OUR MODERN AMERICAN MEDICINE

SPECIAL POST

I couldn’t help but think, after the surgery, how lucky we have been in this country to have things the way they are as opposed to how they could be. 

In August, I was diagnosed with cataracts by my optometrist.  Three weeks later, I saw an ophthalmologist of my choice, who confirmed the diagnosis and scheduled me for surgery.  In the old days, just a few decades ago, they handed you a really thick pair of glasses and sent you home to eventually go totally blind. 

I was in the out-patient surgical chair about 45 minutes and I was conscious the whole time.  The biggest discomfort during the procedure was the multitude of eye drops they used.  Six hours later, I removed the eye patch and knew immediately that a modern-day miracle had occurred and that I was the beneficiary.   

Of course, it was the way our system worked back when I was young and all of the way through modern times that provided for the medical research and the ultimate technology that made this procedure possible.  It was the capitalist system that provided the profit motive for the necessary research and technological advancements to occur.  If that profit motive was not there, one has to ask himself, could they have done the surgery last week?  Would they even know what had to be done, let alone how to do it? 

ObamaCare provides that every medical professional, regardless of specialty or expertise, will get paid the same.  My surgeon has a reputation for being the best in this part of the state at what he does.  Would I want someone with lesser credentials to slice on my eye?  Of course not, but if this doctor got paid the same as the first-year grad general practitioner down the street, what would be his motive to be as good as he is? 

What’s worse is that the surgery could have been denied.  I’m 69; that’s elderly.  Some obscure medical panel in some obscure office back in Washington could have decided whether or not I was a worthy candidate for the surgery; if not, tough luck, old man. 

Yes, the cost of prescription drugs is out of sight.  A long-standing practice of greed and corruption within the industry such as the Glaxo-Smith-Kline scandal now emerging, has largely been responsible for this raping of the American wallet.  ObamaCare does not address these problems; in fact, it doesn’t effectively address the price of prescriptions at all. 

Even so, we have a great medical system in this country.  Yes, some things need to be addressed, but the full-scale conversion of our system into a socialistic medicine model is not the answer.  What has been enacted and what is now in the process of being implemented simply must be stopped; that doesn’t mean that we can’t sit down and address the problems that we do have and fix them.  We can do that right after we get rid of the lousy Congress and President that we have. 

We can, and we must. 

That’s MY AMERICAN OPINION, respectfully submitted.