David Finkel wrote a great article called A Slave to Health Insurance about a 58-year-old woman who’s taken up a 50-hour-a-week job to pay for her current meds regimen. She’s up by 3am to open the store by 4 and have it ready to go by 5:30. The most ironic part of the article:

bq(quote). By 5, she has taken her Lipitor (for high cholesterol), Singulair (allergies), Ultracet (back pain), Combivent (breathing), Zoloft (depression) and Temazepam (insomnia).

As far as I can tell, she has to take the Lipitor because of unhealthy food, Ultracet because of the 50-hour work weeks she puts in at Hardee’s, and Zoloft and Temazepam to deal with the fact that she’s almost 60 and having to work at a fast food joint to pay her bills. Reminds me a lot of « le buveur » ( English ), like some sort of vicious cycle: he drinks to forget that he is ashamed that he drinks. Or the “I can’t hear you, I’ve got a *banana* in my ear!” schtick. Repeat ad infinitum.

This isn’t the way I want *my* parents to be taken care of. I love the way this health care system is passed onto our generation as some sort of great fixer-upper. (“Add some new wallpaper here, spackle and re-tile that bathroom, provide health insurance for 44 million Americans… no problem!”) Maybe I’m just extremely negative and/or cranky today, but it seems like we’re always told how much room there is for improvement in the health care system, as if we’re so incredibly fortunate to be becoming doctors at a time of such health care disaster. Cut the euphemisms, leaders-of-today. I won’t take responsibility for this system. I’ll work my ass off to try to fix it, revamp it, or start over all-together, but don’t for a second act like we’re equal partners in this one. I’d much rather have one less “exciting challenge” in my career and have everyone in the country have adequate health insurance, or hell, have childhood immunization rates that compete with Mexico’s .

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