Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Some recent experience with government health insurance.

Although, I doubt that the recent swine flu fears will amount to much of anything, I have been asked to write prescriptions for Tamiflu by many people in the last several days. Despite our conversation about how this flu only produced mild symptoms, some people remained very worried and would only feel satisfied if I wrote them a prescription. Those who had private insurance found pharmacies that had this drug in stock, and obtained it. Those who had government insurance required a doctor's authorization prior to approving the coverage of this drug. People could chose to pay full price and still obtain the drug, but few would ever do this. In practical terms, this meant that when someone couldn't get a commonly used anti-viral, I would have to call the insurance agency to argue the necessity of this prescription. By the time I was alerted of this problem, nearly all the pharmacies in NYC ran out of Tamiflu. I was told that even with authorization, the patient would simply not be able to obtain this drug. How is that for an effective government health policy? Welcome to rationing.

I also want to add that these prescriptions were for those individuals who were worried about being recently exposed to the flu and they were for preventive purposes. I have not yet seen widespread flu symptoms in the NYC area.

Again, I would still like to comfort those panicking that the swine flu in US has produced only mild symptoms and there is no need at this time to be any more concerned about this flu than you were about the flu last year. However, I also think that those on Medicaid and Medicare got a really crummy deal in NYC this week. For a detailed description of flu symptoms and pathophysiology, see my post below. Consider this story if you have high expectations regarding government assistance and government management in any field. Whether that field is medicine, banking, automotive, education, or housing.

5 comments:

Sharku said...

You can count on this swine flu thing to fasttrack the health care boondoggle on us,

Left Coast Rebel said...

Just like Sharku here, I wouldn't doubt if the Obamanation did use this flu as another excuse to ram through socialized medicine....

Anonymous said...

Its the "insurance-based" discrimination.

Ex-Dissident said...

I wouldn't put it past this administration to use any means possible to get their way. Regarding this swine flu, I really doubt it will be much of a crisis. The cases in the US have led to mild symptoms. The administration will ram socialization of medicine down our throats simply because they have the 51% of votes.
My point with this story is that when you have a medical system that supposedly takes care of everyone for "free", it will only care adequately for some. In communist Russia, the political class would get the benefit of this system. Here it would be no different. Another tradition that developed there, was the necessity of bribing your government worker, and in this case, specifically the doctor. We would all have the illusion of having health care, but if you wanted treatment you would still need to pay for it. My guess is that "free" medical care would be much more expensive for the patient, than the system we have in place now.

Anonymous said...

Ex-Dissident said...

I wouldn't put it past this administration to use any means possible to get their way.

Just like Nixon and Watergate!
When did swine flu appear in Mexico?
Perhaps February or March?
If Obama is so effective orchestrating something like this in such a short time to get his health care reforms rolling he must be as amazing as his most fervent fans believe he is.