Affordable Healthcare?

It's unfortunate, but in regards to the Affordable Healthcare Act, the only thing I see getting healthier is the bottom line of the Health Insurance brokers, the hospitals and the medical equipment and supply people. Take away the mandate; it might be easier to swallow. We constantly hear many say they want universal healthcare like what is enjoyed in the U.K., but all one has to do is look at the population of the U.K., and compare it to that of the U.S., to see why it won't work; unless we change the system we currently have in place. Not to mention, the healthcare system in the U.K. of late is getting worse.

Until some things change in the USA, the healthcare will not improve. People really need to stop visiting the emergency rooms and their physicians with every trivial little ailment. Preventative medicine is important, but headaches, runny noses, common colds, splinters in your fingers, etc.; really? My physician informs me these are a heavy burden on the system as a whole, waste time and money, and drive insurance rates up. I'm not saying everyone should attempt their own sutures and the like, I mean I do, but I'm not all there, O.K., although I've done it enough to know what I'm doing.

The rent that our physicians are being charged by the for-profit /non-profit hospitals needs to come way down. The attitude, the for-profit and supposedly non-profit medical centers carry, is, to me, the worst problem; they seem to think that only the wealthiest should have access to decent healthcare. Next in line are the medical equipment middle men.

Due to an amputation I spend a great deal of time in a wheelchair. I have a custom-built Quickie wheelchair that could use a few repairs. The cost for these repairs might be a hair less or more of $500. Here is the problem. When I took my chair to have it repaired, I was told (they) would not repair it; they would replace it. (They) are the medical equipment brokers. I was all for it until I saw what they would replace it with. Basically, a $249.00 Walgreen’s special which is as basic as you can get; plastic wheels, all heavy metal construction and the weight of the chairs are about 100 pounds. Comparatively, my chair weighs 19 pounds. They would in turn, charge Medicare and Medicaid around $2000.00. That way, the medical equipment people get their cut; the wheelchair manufacturer gets their cut, and all those in between get a cut. And people wonder why this country is running in the red. Well, I would not accept their Walgreen’s special, and I am left with repairing it myself. 

There is so much waste, fraud and abuse in the medical field, just so everyone can get a cut of the profits; until all of it is brought to the attention of society and regulated, those costs will never come down.