Today I took a phone call from a pharmacist in South Carolina. While I was searching for the policy number of our client who was standing there in the drug store, I said, “I’ve never heard of a pharmacy that will bill insurance.”
With his syrupy and charming southern lilt he said oh, sure, they do that. He added, “If Mr. Obama has his way, we’ll all have free medical soon.”
I didn’t respond, focused on pulling up the right client on my screen.
“Then we’ll sure be down the toilet,” he added after a second or two.
Before putting him through to the case manager, I managed a quick comment about living in Canada where we’ve had it for a few decades and we do okay.
I don’t guess Canada has swirled down any metaphorical toilet yet. Not that I’m aware of. Maybe we’re all a bunch of commie pinkos bound for hell for ensuring all sick children and elderly and, well, everyone can go to the doctor when they’re sick. Even when they are…gasp…between jobs! Or work two or three part time jobs.
Shocking, eh?
Ha! I wonder what’s behind that thinking anyway. It’s not like the US is unaware of medical delivery models in the rest of the industrialized world, so why do so many think socialized medicine is wrong? I’ve seen Sicko and paid attention to the media and still it stumps me.
The news here is full of calling Obama a socialist as if it’s a very dirty word…I t hink I’d like soicalized medicine very much thank you for the very reasons you state! So I may have to wait a bit longer to see the doctor…it may still be very worth it.