Looking into the belly of the beast on how we need to have healthcare reform done at all costs

I just got back from a brief visit home to see my mother, who has been diagnosed with bladder cancer and has small cancer cells that have metastasized in her hip and spinal bone areas. She is in good spirits and is a tough lady who is making the best of her situation.

Unfortunately, she and my father (Republicans since they voted for Nixon in 1968) watch way too much Fox News while she is in bed while either dealing with the side effects of chemotherapy or the week before the next sessions where she tries to get herself back on track to deal with the next sessions.

She has great coverage, thanks to my father, who served in the military and has a good plan with USAA, a Medicare supplemental package that also is part of her Medicare package (you know, the government-run, socialized program that she loves). She LOVES her Medicare. She has also been very lucky as well with people she knows who have amazing contacts with doctors at top-drawer hospitals in her area.

While watching Fox News with my parents, the obvious anti-healthcare reform messages come across the screen like some kind of twisted Orwellian pact, complete with repeated lies and distortions and lop-sided arguments with the usual PNAC signatory asshat claptrap. I try with all my might not to burst into some political discussion, since it is only bound to not really accomplish anything.

"I don't want my health care taken away like they want to", my mother would repeat over and over. While not wanting to upset her, I would mention that if she likes her healthcare, she can keep it. She doesn't believe me.

I try to lay out what the possible Public Option means and she is very reticent to accept it.

Then we have the discussion about her recent battles with her healthcare story.

Her first checkups after having found blood in her urine had her diagnosed with bladder cancer. The bladder was to be removed and chemo would follow. She would have to use a bag attached to a tube to urinate the rest of her life if she lived.

So she went for a second opinion while she was scheduled for the bladder removal and next steps.

The second opinion, at a very renown hospital in Baltimore by a doctor who wrote a critically acclaimed (in the medical community) about bladder cancer treatment, convinced her that removing the bladder was perhaps the most careless choice to make regarding her situation.

The doctor told her that if she had the bladder removed with the type of small cancer cells evident in her MRI tests, she would have been very compromised and perhaps would have been in a very dangerous health scenario.

She could afford the second opinion. Many health car packages don't or would have made her pay for any other tests. That could be thousands of dollars, as evident in the initial tests that were covered that were billed at over $40,000. Her initial operation to scrape some of the tumors in her bladder clocked in about $100,000.

Needless to say, the second opinion outweighed the first opinion.

Further fests and chemotherapy are coming, and fortunately her coverage will be what she needs. However, if she didn't have coverage or had coverage that wouldn't cover a lot of the costs, she would be deep in a hole financially. And she would still have to face months of treatment to get cured.

Here is where I pointed out just how insane the pharmaceutical/health insurance industry is (besides the above mentioned).

After her surgery and chemo treatments, she was in pain, was losing her hair, was nauseous, couldn't sleep and needed to buy pain medication. So she asked wht she needed and was told that the best medication cost $600 for 6 pills. Imagine that! She was surprised about the cost and was told to "shop around". So she did. Prices ranged for the same medication from $600, $300, $130 and some place where you could get 30 pills for $40. Shop around?

Still, I had to point out the obvious fact that this was a PERFECT example of how healthcare reform was not only needed, but had to be regulated.

That said, nothing will change my mother's political views (or at least I won't try to change her while she's dealing with this). I am indeed hoping she sees how important it is that we get healthcare reform done.

And on the Fox News thing, I bought them a DVD player to give them more choices while she is in bed with the TV on. I got a few DVDs... some Ronald Reagan film, the HBO John Adams documentary, some Bob Newhart shows and a copy of Moore's Sicko. My mom laughed when I showed her the Moore DVD. I said that even Fox News said it was pretty good.

Why share this story? I'm sure many here on DU have faced the same inevitable life's lesson as well as wanted to illustrate from a personal level the absolute need for healthcare reform. I also intentionally left out location details to keep this as private as possible in regard to my mother's medical crisis.

My mother will be fine, I hope.

:dem:

-Laelth

Sounds as if she's getting good care and making good choices. And hugs to you and your Dad. When I was diagnosed with breast cancer, it was really emotionally harder on my family than it was on me.

I wish you all the best.

I hope all is well with you... and thanks for reading.

It's obvious that people (in groups) are just unreccing any healthcare post that advocates the public option or single payer.

Feature is buggy - I have seen an "un rec" occur just as I rec'ced something. So I have started to believe the feature is buggy. Though who knows - maybe the insurance industry with all its money can pay people to sit around and un rec the Public Option topics! :shrug:

I did like DU better before the feature. And I think it highly undemocratic to not even have a tally of the numbers of un'recs displayed for us - why is that?

Anyway I am now K & R number five, though when I came in to read, the topic had six recs!

I didn't notice. I'd love to see the reasons why someone would unrec this post.