I’m Human
Last week Karen brought up a very good point when commenting on my blog (hope you don't mind my reposting). She said, "I believe it is the cost of the health care workers that have driven up costs. Let's say we pay you less than what you think you are worth so we can do more tests on patients. Would you work for minimum wage so a homeless person can get a better meal, CT scan, X-rays, MRI's because they sprained their ankle walking..."
Now, I honestly have to admit that I have mixed feelings about it. In one respect I want to say that I would take a pay cut, but in another, I am not sure that I would/could. I would honestly like to help every single person in the world if I could, and maybe someday I will. However, I must admit I'm human and part of me feels selfish for saying this, but with as much money and time that I am spending on my education, I feel as though I should/will hopefully be able to live a comfortable life. Granted, I have come to the conclusion that my loans probably won't even be paid off by the time my future children are in college, but I will be happy as long as my salary eventually pays it off. Now I do feel that it is ridiculous how much some health care providers are paid, and I find it even more bewildering as to how the people who spend the most time with patients (such as CNA's, etc.) get paid so little.
I think that health care workers drive up the cost of care, not only because of the requested wages and benefits, but also due to their negligence. There are so many illnesses, complications, etc., that occurs in hospitals that could have 100 percent been avoided if it weren't for staff negligence. Then there are all of the tests that are run to rule out problems that one slightly more expensive test could have diagnosed-in the end you spend more money trying to avoid that one test. For example, in the past two weeks, I have been to the doctor three times and had 12 tests run, one of which was run because someone misread the order, and they still don't know what's wrong.
Now, I'm not a doctor, but I'm pretty sure that if I had been given an imaging test (which they will probably have to do anyway now) then I would know what was going on. On top of this I had been prescribed a total of four medications because my doctor was so certain that my test results would read one thing or another. I have been patient about it because I understand that mistakes are made in health care, but if I didn't understand everything that was going on (like most patients), I would have freaked out a long time ago. However, I'm not happy about the $1,000+ I'm estimating I will have to pay now on top of the $300+ I've spent on unnecessary medication.
There definitely needs to be some changes in health care. The entire structure of the system is flawed. I don't know if there is one area of health care that is even remotely close to perfect in structure and function.