col’s blog

the cover story of today’s wall street journal: “health-insurance gap
surges as political issue.” some stats:

at last tally, the census bureau said 15.9% of americans, 46.6 million in all, lacked health insurance. government programs — medicare, medicaid and the 10-year-old state children’s health insurance program — pick up the elderly, the disabled and the very poor.

nearly 70% of the uninsured are in families with at least one full-time worker, and more than a fifth live in families with incomes above $40,000. in some cases, the employer doesn’t provide coverage. in others, the employee can’t afford it or doesn’t take the coverage that employers offer, according to the kaiser commission on medicaid and the uninsured.

as i read about this mind bogglingly complex social problem, i felt guilty about yesterday’s kvetching. i am healthy. and i have insurance. it could be a lot worse. so i stepped up this morning and set up 3 different doctor’s appointments, a dentist appointment and schlepped across town to have that bloodwork done.

yeah, i had to sit in a stanky ass waiting room for what felt like an eternity. but now it’s done and i can call my PCP next week to follow up on the results, get an allergy med prescription, and hopefully stop with the constant sneezing and sniffling.

it’s exhausting — this health maintenance business. and i am a healthy, young, fairly intelligent party of one with money and free time. the thought of dealing with all this shit on a bigger, more serious scale with fewer resources makes my head explode.