Medical Technology - Greed and Gouging

My great grandma was diagnosed with diabetes in the 1930's.  It was a terminal illness.  She went blind first.  My Mama was 10 years old when she came in the house one day and found her beloved Grandma lying sprawled on the floor amidst broken bottles of tomatoes.  Her vision had failed and she had tripped and fallen.

Before the disease, she was a community midwife, mother to twelve children, she churned the butter, made the cheese, grew an enormous garden, bottled her own fruits and vegetables to tide them over the winter, sewed their clothes, cooked three meals a day, cleaned, and was beloved by friends and family.

After the disease took her vision she would sit in a chair and crochet all day.  At the end of the day her daughters would take out the stitches and the next day hand her the yarn to crochet all over again.  At least she felt that there was something she could do.

It seems impossible in the year 2018 that less than a hundred years ago diabetes was a terminal illness.  Now it is a treatable illness.  Many people live a normal life span.  The discovery of artificial insulin has saved the lives of countless people.

My husband had diabetes 26 of the 27 years that we were married.  His health became so complicated that nobody would insure him. (Yes, there was a time that having poor health made you uninsurable).  He went without insulin many times over the years .  His blood sugar would rise as high as 700.  Having your blood sugar this high leads to diabetic ketoacidosis.  When this happens it thickens your blood.  When the blood is thickened it can't move through the human body in the way that is necessary to sustain life.

 After around twenty years of living with diabetes, he found out that because of all of his medical expenses, there was a company that would pay for ALL of his diabetic supplies.  It was far too little, too late.  He had to have laser surgery for the bleeding in his eyes.  He developed a diabetic ulcer in his big toe twice.  He died at the young age of 54. 

I recognize that we live in a capitalist society.  It does not horrify me to see people in medicine make a profit...but at what point does profit move into price gouging?  Here is an example.  In one of many of my husband's hospitalizations he received an itemized hospital bill.  There was a charge that we did not understand.  It was for, "independent mucus retrieval system."  HUH?  When we called to determine what this $8.00 charge was?  It was a box of kleenex.  The box was in the room when he arrived.  I think the next time he had to hospitalized I got rid of their "independent mucus retrieval system," and brought him a box of kleenex from home.

This type of charge is gouging....charging far and above a rate of reasonable profitability.  Often patients will be too ill to even notice bogus charges on their hospital bill.  Often insurance companies will be given a deep discounted price, and then the patient is charged full price.  This means that the  patient winds up paying for the insurance companies discount.

How ludicrous that we proudly speak of American's wonderful medical system...but people are still dying because they can't afford life saving items, such as insulin?  Visiting the UK, we stayed with friends.  The husband had diabetes and other diseases.  All of his care and medication is paid for.  In other words, he never runs the risk of having to go without life saving medications.  Perhaps we should not try to pigeonhole profit into medicine.  Just a random thought, maybe we expect medicine in this country we're proud of (and I am) to be a RIGHT, not a PRIVILEGE.

Pharmaceutical companies do help the desperately needy with some of their medications.  They still make billions of dollars in profits.  One of my husbands medications literally cost $15.00 for one pill.  I know for a fact that the company could have profited if they charge $1.00 a pill.  Is there no oversight, no accountability for these greedy gluttons of pharma?

Many of the hardest hit by health insurance and prescriptions are America's middle class.  They may work two or three jobs to try and pay for living expenses.  They do not qualify for any assistance They also have to pay a lot for medical insurance, and also have a huge out of pocket expense before they can recoup any medical expenses.

It is truly unbelievable that we have some of the greatest medical technologies in the world today, but only the very rich are able to receive that type of care.  The very poor sometimes can finesse through the system to get almost adequate medical care.  Actually, if you want primo care, commit a crime.  In the jails they provide all types of medical attention.  What you don't want to be is a hard working middle class American.