Two issues have arisen lately, pointing to the fact that the system is even more broken. I remember a few years ago when there was a lack of influenza vaccines and a troubling lack of tetanus immunization serum. Well, that is not all that is in shortage. Over the past few years, I have personally seen a shortage of certain brands of stimulant medications and the cipro shortage while the anthrax poisonings were prominent after 9/11. A few years ago, when I worked at a local RTC, there was also a shortage of haldol tablets. While I did not see any negative effect in any one patient's treatment, I do remember that we scrambled to make the supply stretch to accommodate those in need.
Lately, as I have been picking up shifts at UMMC, I have noticed rather frequent notices from the pharmacy that supplies of certain medications were in shortage, particularly such medications as cytarabine and norepinephrine. While none of my patients were affected, since I work in child psych, these two medications are vital, the former for cancer treatment and the latter for shock. People could die from the lack of these medications. Whatever the cause, this time, of the shortages of medications, this is a dire situation within health care.
The other that continues to haunt the US health care system is the issue of the uninsured, the numbers of which continue to climb. This has arisen at a time that Republican legislators are grandstanding over whether to continue the Medicare program and Social Security.
The issue came home to a middle-aged man from Gastonia, NC, who lacked health insurance because he lost his job, but was at a loss to resume working to be able to get health insurance because he was in too much pain to work. So, this man wrote out a note that he presented to a teller at a local bank that he was robbing the bank of one dollar. The man had no weapon. Now, he sits in prison, getting food, clothing, shelter, and that vital health care that he couldn't get as a law-abiding citizen.
So, that comes around to this ill-advised plan to get rid of Medicare, which has been in effect for more than forty years. Very few companies provide any type of health insurance coverage for their retirees and very few could afford to pay for costly private health insurance out of pocket. Even a $6400 subsidy for the poorest would fail to provide any usable insurance. Are we all to become like that middle-aged man in NC? Is that the only way the Republicans would be able to let those of us who have worked for 30 to 50 years be dumped out of our workplaces, with no Social Security and no health insurance of any sort? Would they leave their own parents in that condition?
Personally, I see no other solution except to continue the safety net of Social Security and Medicare. Everyone in our society has come to rely on these programs and companies operate to cut people off from retirement plans and health insurance, except for what is provided by the federal government.
Keep in mind, folks, that the showdown is coming in August. That is when there is no more money to cover the refusal of the Party of No to increase the debt limit. My mother will be one of those opening her mailbox, only to find a note from the Social Security Administration that checks can't be paid, starting this month, due to government default. Looking at it, I think we all know who to blame. And if it takes all of this nation's seniors going to the local bank to get arrested, as above, or to have a massive sit-in at the National Mall, so be it. Whatever happens will be bigger than anything the Tea Partyers could devise.
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