State of the healthcare system in America: Let's discuss why it's failing

Raymond Price4 said:Of course people are flooding the ER, because you can't get an appointment for basically anything in a reasonable timeframe anymore.

A suspicious mole?
General practitioner: grab a referral and wait a few months
Let’s just assume for a second that the mole is malignant—what kind of damage are we looking at after waiting months for a checkup?

The Student Gynecology Clinic in downtown: unless you're actively bleeding or running a 104 fever, you need to book ahead. Expect a month-long wait.

Okay, sure, if a girl isn't bleeding and doesn't have a massive fever, maybe it's just some ovarian inflammation or something else that isn't critical *right now*, but could become a crisis or a chronic issue in a month. Or maybe it won't, but why should she have to walk around in pain for a month waiting for help?

Exactly. I'm with you on this one.

Kate Collins67 said:@ ruggedscout91
Look, let's be real here—everyone knows that famous faces get treated faster and better everywhere else. So why on earth would we expect anything different when it comes to the US healthcare system? 🤷

The issue is she didn't go to a private clinic. She went to the very institution we all fund with our taxes, yet we still find ourselves waiting behind everyone else in line.
Furthermore, why is it that during major surgeries—say, an imminent pelvic organ collapse involving the small intestine due to a massive myoma that they failed to diagnose early—a patient is forced to endure ten days of testing? They could simply admit the patient to that same facility to run those tests. Is it really necessary to travel to a major General Hospital from a small town just for that? Not everyone lives in Los Angeles, Miami, or Chicago. We end up traveling for 932 miles at least ten days. It’s absurd. And what if a small intestine ruptures during those long journeys? One less American. A convenient solution for the masses.

Similarly, the role of public healthcare needs some clarification. I once worked in a public health institution in another country. In America, I fail to recognize any meaningful role for public health beyond promoting subpar vaccines for Hepatitis B or certain flu viruses. Preventive care is practically non-existent.

Private gynecological practices have essentially hollowed out primary care, and quality has plummeted as a result. How does that happen? Even the most trivial ailments become massive systemic problems in a setup where the goal is to bill for services rather than actually cure patients. How can a standard color Doppler ultrasound fail to detect a 20 cm myoma?

ruggedscout91 said:The issue is she didn't go to a private clinic. She went to the very institution we all fund with our taxes, yet we still find ourselves waiting behind everyone else in line.
Furthermore, why is it that during major surgeries—say, an imminent pelvic organ collapse involving the small intestine due to a massive myoma that they failed to diagnose early—a patient is forced to endure ten days of testing? They could simply admit the patient to that same facility to run those tests. Is it really necessary to travel to a major General Hospital from a small town just for that? Not everyone lives in Los Angeles, Miami, or Chicago. We end up traveling for 932 miles at least ten days. It’s absurd. And what if a small intestine ruptures during those long journeys? One less American. A convenient solution for the masses.

Similarly, the role of public healthcare needs some clarification. I once worked in a public health institution in another country. In America, I fail to recognize any meaningful role for public health beyond promoting subpar vaccines for Hepatitis B or certain flu viruses. Preventive care is practically non-existent.

Private gynecological practices have essentially hollowed out primary care, and quality has plummeted as a result. How does that happen? Even the most trivial ailments become massive systemic problems in a setup where the goal is to bill for services rather than actually cure patients. How can a standard color Doppler ultrasound fail to detect a 20 cm myoma?

Let’s get one thing straight: not everyone is actually paying. It's the people working who pay, and even then, it’s not even them—it’s the employers paying on their behalf.
The average American barely contributes anything to the healthcare system, yet they expect the world from it.
Just look at the math: if you take an average US salary of maybe $3,000—$2000 let's say about $500—$333 goes toward health insurance premiums every single month.

Even if I grab the highest possible number, say $1,000—though most people are definitely contributing way less—that means in one year, you're looking at $4000 over ten years, that's $120,000... $0.00 so over a 40-year career, we're talking roughly $480,000.$0.00

I was just reading that one year of dialysis can cost around $150,000. $0.00 So, if that patient worked their entire life, they might cover about three years of dialysis themselves, and someone else is stuck footing the bill for the rest...
Most people have absolutely no clue what the actual price tag is for any kind of medical treatment—and don't even get me started on the cost of quality care.

ruggedscout91 said:The issue is she didn't go to a private clinic. She went to the very institution we all fund with our taxes, yet we still find ourselves waiting behind everyone else in line.
Furthermore, why is it that during major surgeries—say, an imminent pelvic organ collapse involving the small intestine due to a massive myoma that they failed to diagnose early—a patient is forced to endure ten days of testing? They could simply admit the patient to that same facility to run those tests. Is it really necessary to travel to a major General Hospital from a small town just for that? Not everyone lives in Los Angeles, Miami, or Chicago. We end up traveling for 932 miles at least ten days. It’s absurd. And what if a small intestine ruptures during those long journeys? One less American. A convenient solution for the masses.

Similarly, the role of public healthcare needs some clarification. I once worked in a public health institution in another country. In America, I fail to recognize any meaningful role for public health beyond promoting subpar vaccines for Hepatitis B or certain flu viruses. Preventive care is practically non-existent.

Private gynecological practices have essentially hollowed out primary care, and quality has plummeted as a result. How does that happen? Even the most trivial ailments become massive systemic problems in a setup where the goal is to bill for services rather than actually cure patients. How can a standard color Doppler ultrasound fail to detect a 20 cm myoma?

Look, I personally have about ten different pre-op exams to run through every single day. Now, just imagine if I tried to admit all ten of those people to the hospital every day—it's impossible! Usually, I only have a maximum of eight beds available for all internal medicine cases, and sometimes I'm down to just three. You simply cannot meet everyone's demands.

If they think it's just a myoma, then there is absolutely no reason to be hospitalized just for pre-operative testing. If someone didn't catch an appendicitis, that has nothing to do with a myoma.

I get it, there’s a social component here, and there are real social issues at play, but a hospital isn't the place to go solving those kinds of problems.
Don't come asking me where else they should go to solve them, because you might as well ask me where an unemployed person is supposed to find a job. I don't know.

Look, here’s how I handle it: first off, I make sure I’m setting aside enough for my retirement and health insurance. For the first part of my retirement savings, I put away 15%, and then there's the second part where I'm required to contribute, so that's another 5%. On top of all that, I have basic health coverage, but I also pay extra for supplemental insurance, which runs me about $43 every single month. Honestly, thank God I actually signed up for it—if I hadn't, I would've gone totally broke. I really needed it last year, and I definitely need it again this year. Plus, I’ve had to shell out for private tests too—some things were covered by a referral, some I paid for myself, some EEG tests, you name it. If you counted every single ailment I've dealt with and what it cost just to see my primary care doctor for prescriptions I absolutely cannot stop taking, I’d be penniless. So, on top of all those deductions, I’m still paying out of pocket for private visits and even some medications. To top it all off, I urgently need a gynecological exam. Let me tell you, if I call one of our local hospitals: the wait time is like a month and a half! What am I supposed to do? I need this done within a week. Should I head to the emergency gynecological clinic, go to a private doctor, or is there something else?

And another thing: all my business should have been wrapped up within two weeks, instead of how they usually drag things out through the DB—and we all know damn well why that happens.

Brandon Newman95 said:Look, here’s how I handle it: first off, I make sure I’m setting aside enough for my retirement and health insurance. For the first part of my retirement savings, I put away 15%, and then there's the second part where I'm required to contribute, so that's another 5%. On top of all that, I have basic health coverage, but I also pay extra for supplemental insurance, which runs me about $43 every single month. Honestly, thank God I actually signed up for it—if I hadn't, I would've gone totally broke. I really needed it last year, and I definitely need it again this year. Plus, I’ve had to shell out for private tests too—some things were covered by a referral, some I paid for myself, some EEG tests, you name it. If you counted every single ailment I've dealt with and what it cost just to see my primary care doctor for prescriptions I absolutely cannot stop taking, I’d be penniless. So, on top of all those deductions, I’m still paying out of pocket for private visits and even some medications. To top it all off, I urgently need a gynecological exam. Let me tell you, if I call one of our local hospitals: the wait time is like a month and a half! What am I supposed to do? I need this done within a week. Should I head to the emergency gynecological clinic, go to a private doctor, or is there something else?

Well, I went ahead and ran the numbers for you—roughly, at least.
Do the math: figure out your age and how much longer you expect to be around. Now, imagine if tomorrow you suddenly ended up needing dialysis—could you actually afford that if you had never contributed a single cent to the healthcare system? If you hadn't, you'd be stuck paying the full, brutal price for treatment right now. Believe me, you aren't that wealthy—and honestly, neither are you nor the vast majority of people in this country.

And listen, you're assuming you're the one paying into the basic health insurance, but I'm pretty sure your employer handles that part, not you—meaning it isn't being deducted directly from your take-home pay. Correct me if I'm wrong on that.
What actually comes out of your own pocket is that supplemental insurance you mentioned, plus whatever medications you end up buying yourself.

Kate Collins67 said:Look, I personally have about ten different pre-op exams to run through every single day. Now, just imagine if I tried to admit all ten of those people to the hospital every day—it's impossible! Usually, I only have a maximum of eight beds available for all internal medicine cases, and sometimes I'm down to just three. You simply cannot meet everyone's demands.

If they think it's just a myoma, then there is absolutely no reason to be hospitalized just for pre-operative testing. If someone didn't catch an appendicitis, that has nothing to do with a myoma.

I get it, there’s a social component here, and there are real social issues at play, but a hospital isn't the place to go solving those kinds of problems.
Don't come asking me where else they should go to solve them, because you might as well ask me where an unemployed person is supposed to find a job. I don't know.

Personally, I think they should have that right, especially if they're traveling from some tiny town far away from the big cities.
Otherwise, my experiences with Dr. Ali have been okay, but yeah, they have their flaws too. Everything really just depends on how you carry yourself as a patient when you deal with them.

Brandon Newman95 said:Look, here’s how I handle it: first off, I make sure I’m setting aside enough for my retirement and health insurance. For the first part of my retirement savings, I put away 15%, and then there's the second part where I'm required to contribute, so that's another 5%. On top of all that, I have basic health coverage, but I also pay extra for supplemental insurance, which runs me about $43 every single month. Honestly, thank God I actually signed up for it—if I hadn't, I would've gone totally broke. I really needed it last year, and I definitely need it again this year. Plus, I’ve had to shell out for private tests too—some things were covered by a referral, some I paid for myself, some EEG tests, you name it. If you counted every single ailment I've dealt with and what it cost just to see my primary care doctor for prescriptions I absolutely cannot stop taking, I’d be penniless. So, on top of all those deductions, I’m still paying out of pocket for private visits and even some medications. To top it all off, I urgently need a gynecological exam. Let me tell you, if I call one of our local hospitals: the wait time is like a month and a half! What am I supposed to do? I need this done within a week. Should I head to the emergency gynecological clinic, go to a private doctor, or is there something else?

Look, I run into this issue constantly (it’s not gynecology, but the principle is identical).
With EMERGENCY exams, you don't just "wait" in the traditional sense; you show up at the ER clinics and then you either wait your turn based on when you arrived, or—depending on how critical things are—you get bumped up the line. That's how it works that day.
But here’s the kicker: if you personally feel like your situation is an absolute emergency, but the doctor decides it isn't... well, that's where the friction starts. Every single time.
Now, "urgency" is usually pretty clearly defined by medical standards, but let's be real—patient pressure, the fear of making a mistake, the terror of being sued, and all sorts of other paramedic-level anxieties mean that the ER is always absolutely slammed.

It is pure absurdity that the ER of a single hospital serving a population of maybe 50,000 to 70,000 people sees up to 20,000 patients a year—plus all the people who bypass the main ER because they come straight from a city urgent care or their primary care physician. If those numbers were actually accurate, we'd be looking at thousands of deaths every year just from "emergency" cases alone.

Kate Collins67 said:Well, I went ahead and ran the numbers for you—roughly, at least.
Do the math: figure out your age and how much longer you expect to be around. Now, imagine if tomorrow you suddenly ended up needing dialysis—could you actually afford that if you had never contributed a single cent to the healthcare system? If you hadn't, you'd be stuck paying the full, brutal price for treatment right now. Believe me, you aren't that wealthy—and honestly, neither are you nor the vast majority of people in this country.

And listen, you're assuming you're the one paying into the basic health insurance, but I'm pretty sure your employer handles that part, not you—meaning it isn't being deducted directly from your take-home pay. Correct me if I'm wrong on that.
What actually comes out of your own pocket is that supplemental insurance you mentioned, plus whatever medications you end up buying yourself.

You're pretty much off base here—my last two paychecks weren't quite what they should've been, but I'm paying more than $500 for Social Security, a bit less for my retirement fund, and it seems like my employer picks up the tab for the mandatory Medicare portion too, maybe around 17.2% for all contributions (I might be slightly off on that number). I also pay for supplemental health insurance which comes to $43 a month, so just multiply that by twelve, plus I've paid a mountain of extra stuff out of pocket that was supposed to be processed within like 2 or 3 weeks. And yeah, health insurance *is* deducted from my pay. My boss pays it, but he deducts it from me too. As for how much longer I plan on living... judging by the state of our healthcare system, probably not that long. 😉

Brandon Newman95 said:You're pretty much off base here—my last two paychecks weren't quite what they should've been, but I'm paying more than $500 for Social Security, a bit less for my retirement fund, and it seems like my employer picks up the tab for the mandatory Medicare portion too, maybe around 17.2% for all contributions (I might be slightly off on that number). I also pay for supplemental health insurance which comes to $43 a month, so just multiply that by twelve, plus I've paid a mountain of extra stuff out of pocket that was supposed to be processed within like 2 or 3 weeks. And yeah, health insurance *is* deducted from my pay. My boss pays it, but he deducts it from me too. As for how much longer I plan on living... judging by the state of our healthcare system, probably not that long. 😉

Look, if you’re working for some massive state-run corporation, that extra bit they talk about is basically just a phantom contribution—it’s money you’ll never actually see in your hand. I don't even know the exact technical jargon they use for it—is it an "additional contribution to your salary" or "deducted from your pay"? Whatever the official wording is, it doesn't matter. Believe me when I tell you: once they actually start pulling those deductions for your healthcare straight out of your paycheck, you’re going to notice. It’s going to hit your bottom line, and trust me, it won't be subtle.
As for the private sector? Honestly, I haven't the slightest clue how they're operating these days. It’s all such a black box—I just don't know.
I honestly don't get why you keep bringing up the pension fund carve-outs—it’s like a broken record at this point. Look, that's just the money you get if you actually manage to live long enough to see retirement. If you don't make it? Well, then there's someone else left to collect it. It has absolutely nothing to do with the healthcare system. Why are we even linking the two?

Kate Collins67 said:Look, if you’re working for some massive state-run corporation, that extra bit they talk about is basically just a phantom contribution—it’s money you’ll never actually see in your hand. I don't even know the exact technical jargon they use for it—is it an "additional contribution to your salary" or "deducted from your pay"? Whatever the official wording is, it doesn't matter. Believe me when I tell you: once they actually start pulling those deductions for your healthcare straight out of your paycheck, you’re going to notice. It’s going to hit your bottom line, and trust me, it won't be subtle.
As for the private sector? Honestly, I haven't the slightest clue how they're operating these days. It’s all such a black box—I just don't know.
I honestly don't get why you keep bringing up the pension fund carve-outs—it’s like a broken record at this point. Look, that's just the money you get if you actually manage to live long enough to see retirement. If you don't make it? Well, then there's someone else left to collect it. It has absolutely nothing to do with the healthcare system. Why are we even linking the two?

Oh, it's definitely noticeable, I just don't want to claim I know the exact math off the top of my head.

Kate Collins67 said:Look, I personally have about ten different pre-op exams to run through every single day. Now, just imagine if I tried to admit all ten of those people to the hospital every day—it's impossible! Usually, I only have a maximum of eight beds available for all internal medicine cases, and sometimes I'm down to just three. You simply cannot meet everyone's demands.

If they think it's just a myoma, then there is absolutely no reason to be hospitalized just for pre-operative testing. If someone didn't catch an appendicitis, that has nothing to do with a myoma.

I get it, there’s a social component here, and there are real social issues at play, but a hospital isn't the place to go solving those kinds of problems.
Don't come asking me where else they should go to solve them, because you might as well ask me where an unemployed person is supposed to find a job. I don't know.

The incompetent gynecologist who referred me didn't even know what it was; they just knew it was large and that the adnexa weren't palpable. Nobody had a clue, even though I regularly had ultrasounds and color Doppler scans performed by that very same doctor. And imagine this: with a mass that size pressing against everything, I spent ten days traveling through 124 miles daily just to finish tests, instead of having a blood sample sent or being admitted for a few days. Later, after the surgery, they saw that my vitals were critically compromised—everything was on the verge of collapse due to the appendix, bladder, kidneys, and intestinal loops, while the uterus and ovaries were nearly crushed. A patient in that condition cannot be treated by traveling for ten days in the heat, in misery, on buses; God forbid.

Regarding payments: over fourteen years, one can save about 200 $0.00. Since I have paid for almost everything privately so far—and aside from a childbirth that didn't happen in America, I am a perfectly healthy person—there hasn't been a need for major saving on my part. Of course, one cannot predict if a more expensive problem will arise in the future requiring public healthcare, because we aren't all Arsen Dedic or some famous singer that everyone rallies to fund a new liver or whatever else. We are just people who have to take good care of our own health.

In fact, besides a few types of somewhat extensive non-malignant surgeries, certain illnesses treated with antibiotics, and some preventive screenings, our public healthcare offers NOTHING ELSE to its users. People should not rely on it too heavily.

What remains is either a bag full of cash for both options or the ultimate solution for a patient in this country: a funeral.
One fewer patient,
I one fewer person in the unemployment office,
II one fewer person occupying a job position,

And for I, II, and III, the cheaper option for our government is hiring someone from overseas. They will simply squeeze us to make up for what the thieves stole from the State before, during, and after the war (not WWII).

Unfortunately, people are going to have to face the cold, hard truth: things aren't what they used to be under the old socialist safety nets. We’ve moved past that era. Now, folks need to start saving for their health and medical expenses just like they would save up for a house, an apartment, or a new car. There's simply no other way forward. At the same time, major insurance providers are eventually going to have to step up and offer specific policies for those devastating scenarios—like being diagnosed with a condition that requires expensive, lifelong biological treatments. It’s just the reality we're facing.

Kate Collins67 said:Well, I went ahead and ran the numbers for you—roughly, at least.
Do the math: figure out your age and how much longer you expect to be around. Now, imagine if tomorrow you suddenly ended up needing dialysis—could you actually afford that if you had never contributed a single cent to the healthcare system? If you hadn't, you'd be stuck paying the full, brutal price for treatment right now. Believe me, you aren't that wealthy—and honestly, neither are you nor the vast majority of people in this country.

And listen, you're assuming you're the one paying into the basic health insurance, but I'm pretty sure your employer handles that part, not you—meaning it isn't being deducted directly from your take-home pay. Correct me if I'm wrong on that.
What actually comes out of your own pocket is that supplemental insurance you mentioned, plus whatever medications you end up buying yourself.

Technically the employer pays, but yeah—it's deducted from all our paychecks because that's how the law works. It comes right out of my gross pay. If the law didn't mandate pension and health contributions, I’d be taking home my full gross salary instead of whatever is left after the State takes its cut.

In private companies, it's become standard to negotiate based on gross salary (including mine)—so yeah, I'm paying for it. The boss isn't "paying" it; it's money I earned by working for them. Do you honestly think employers do this out of the goodness of their hearts, or that they'd just hand over cash to workers who aren't even profitable?

If it wasn't legally mandated, I'd choose my own insurance policy—if I even bothered—and my money wouldn't be used to fund healthcare for everyone else, including those who don't work. And unfortunately, most people fall into that second category.

Just to be clear—I'm not saying everything about healthcare is broken or that everyone is corrupt. Quite the opposite. Despite all the scandals you hear about, I've mostly had great experiences, and I don't have any special connections or pay anyone to jump the line.

And yeah, I did use the ER once—turned out to be the right call, because waiting for a regular appointment could have ended badly. When the system is set up this way, you can't blame people for looking out for themselves.

A massive chunk of my paycheck goes toward healthcare, and on top of that, I pay for supplemental insurance, a private gynecologist, a dentist, and various medications.

Raymond Price4 said:Technically the employer pays, but yeah—it's deducted from all our paychecks because that's how the law works. It comes right out of my gross pay. If the law didn't mandate pension and health contributions, I’d be taking home my full gross salary instead of whatever is left after the State takes its cut.

In private companies, it's become standard to negotiate based on gross salary (including mine)—so yeah, I'm paying for it. The boss isn't "paying" it; it's money I earned by working for them. Do you honestly think employers do this out of the goodness of their hearts, or that they'd just hand over cash to workers who aren't even profitable?

If it wasn't legally mandated, I'd choose my own insurance policy—if I even bothered—and my money wouldn't be used to fund healthcare for everyone else, including those who don't work. And unfortunately, most people fall into that second category.

Just to be clear—I'm not saying everything about healthcare is broken or that everyone is corrupt. Quite the opposite. Despite all the scandals you hear about, I've mostly had great experiences, and I don't have any special connections or pay anyone to jump the line.

And yeah, I did use the ER once—turned out to be the right call, because waiting for a regular appointment could have ended badly. When the system is set up this way, you can't blame people for looking out for themselves.

A massive chunk of my paycheck goes toward healthcare, and on top of that, I pay for supplemental insurance, a private gynecologist, a dentist, and various medications.

My cousin just flew in from the States, and she’s going on about how people over there are actually looking to ditch their current setup and move back toward something more like our Medicare.
A friend was telling me about this mess she dealt with recently. She needed some kind of surgery—I can't recall the specifics—but her private insurance provider basically gave her the boot. Their reasoning? They claimed certain medications she was taking could potentially complicate the procedure. Now, look, there’s absolutely no proof that those drugs caused any issues, and frankly, it's impossible to prove otherwise, but they used it as a convenient excuse to wash their hands of her. So, she had to shell out the cash for the whole thing right out of her own pocket. She's planning to sue them, obviously. If she lands a high-end lawyer, she might actually walk away with a settlement, though they’ll probably end up splitting the legal fees 50/50. At least with the American legal system, things tend to move with a bit more speed and efficiency when you have the right representation.
Just imagine the absolute chaos that’s going to erupt once all those massive foreign insurance conglomerates start moving in. You only have to look at how the big banks are behaving right now to see where this is headed. And don't even get me started on our legal system—it's enough to give you a massive headache.

Ugh, we're talking long-term now!😍
I’m of the opinion that supplemental insurance ought to be strictly private. Medicare should remain as the public foundation, but we need to establish independent oversight bodies to manage it. Without those clear, autonomous control structures, we're just going to get stuck in an endless loop of finger-pointing and bureaucratic infighting over who is actually responsible for what between Medicare and the private insurers.

I honestly can't stay quiet about this anymore. To put it bluntly, most general practitioners and social gynecologists just aren't doing their jobs properly.

Take my mom's GP, for example: I show up to pick up her referrals and prescriptions, wait an hour, and then she tells me, "Oh, we're on break now." After I start losing my cool, they finally let me in, and it takes her 35 minutes just to write two referrals and two prescriptions.😕.
How long would a full exam actually take? And how many patients can one woman really see in a six-hour shift—assuming she even works six hours, given some people mentioned home visits earlier? Plus, there's the break.😕. Basically, during a standard workday, she’s barely seeing six or seven patients.👎.

It's the exact same story with gynecologists. They are disorganized and so rude that patients end up fleeing to private clinics—even though Medicare is paying them to take care of you.👎. In a normal workday, there should be enough time for at least two patients who have urgent needs.
.
And that leads right back to my boss,😁, asking, "Why bother going for a referral? Just head to the ER, it's faster," or individuals saying, "I'll just swing by the ER to get my blood work checked."🙄.

I use the internet to better understand my rights so I can actually demand what I'm owed. I believe in being polite as long as things are reasonable—but after 🤷, everyone gets exactly what they asked for. It's a shame when people don't know what they are entitled to.😢.

The people who actually fund healthcare reform should be the ones fighting for it. Us. We pay for it out of our gross pay, not our employers.

As for the mess at the hospitals, besides Medicare, who else is to blame but the director?🤷. They are the ones responsible for managing the funds they receive.

Lately, our healthcare system has become so abysmal it’s borderline infuriating. It’s reached this incredibly narrow-minded, inhumane level because it's so tightly tied to the political structure in power. They’re looking to cut costs everywhere, even by stripping resources from vulnerable people who actually need them—like those who require an annual 21-day stay at a medical spa or 15 specific therapy sessions just to maintain a baseline level of health. And if you happen to be a veteran? It’s even harder. It’s as if once you stop contributing to society, you lose all rights to demand anything from it. It’s a disgrace. You can't even get a travel voucher if you're seeking treatment more than 50 or 60 miles away, let alone someone who physically can't make the trip alone and needs an escort. The local Medicare offices are an even worse story. You have these people appointed as commission heads sitting in front of the Medicare office, and they aren't even looking at what the specialist wrote. Instead, they’re just looking for ways to make sure you cost the State as little as possible, even if you're suffering from a severe, incurable disease. Where is the "healthcare" in that? Where is the humanity? Of course, it suits the person who appointed them to save money, even if it means cutting corners where it shouldn't be touched. Since they were placed there based on political lines, they naturally dance to whatever tune their benefactor plays. Where is the care? Where is the personhood? It’s either there or it isn't, but it seems to be disappearing, depending on the environment, the individual's mood, their connections, their political leanings, and so on and so forth. Where is the actual health? There are exceptions, sure, but they are becoming increasingly rare. Politics has crawled into every single corner of our society, even into healthcare. It’s shameful.

I found myself engaged in a rather absurd conversation with a friend just the other day regarding a glaring inefficiency I’ve observed within the US healthcare system.
When I first moved to a major American city about eight years ago, I used to handle everything from dental work to diagnostic imaging at a clinic over in the suburbs. Typically, I would arrive toward the end of the day—either because I was finishing up school or simply lacked the motivation to get moving early—and despite waiting for two hours, I never once complained; I was usually among the last to be seen, yet still finished well before closing time. There was plenty of breathing room. Whenever I had dental issues, I went back repeatedly, and the experience remained consistently efficient.
Then, recently, a friend mentioned that they have transitioned to an appointment-based system at that same location. I remarked that surely the wait wouldn't be excessive, given how seamlessly they used to process patients without any hassle.
She corrected me immediately: you now wait months. Just for a single scan.

The exact same phenomenon applies to my CA125 blood tests. I would go there late in the afternoon—again, out of sheer laziness—and since they would call people in based on their tests, and it clearly wasn't crowded earlier in the day, I knew I’d be out of there within thirty minutes.
Fast forward to a year ago when I went back... the waiting list for tumor markers had ballooned to three months.

What on earth happened? Where did all these people come from, and where did these massive waiting lists originate? How can there be such overwhelming congestion now when there was none before? Where is this surge coming from? Has the population of this city suddenly exploded, considering we are waiting days for tests that used to be performed instantly? Honestly, who is responsible for this madness?
It is perfectly clear to me that people are seeking out tests they don't actually need, a point my doctor recently made with a rather biting side comment... My cardiologist sent me for a full battery of tests to evaluate my medication efficacy and examine the specifics of my condition, yet my primary physician couldn't fathom why she should bother writing the referrals. She simply doesn't care. Yet, when it came down to her own salary, she was the first one out there protesting against the State officials... but to suggest that there is truly such a massive demand for these tests is pure lunacy. I genuinely cannot comprehend how these waiting lists became so astronomical. 🤷

And as for the Emergency Room... that is a whole different story. I’ve been to the ER in the city about three times now—once for a discolored tongue, once for a swollen ear, and once for blue lips. It never even crossed my mind that people could walk into an ER with such nonchalance. 🤷

1. Primary care absolutely has to start working properly—but someone (looking at you, Department of Health) needs to actually set the stage for that to happen first.
2. We need to implement actual protocols and algorithms for how things get handled—mainly so we can stop these massive oversight errors and cut down on all those useless, redundant tests.
3. Terminal oncology patients and those dealing with long-term chronic illnesses should be moved out of the hospital systems entirely and placed into hospices—which, let’s be honest, we need to actually build before we can move anyone there.
4. We should scale back the sheer number of hospitals across the US and instead beef up our outpatient clinics. We need specialized centers for specific needs—take orthopedics, for example. Right now, having one major center in a place like Chicago alongside scattered outpatient orthopedic clinics is much smarter. It’s way cheaper for Medicare to pay for a patient's medical transport to a major hub in Chicago for a hip replacement than it is to maintain ten underfunded, "cold" orthopedic departments spread across the country. Think about it: wouldn't you rather choose to go to a top-tier surgical center in Chicago at the government's expense, where you're treated by an orthopedic surgeon who does nothing but hip replacements all day? Or would you rather stick to some local doctor in your hometown who hasn't performed a single surgery in months and is probably a bit rusty?

Everything I just laid out is just my own personal take on the matter.