I have always carried health insurance as I am at risk for several diseases. I am lucky to have had good employment, which defrays this cost.

However, I can’t afford the costly PPO insurance plans, so I have lived through HMO hell. When I had cluster headaches a few years ago, my doctor wanted an MRI to “rule out serious problems” before starting me on a daily migraine medication. He showed me the letter Faxed back from the HMO when he asked for permission to perform the MRI: “Patient may be non-viable. Please wait 24 hours for possible event prior to re-submitting request.” In other words, they didn’t want to prevent my impending death and waste valuable dollars if I was just going to drop dead.

While my doctor and I laughed about it and then re-submitted the request 24 hours later when I’d proven I was a viable investment, I have used this story as a demonstration of what is wrong with healthcare – we have all the problems of a standardized system (long waits, difficulties with access, overtaxed clinicians) with none of the benefits (high access, improved prevention, and improved health care statistics).

I work in healthcare. I visit with people around the world – from those “bad” nations like Canada and the United Kingdom and Sweden where they have free access to healthcare. They haven’t noticed massive changes in economic status – but they have seen steady improvement in the overall health of their populace.

It’s time to act.

Rebecca Charlton
Castaic, CA