Let me preface this by telling you that I have good health insurance. I found out I had cancer and I went and found the best doctors I could locate to deal with it. I was directed by several sources to a particular doctor at the Cleveland Clinic. The Doctor, I was told, was the best this country had to offer and probably the best in the world for the sort of problem I had. So that's where I went.
Fast forward to last month and I'm in a room with another fellow who has a problem similar to my own, health wise that is, not financially. Short Story: The guy woke up having to pee but couldn't - for about a day. Then he finally did pee and it was all blood. He got to the local hospital which could do nothing for him so they sent him to Cleveland. There we end up in the same room, but I'm there just coming out of an operation and he's there getting ready to go in. As they check him in I hear the entire story. The guy hasn't got a dime, he's in his 50's, divorced, and living alone in some cheap apartment. He is unemployed from his job driving a fork-lift at some never to reopen factory, needless to say he has no insurance.
The hospital brought in their support staff got all that out of him in short time and then they went to work trying to find help for him from the various social services available. What they did and how they did it I could not tell you, but they got the guy hooked up. And the next day, a couple of days before I left, the very same surgeon that had done so much for me was speaking to him about the procedure he would be performing the next day.
So all I can say is there the guy was, not a pot to piss in but he got the care he needed. I'm not saying his was representative of how it goes for most folks, hell I know full well that the guy was lucky as a lottery-winner. I'm I am saying that quality care is not totally unavailable to those who can least afford it. I've seen differently.
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