All of this does not surprise me.
Our health care is heading toward a regulated/electronic state.
Just last year, I went to a nursing conference where they had the tele robots that have a screen where the doctor can "see" you in the hospital and therefore treat you.
That kind of bothered me because I don't think I would like talking to my doctor on a monitor screen. These robots followed us around and it was weird. We are told this is the coming face of medicine. Some of it is good and beneficial and other parts are not.
It is true the VA system has electronic medical records and is ahead of most hospitals in my area, but at least 2 years ago, I was told that the VA system of having to bar scan intravenous bags was coming and then some of it did.
It is good to be safe but I have heard horror stories from nurses where in an emergency they could not get medications from their hospital pharmacy because the patient wasn't admitted in the computer yet. And there was no emergency override. This really happened at a hospital in northern California.
As we move towards more of this, we are moving toward loosing the human touch.
About the rationed-care idea, that idea is already in effect with the insurance companies being the gate keepers, and denying care. The government might do better than insurance companies because our insurance companies are only hoping to increase their bottom line and could care less of us as patients.
I am all for having the power of decision placed back in the physicians' hands. That is where medicine needs to go back to. I support a nationalized health care system because our system is hurting people and people are dying because they cannot afford care or care is denied as "investigational" or "experimental".
I just got an EOB (evidence of benefits) from Blue Cross (Anthem/Wellpoint) and they are holding payment to my pain doc for my facet block because they want more information. I am thinking, "What the heck. I had to wait three-four days for them to get a pre-authorization and now, they don't have enough information? But I have gotten at least 30 calls from them for some out-reach program they want me to enroll in."
No kidding, at least five calls this week after I had already told them to send the information in the mail. This company is totally nuts and there is no way I want medical information from them for my asthma.
There's a bill in Congress right now for a medicare-like universal health care system. I am not going to advertise it here, but people need to wake up and see what a mess our health care system is. One of the web sites to find info is
Guaranteed Healthcare | We Don't Need Insurance, We Need.
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