Why we need healthcare reform

I am not going to give you all of the statistics or generalities that fly around the Internet. I want to deal with this from the personal. As someone once said "the personal is political."

Seven months ago today my mom had a stroke. What happened to her illustrates some of the best and most of the worst in how this system treats patients - and my mom had what is considered a good insurance with Medicare and her union supplement.

When she suffered the stroke she was taken to one of the best stoke centers in the Northeast. She received very good treatment initially and through her stay in ICU at the hospital following surgery. However, onece she left the ICU and began to need extras (like therapy) the hospital moved quickly to discharge her to a rehab center - sending her out with an active MRSA infection.

At the rehab center, again considered one of the best in the Northeast, the doctors and nurses did not want to deal with a patient who was sick. They ignored her symptoms for 48 hours until she went into congestive heart failure. She was taken to a local hospital, almost died and again entered an ICU. Once again she received very good emergency care, but when she began to need "extras" that the hospital could not bill medicare for it was time to send her back to the rehab center.

Once again she was not really ready for rehab, and still more work that the doctors and nurses really wanted to deal with. Another "crisis" happened and mom was sent back to the hospital. Three more weeks in the hospital and on to a second rehab center/nursing home. Here she finally started therapy, but the home was so short staffed that inside of three weeks she BACK in the hospital due to DEHYDRATION!

One week later and it was on to rehab center/nursing home 3. Here she has received excellent therapeutic care, although the nursing staff is over worked (a 25:1 ratio on the sub-acute floor) and her doctor has missed at least one near decent back towards congestive heart failure.

All of this is with a health insurance policy that is considered on the best short of having several million dollars to pay for all of this out pocket. Health insurance does not work in this country. As long as it is profit based hospitals and nursing homes will push patients out before they are well. They will cut staffs in areas that not money generating.

The only way to guarantee health care for all under this capitalist system is with a single payer plan. Anything else will perpetuate "for-profit" health care. In the U.S. that means profits before patients.