We're from the government and we're here to help...

First my mom is doing much better -they made her work hard today but still let her have dinner in bed. Caleb is thinking of signing up for classes next semester. The 4 year old popped his own microwave popcorn (not a parent approved activity). Fine. This blog is not about this. This is a true story I share in honor of the Senate being about to pass a huge health care overhaul. Last April when Caleb's shunt first failed and the CSF was building up in his abdomen and he was in excruciating pain and at serious risk for several fairly fatal things the local hospital needed to move him to a "higher level of care" so they arranged transport. To no one's comprehension the ambulance had to come from the other hospital (1 hour away). I think they got lost (not a bad guess since I know they got lost going back) but over 2 hours later they arrived. We then proceeded to wait for another hour plus while they tried to get someone to sign a form attesting to Caleb being bed ridden permanently. In the end the local guys had to get a case manager from her dinner to explain to the transport guys that a) Caleb was not a Medicare/Medicaid patient and b) his was an emergency transport to "higher care". It turns out these were the magic words because Medicare is very particular about transport to a lower care facility. So while he got more and more critical various people were completely paralyzed by federal rules -I would have vastly preferred a death panel at that point. Please.

I was reminded of all this recently with my mother's (with the spinal injury) transfer to a "lower care facility". Four different people explained that we could try moving her ourselves but we couldn't count on Medicare reimbursing us if we had it done by a medical wheelchair transport service. And everytime when they told me it would cost $80 (you did not miss any zeroes, there was only one) I said fine, I'll sell her silver. So while Medicare did not apparently blink at MRIs galore, nor did doctors hesitate to order them, this less-than-a-night-out caused great concern and a willingness to compromise care. I can only guess that other obviously middle class folks actually complain about spending $80 to get their family member where they need to be and feel only Medicare should pay. And I still have nightmares about that ambulance with Calebif he had been a Medicare patient. So here you have everything I look forward to in the federal government's cost saving efforts and my faith in their ability to improve things.

Feel free to pass this around!