Restart.

I have been working in a call center for just over six months. My job is to accept phone calls from people who have insurance from a relatively prominent insurance company. Having already been a supporter of Universal Health care, I can certainly say my new job has been enlightening. For one thing I will never get an HMO. My hope for the reinvention of this blog is to try to shed some light on the plight of our nation. The only industrialized nation without socialized medicine. Yes, I said  socialized.

Everyday I come home and unload my worst phone call of the day on my poor spouse. And so it begins...

Today, it was a poor young man who had thrown out his knee this Saturday. Today he had an appointment to see an Orthopedic specialist. Hobbling around on crutches. He was calling from his cell while sitting in the lobby of the specialists office. They were refusing to see him because there was no referral in place from his primary care doctor.

You see, when you have an HMO you can't just go see a doctor if you feel sick. You have to see the doctor that is named on your policy. If you see anyone besides your primary care doctor you have to have a referral. It takes up to three days to get a referral.  It can be expedited and then you can get a referral in a speedy 24-48 hours.

So here is the caller. In the lobby. A mere twenty feet away from the doctor who can help him. But he doctor was refusing to see him. Apparently they had some sort of issue with the Prominent Insurance Company for which I work. You see. The primary care doctor had agreed to issue an expedited referral for him, but the referral guy had gotten into a fender bender over his lunch break and therefore would not be back at the office to call us. The specialist, the caller, and I, myself, called them to try to get someone  else to issue the referral. No dice.

The call ended with the caller "disconnecting" while I was calling our internal team that intervenes in cases when immediate care is needed. Once I called them I learned that they do not take my type of call. They only take Medicare calls.

It's red tape. It's jumping through hoops. It's squeezing blood from a rock. But there is something fundamentally wrong with our health care system. From the providers to the insurance companies to the people not seeking care because of all the nonsense and thus getting sicker and sicker.

I'll consider it my job to keep telling these stories until someone hears them.. 

The Coffee Party

Last Saturday I attended the first meeting of the local chapter of the Coffee Party. I signed the mailing list paper, so technically I am a newly minted member of the Coffee Party. So what does this mean to me? It means I want to find other Americans who are in my situation, who have been directly affected by the current Healthcare situation and economy. When we went around and introduced ourselves, everyone there seemed very involved. As in watching the news, following the webpages and headlines, collecting soundbites from Glenn Beck, Hannity and Limbaugh, passing them around and rolling eyes. Sure there was definitely an undercurrent of dissatisfaction at our current situation, but as far as I could tell I was the only one there representing a true and tangeable product of the system. I do not disparage any one for where they are, but I do wonder where are the others like me. Where are the people who have been wronged by the healthcare system? Where are the folks who can't find work because they are over qualified or under degreed? Where are they?

Another question that came to mind while I was there and which was raised by others present, is this: Since when is it considered subversive to engage in civil discussion? Why can't we ask questions and expect those questions to be answered in a civil and logical manner, rather than an emotional free for all that usually accompanies certain buzz words. Words like Universalized Healthcare, for example. What's the big deal? Why is it such a gasp-inducer to use this phrase? But it's SOCIALISM!! some would say. To paraphrase the woman at the meeting who harkened from Poland, "Unless someone has actually lived under socialism, they have no business calling anything by that name,"

To the best of my understanding, universal healthcare means nothing more or less than a tax supported system which everyone pays into and gets to take part in. How is that different from, say, the postal system or the highway system for that matter? If I am missing something, then by all means enlighten me. Please. I am angry, yes, but I am here for the conversation. I want to know what you think.

So lets do coffee.

http://www.coffeepartyusa.com/