an oxymoron. There is not much about “care” or “health” left, but more of a bureaucratic exercise in herding the masses through a dizzying maze of red tape and flaming hoops to get us absolutely nowhere with no care whatsoever. This has been my experience, unfortunately. There is so much injustice in this world and I feel blessed to live in a country where there are hospitals in every town and the plague, polio, tuberculosis and other ailments of the past have become eradicated, more or less, but the ridiculousness of getting in to see a doctor for a mere “well visit” has become an event resulting in futility. It seems that the only way I can get to a doctor is to become so very ill that it is absolutely necessary for me to have emergency care, where it is against the law for them to turn me away. Of course, I then receive a sizeable bill in the mail weeks later when insurance denies coverage of the visit. All of it is wrong. All wrong. On all levels. Wrong, wrong, wrong. In the definition of the word “insurance” are the words, “guarantee of compensation” and “provision of protection,” but frankly, all I get is a bunch of dropped calls, astronomical bills, letters of mumbo jumbo and when the moment of truth comes, where all seems to be settled, I am so close to seeing the doctor that I can smell the antiseptic, the crinkly white paper gets pulled right out from underneath my lily white …well, you know. Can life be more comical? Really?

If I hear the words, “You are no longer eligible” from one more insurance phone operator Gestapo one more time, I think I may go completely postal and become one of those ranting, raving people who show up at a call center demanding rights and compensation, only to be thrown in a padded wagon by the men in the white jackets. Hey, but in that case, at least I would get to see a doctor! How can I no longer be eligible when absolutely NOTHING has changed since when they said I was, in fact, eligible? Why this keeps occurring over and over and over and over again astounds me utterly.

I don’t pretend to know everything about the politics that surround nationalized or socialized care versus private care or if those are even the proper terms. In fact, I know very little. I do understand that there are abuses to the system and health care providers, doctors, nurses, technicians, and all the rest deserve the highest salaries for the services they render. My mother was a nurse for twenty some odd years. I have friends who are nurses and I have acquaintances with a doctor or two. They work hard and do not deserve to have their services belittled, their knowledge taken for granted, and they should be given their due for their work. Should the system be so difficult, however? Should it be so ridiculously expensive? Accidents happen to the best of us, more often than not, we are paying insurance, yet still, somehow unprepared. What middle-class American has $60,000 stashed away in the event that they need their appendix out? Or gallbladder? Or worse? More often than not, the insurance companies that we pay to protect us in these cases, end up as more of a hindrance, giving us headaches on top of it all refusing to pay for any reason under the sun. I am not asking for a tutorial in healthcare and insurance so if you see errors in my logic (which I am sure most will), please refrain from enlightening me. Bottom line? Every hard working American citizen especially those of us who sacrifice to stay home and take care of our husbands and children should not be penalized and given second rate (or what seems like fifth or sixth rate) handouts masked as “care.” My response to all of this? Those immortal words, “It’s just not fair!”
Well, I was always told that life isn’t fair. Let the battle rage on.

Your Turn

I have two sets of children- the ones I have to deal with alone and the ones they become when their father is home.

The children I deal with on a daily basis can be cute and sweet, but let’s face reality. Kids are kids and they aren’t going to be perfect all the time. Sometimes it seems I get the less than perfect children when I am alone with them. I know they love me and their acting up with me just shows that they know I love them unconditionally and they are comfortable with me, their mother. That is as it should be, but sometimes, I want to be to the unfamiliar one that they run to all excited because they haven’t seen me in days. I want to be the one for whom they are scrupulously well behaved. I want to be the fun parent and I do try to be, but when I am home alone with a one year old and a three year old for days and days on end without break excepting the hours between midnight and four in the morning, give or take, it starts to wear on a mother’s nerves! Things that crack up any other outside observer become increasingly annoying. The cute little comments that come out of my daughter’s mouth at nine at night when she is supposed to be in bed are no longer funny. My son’s screeching that sounds to me what I can only imagine a pterodactyl might have sounded, is no lounger amusing, but penetratingly shrill and needs to cease before it begins!

We are running into the tenth day of Daddy’s Trip. He was home briefly last night and has a day trip today, but should be home tonight to stay for six days and it’s a good thing. I am getting worn down and I need to see the other set of children. My husband’s set of children. They are funny and sweet and crack me up. Why? Because when Daddy is home and they act up, he gets to deal with it!

Here’s to holding my breathe until nightfall…