[Suzi]

WOW. Quite a "tense" debate on a beautiful Christmas day ! Since its the day after Christmas, I'll put in my $0.2. It is extremely difficult to be in medicine these days - every patient thinks the world revolves around them. If they are sick...they need to be seen right away. In the office or ED...well, how is that possible? How can EVERYBODY be the most important? Is a laceration more important than coughing blood? How about an asthma attack? You see, someone has to make those decisions everyday and those people aren't very popular.....because EVERYONE thinks THEY are sick and more important than the OTHER person.
Believe me, health care providers don't wake up in the morning and think "lets see how many people can I **** off today". They are dedicated caring people who would want to have NO-ONE wait to be seen if they were sick. But thats not the way it works.
The system of healthcare in the country is broken. Certainly, some of it has been damaged by those who abuse the system (ie: going to ED instead of PCP). Some of the damage is caused by litigation and consumer demands. By the shear cost of caring for the masses (and of course everyone demands absolutely everything be done - from saving the crack addicts to 95 year olds with dementia) do you know what this costs? Some of the money we spend on terminal care could be spent to teach and hire more nurses and doctors. If you think its bad now, wait for the affordable health care act to kick in.
Like I said, EVERYONE thinks they are the most important. We need to have some serious dialog in this country about health care - what is affordable, what should people expect, and what part does individual responsibility play (ie: if you've been an alcoholic should we all pay for your liver transplant or if you weigh 400 lbs. should we pay to have your stomach stapled). These are tough questions but without some answers, how will we afford to take care of the masses? And how will we take care of all these people in a timely manner?