I was at a drugstore the other day when a little old lady in front of me went to fill a script and was not given the script. From what I could hear there was a problem with the insurance that needed to be resolved first. What I cannot understand is why working out a billing problem trumps getting needed medication to people who are sick. When most people do not get needed medications, it has much more costly effects elsewhere in society. Health care is about making people better. Instead it is about creating jobs. It sickens me that she was not given the medication, and the insurance problem was not worked out at a later time. Getting the prescribed medications to the patients should be a priority. However, the only priority is getting out reams of reimbursements to insurance providers.
If this is true for our senior citizens it is also true for everyone else in society as well. If you happened to fall ill and your insurance happens to lapse, then you could very well die of your illness if it requires any drug that you would have to get from a pharmacy. I hear from a lot of senior citizens about how they cannot keep up with the amount of paperwork that is required to maintain health insurance. For this reason I think it’s time to start pushing single-payer along a little faster. There are plenty of free health care models that can be copied and utilized in Vermont. All they have to do is go to Canada and take a look at how they do it. Then do the same thing in Vermont or the USA.
John Anderson
Marshfield