Barnmaven

Uterus, redux

The title alone ought to scare you off.

A couple of years ago I treated you all to the mental imagery of the bloodbath that followed the removal of my first Mirena.  I waited a few months before deciding what to do about birth control, and since there wasn't any actual having of The Sex, it wasn't an issue.  Later that year, along came SG and I made the decision to have a new Mirena installed.  Personally, I wish I could forego using any sort of birth control whatsoever.  I don't like interrupting my natural cycle.  With the Mirena I bleed like hell when they put it in and when they take it out and not a drop in between.  No periods.  On first blush, it seems like a great idea -- but the truth is the thought of interrupting my body's natural  uterine function really bothers me.  What else does one do, though, when one is seeing someone who lights her up like a pinball machine and its too soon to talk about serious ongoing relationship issues like do you want any more children and do you want to get married and would you please have a vasectomy even though we're only dating?

Well, we did get married, and no, we don't want any more children, and surprisingly, he's not opposed to being the one responsible for managing our mutual fertility.   We weren't in a hurry to make any decisions about it, though, with another three years of shelf life left on my IUD. 

Until last week.

I woke up in the middle of the night Tuesday with something that seemed like a horrific conflation of the worst IBS attack in the history of the universe and an abrupt return of the most extreme symptoms of endometrisosis I'd ever experienced.  All the pressure of the IBS episode was causing me to feel like someone was slicing up my reproductive system with a machete.  I assumed it would pass, I really did -- but it didn't. I managed with the assistance of a lot of fiber and other handy-dandy gastro-intestinal remedies to solve the pressure problem, but the pelvic pain just wasn't going away.  I couldn't even sit down and pee without having such bad pain I couldn't catch my breath.  It even hurt to walk. 

By the end of the second day I figured it was time for a medical intervention.  Dr. A was pretty concerned.  He ordered labs, started me on antibiotics and a buttload of pain control medication.  And I do mean buttload.  Hellooooooo Valium, Hydrocodone and Donnatal, my new best friends. Within 24 hours I could manage walking upright, but it was clear things weren't really quite right down there.

Dr. A made a followup with me for a few days later and requested I also make an appointment with my gynecologist as soon as possible.  Except I don't actually HAVE a gynecolist at the moment.   He gave me a referral to a local guy and so I called their office to see when I could get in.  "As soon as possible" when you're calling a gynecologist's office you've never seen before turns out to be something like a month from now, unless, like me, you're willing to turn on the waterworks over the phone in which case it turns into that afternoon. 

We didn't actually get to see the guy we were referred to , we got one of his associates, but that was fine.  He checked the labs my doctor had ordered and agreed there was infection.  Then he put instruments of torture up my vagina and did something so horribly painful to my cervix that I practically leaped out of the stirrups and through one of the ceiling tiles while my head did a 360 degree rotation on the top of my shoulders. 

Once I could again breathe normally, I asked him what might be causing said painful infection.  He rattled off a number of potential reasons, but mostly he thought it was the IUD.  I asked him if leaving it in would make it harder to get rid of the infection and he said that he believed yes, it would.  Et voila.  Out with you, then.

He then gave me prescriptions for more antibiotics and requested I come back in two weeks, with orders for absolutely no sex in the meantime. 

No.

Sex.

As if that weren't bad enough, it turns out the one of the antibiotics reacts badly with caffeine and the other reacts badly with alcohol.

Two weeks. 

No sex.

No coffee.

No booze.

 

And just like the last time I got my IUD removed, the river of blood has commenced, which has done absolutely nothing to improve my mood.

But you know, I'm a generous girl.  I believe in sharing my pain.  I've asked SG to find a urologist in our insurance network with the first available appointment and go ahead with getting neutered a vasectomy.  Misery, as they say, loves company. 

He loves me, that man.  Its a damn good thing.

 

 

 

Your greatest teacher

How is it that so many people make a living convincing us that we're not living the best lives we can possibly live?  We'd be happier/more fulfilled if only we invested our money and time in their sure-fire program to improve our selves/homes/yards/clothes/bodies/faces/attitudes.   And if we question any of the steps of their particular program or mention that our life experience doesn't jive with the brand they're trying to sell us, we either didn't understand the book, there's another set of DVD's we should purchase that addresses that VERY thing, or we're just DOING IT ALL WRONG. 

Hint:  Most people who make a living telling you how to live your life don't make money if you don't buy the line that they know better than you how to become happier - more popular, more successful - more authentic/creative/better-looking/ thinner/ curvier/taller/hairier/less hairy.

I've noticed too that many Important People who make a living selling you their ideas don't like having their ideas questioned or hear about the ways in which your life experience doesn't match up to their "program."  If you got in a car accident and you were depressed, you must have manifested it or you just didn't work the program right.   If you didn't make a fortune after the first three months of following their Internet Miracle Marketing scheme,you just need to invest more time (and money) in their product in order to achieve the promised success. 

Its not that these writers, geniuses or gurus don't have something to offer -- they do.  They all do.  But not a single one of them is the end-all, be-all of life.   No book or DVD or system is going to solve all of your problems or turn you into somebody else.  And you need to know that the people who write these books and sell these programs don't have all the answers.  Maybe they have the answers for themselves and their own successes, but they don't have all the answers for YOU. They each carry with them the assorted baggage of their internal belief systems, their life experiences, their particular biases.  They all prefera certain way of doing things and would like you to believe that they offer you this wisdom only as a way to "help" other people.  That's easy to believe so long as you don't look at the man behind the curtain - or the price tag on the next set of DVD's.

And maybe some of the things they espouse will work for you.  But likely as not there will be parts that aren't a good fit.   That's where you have a choice.  You can accept what works for you and not worry about the rest, you can reject the entire philosophy because it has to be 100% perfect for you to accept it, or you commit to it anyway and try not to worry too hard about pretending to agree with the parts of it you aren't convinced about.

You get to live with whichever choice you make, but please know that you don't have to throw the baby out with the bathwater and you don't have to walk around in clothes that don't fit.

I relate it to the way I go about learning with my horse.  There are a LOT of famous trainers and clinicians out there.  In the same way as some people feel compelled to convert you to their new religion after a deeply moving spiritual experience, people who've had a breakthrough with their horse after learning from a certain trainer want to introduce you to the Next Best Thing to happen to horse people.

Since I'm open to learning new things and new and better ways of getting where I want my horse to  be, I'll glady invest in lessons or a clinic with that trainer, or audit a clinic if its out of my price range for me and my horse to participate.  If I'm open minded enough to try that trainer's suggestions, I might find something that works a lot better for me and my horse.    But if I find that the thing I was already doingt that I learned from someone else works better, I'll keep doing that instead. 

A good trainer won't insist you do things his or her way.  In fact, a really good trainer will watch what his students are doing and be willing to ask about something if they see it and they think its working as well or better than their own techniques. But you don't have to believe any trainer that insists if you're not doing it HIS way you're doing it WRONG.  The proof is in the results you get with your horse, no matter what the trainer says.  You don't have to keep doing something that just doesn't feel right to you. 

You don't have to stay in a relationship that doesn't feel right or where you don't feel safe.  You don't have to stay in a job that doesn't fulfill you. You also don't have to engage in a personal/spiritual/self-help program that's not working for you just because the person who happens to gain from your participation tries to make it sound like you're just not doing it right and you need to try harder.

Just because someone is successful and an "expert" doesn't mean they're going to be any better at living my life than I am.  They just get paid to convince me that they are.    Just because they wear a certain kind of clothing or use a certain kind of household product doesn't mean that my jeans don't fit me just fine or my countertops are any less sanitized.  Just because I don't agree with their dogma doesn't mean my own faith is wrong for me.

Look, I KNOW when I'm doing the right thing and I know when I'm not.  I know what fulfills me, what charges my battery.  I know who I'm supposed to be.  There's an inner voice and a feeling of well-being that comes when things are as they should be.  I think that's God talking to me, other people may consider it their conscience or the manifestation of spirit within them.  Whatever works for you.

I know that spending time with my family and my friends feels good.  I know that helping other people feels good.  I know that riding my horse feels good.  I know this about digging in the dirt, playing with my dogs, petting my cats, working in the barn, swimming in the river, making music and writing words. Being thankful to God and trying to develop as a person who is loving and compassionate feels good and right.  But you know what, these things are authentic for me.  No conference, retreat, keynote, book or CD  is going to change these things about me.  And I don't need the approval of a life coach or a guru or anyone on the internet to know that I'm OK.  

The list of the people whose opinion I actively seek on whether I should do this or that is short.  You're probably not on it unless you're my husband, my mother, my close friend or my horse trainer.  It doesn't mean I don't love you and it doesn't mean I don't value your opinion.  I do.  It feels good to be liked, to be agreed with, to receive support and cheers and have like-minded people share with you.  But it also means that if do something or write something that you don't agree with, I won't be crushed or feel rejected or bad about myself.   It means that if some famous "authentic living" guru insists that I couldn't possibly be happy because I'm not doing things their way, I'm going to somehow feel that I must change my beliefs to suit their agenda.

Maybe you don't feel confident, maybe you don't feel like you're "ok."  Well, that's fine.  That's your own voice letting discomfort drive you into doing things differently because what you're doing now doesn't seem to be working.  When you seek new wisdom and new approaches, keep in mind that there is no program in this world that will make you or your life perfect.  Remember that everyone has a different perspective on the words "best," "ideal," "correct" and "true."  Seek answers everywhere you go.  Take what works for you.  Leave the rest.  Seek the approval of your own conscience and those who matter most.  Don't believe everything you read on the internet, in the newspapers or in the pages of a self-help book.  And remember always that we are never, ever "finished" learning or growing. 

The journey, the moment, the now, they REALLY ARE the point.

 

Do Re Mi

When I was very little, a neighbor died and gave us a piano.  My mother was the only person she knew who played, and so she made a specific bequest in her will.  I took to it like a duck to water, and it wasn't long until my father had to draw a line in the sand:  Either that kid gets lessons or I get out the chainsaw.

And so began my first passion:  music.  We had that piano until I was well into college, and I took fourteen years of lessons on it.  I love to play.  I'm not a concert-level pianist, I lack the true gift for that, but I can sight read like a house on fire and I can sing.  When horse therapy isn't possible due to weather or timing, music therapy is where I turn to ease my troubled soul.

As a kid whenever we had a dinner party my mom would sit me down at the piano and I would play all of our favorites out of a big hardbound book of standards.  I knew most of the popular songs from the first and second World Wars and every hymn in the Episcopal hymnal.  Everyone would sing along, and no evening was complete without a round of When Irish Eyes are Smiling, during which my mother would inevitably cry as it is the song that reminds her most of my grandpa who died when I was seven.

There has always been a piano.  Until last year.  When my divorce was final, my ex got the piano we'd been given by his parents.  It was from his family, so it was only fair, but it was painful for me as I was the only person who for a long time ever played it.  When he finally arranged to pick up the household furnishings that were his, the one thing I hated to see go was that piano.  Christmas last year was the first time in more than 40 years I didn't have a piano to play and sing Christmas carols with.  Oh, I made do with my guitar, but it really wasn't the same.

A home just isn't home to me when it doesn't have a piano.

A few months ago I found an old Vose & Sons cabinet grand on craigslist.  Over 1,000 pounds, with a rosewood cabinet and original ivory keys, it had been in the owner's family since the day it came new off a Boston showroom floor in 1890.  It hadn't been tuned in nearly two decades so it was hard to tell if it was going to be able to be put into playing shape, but he only wanted $350 for it and so we brought it home.  It cost more than twice that much to have it moved to our house and to have it repaired and tuned.  It had a cracked base stringboard, a broken string or two, and all of the pegs needed to be reset and glued in so they would hold tune, but it was worth every penny.  Once it was repaired and set back on its feet, the beautiful tones it produces told us we had made a good choice.  Its holding pitch and with those long strings I can really crank up the v0lume when I need to blow off steam or raise the roof with joy. 

Our piano is worth so much more to me than just the cost of buying and repairing it.  Like my horses, piano is one of the things that I do that makes me feel like my puzzle piece is in the right place.  We make a lot of music in my house, and it is time for the torch to be passed to the next generation. 

My kids got their first piano lessons yesterday.  Its hard to put words to all that I was feeling and thinking of as they each sat at the piano and learned to find Middle C, to identify first through fifth fingers on each hand and to start practicing their first scales.  Amazon Girl plays her scales in a measured temp, wishing to get each note perfectly.  Race Car Man wants to be fast when he has it right and asks many questions about how the keys and the hammers and the felt and the strings work.  They both picked up on the basics pretty quickly. 

I am filled with pride, wistfulness, deep joy, a sense that everything is right with the world. 

We have a piano.  And we are playing it.

 

 P.S.  The photo is of a piano at the recording studio where SG laid tracks for his song.  Mine is prettier.

The easiest parenting job I didn't ever do

 

Sometimes life is patently unfair...except for when it isn't.

There are many ways in which I think SG got the short end of the stick when he married me.  I don't care how bodacious my ta-ta's are, taking on me and my kids and my crazy zoo was an unmitigated act of bravery.  Acquiescing to taking on the role of stepfather to my two children was a very deliberate and careful decision on his part, and its one he doesn't take lightly.  He loves them, though, and they him.  Let's just hope they actually launch someday so we can test out just how great empty nesting is for your love life before we're in our 70's.

Step-parenting for me, on the other hand, has been a cakewalk.  Twice.  

 My ex's son who is now a handsome 21-year old college student became part of my life when he was six.  Navigating the waters of stepmotherhood was difficult only because of the tension between my stepson's two parents.  But the act of being a stepmom to CJ was always easy, always rewarding.  He was a smart, fun-loving kid who has grown up into a smart, fun-loving young man.   Even though I'm not married to his dad anymore, he and his mom will always be a part of my life.  I don't just consider them to be part of my children's family, I consider them to be part of mine. 

I have a difficult time calling myself 'stepmom' to SG's son, though.  There's no "mom-ing" involved.  He was already an adult when we met, already well into his career with the Navy.  The parenting part is already completed for him, I just get to sit back and enjoy him and appreciate that even though they had their own difficulties, both his parents took the job of raising their son quite seriously.

He joined the navy at 17 and has never looked back.  He earned his Chief's bars as a submariner in just eight years, then entered an accelerated degree program as part of his officer's track.  In May he graduated with a degree in Ag Economics and a couple of weeks ago we got to attend his commissioning as an officer in the United States Navy.

He booked the Pima Air & Space museum for the ceremony, the perfect setting as he has been accepted for flight school and goes to Pensacola in September.   We flew down for the ceremony and had an absolutely marvelous time.  It was my first opportunity to actually meet him, since we got married so fast no one had time to get here for the wedding.  

The ceremony was amazing.   

Here he is being sworn in as an officer by his CO:

Here his mom and dad are removing his chief's shoulderboards and giving him his new Ensign's boards:

His grandfather was honored to give him his new service cap:

 

Receiving his first salute as an officer.  Not a dry eye in the house.

 

My handsome husband and his handsome son:

Afterward we partied with my stepson and family and friends at his house.  Uncharacteristically, SG and I stayed up til the wee hours of the morning, swilling gin and smoking cigars.  The spectacular hangover I enjoyed the following morning fully underscored for me the fact that I am far too old for such behavior.  Even so, it was worth every moment of the blinding headache and the floppy stomach.  I am stepmama to an officer.  A future naval av-i-a-tor. 

Congratulations, Ensign Goulet.  Your family couldn't be more proud of you.  We love you lots.  Love, your stepmama.

 

 

All the Aftermath

We sit in our lawn chairs along the waterfront or in the parks, children on our laps and holding hands.  We murmur our appreciation as the flowers made of fire burst and throw sparks down into the water against the black night.  We don't notice the dogs, the cats, frightened and running as far and as fast as they can from the cannon shots.  Its not until I see them on my way to work the next day, small and still on the side of the road, that I contemplate that even the things we do which seem so harmless and fun leave a wake.

Yesterday marked a year from the morning when, driving the back roads to work, I found a suicide victim.

Because of a doctor's appointment, my route to work yesterday took me past that dirt road and I could see the top of the hill where last year there was a white car parked with a man's body sprawled behind it.   Every time I drive by that hill I look for a car parked up there my mind grapples with the image of hiking-boot clad feet sprawled on the ground.

When someone dies, life goes on, much the same.  It seems callous, but the world can't stop.  We still get up and drink our coffee in the morning, feed the animals.  I still make the long drive through the hills with the crop dusters going about their business, looking for an open space to pass the onion truck that holds me back.  Yes, life continues on, apparently unperturbed, but if you know where to look, you can find the ripple of loss. 

The visible wake of the living is easy to identify.  We make messes, we create smiles or tears, we make noise, make things, buy things, clean things up and throw things away.  The wake of those that have gone is somewhat inverse, like a sweater turned outside in.  It is measured far more by what is not than by what is.

A year ago I was consumed with trying to learn more about the man who picked a night the cannons booming and the firecrackers popping would disguise the final crack of the shotgun as he took his life.  If I had known then what the year ahead would bring I might have felt a kinship with his brothers as they mourned their loss.

For the rest of my life that still, frozen moment in time when I realized what I was seeing at the top of the hill will be as much a part of the July fireworks as the memories I hold of my brother and I as children, lighting sparklers and showering the driveway with their fire.  Once upon a time we were young and full of life, shouting our joy at the wonder of sight and sound the fireworks created.  We were brave, lighting fuses and waiting until the last minute to dash away to safety.  Once upon a time we left a magnificent debris of color and echoing laughter in our wake.    Once upon a time, a man I never met while he was alive lit bottle rockets with his brothers and covered his ears with his hands when the firecrackers popped and crackled.  Once upon a time, when the sweater was still right-side out.

The day after the fireworks we sweep up the charred bits of paper and the discarded pop cans, we hose the burn marks off the pavement.  We drvie in circles around the neighborhood, calling for our missing dog or cat, hoping they were one of the lucky ones who found a safe place to hide.  All the while we press a palm over our hearts where the ache of grief resides.

 We deal as best we can with all of the aftermath, that which is seen and that which is not.

 

 

 

 

Public service announcements:

**If you or someone you know is suicidal,please call the national suicide prevention hotline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255)**

**On the fourth of July please keep your dogs and cats indoors**

 

 

 

Random happystances

"Tug on anything at all and you'll find it connected to everything else in the universe."_{-John Muir}

A couple of weeks ago or so I was reading comments on a post on The Mommy Psychologist's blog, a blog I found and added to my reader when she commented on a couple of posts I'd written here.  The comments I was reading were responding to the question of "Why do you blog?"  One commenter's response led me to go read her blog, and then in reading some of her blog posts I noticed she mentioned another blogger she had met and who had been very supportive through a loss.  The blogger had a name I've only known one other person to have, and sure enough, when I clicked through the link, she was referring to someone I actually know offline.  She is a former coworker who left my company early this year when she and her husband decided to move to the other side of our state.  We had vanpooled together, and she's a lovely woman who I enjoyed every time we had a chance to talk.   She'd done some interesting things in her life and she's one of those women who is enchantingly beautiful in a very fresh-faced sort of way - thick, curly hair, features that need no makeup, tall and athletic.  Not stuck up, and no Debbie Downer.  She's got a positive and upbeat nature, and even when she and her husband were dealing with some issues over living situations and jobs she would always find something to smile and laugh about.

So I found myself in the position of finding a blog of someone I know sort of peripherally, and she's someone I worked with but don't work with now.  But the thing is that I find her bright and refreshing, and the next thing I know I'm reading her blog from her earliest entries onward, smiling at the posts where she talks about meeting her husband and getting a little misty over the wedding photos.  At first I was just curious, but then I realized I really like the way she writes and the things she writes about.  And yet the whole time I'm thinking to myself, "Is it weird that I'm learning more about this person through her blog than I learned about her in two years of vanpooling together?" and "Gosh, I hope she doesn't look at her pageviews and sources and think I'm stalking her..."

And its an interesting question, isn't it?  Because in the very act of making a blog public, she and I and all the other bloggers out there, we're putting some of our lives (hopefully not all) out there in the public view.  And how does Ru or any other blogger feel when she realizes that someone she knows offline, somewhat in passing, is now reading her blog?  (I did out myself in her comments, it felt somehow wrong to be ninja-reading.)

I know that it surprises me when in-laws or family friends bring up my blog in a conversation.   It makes me feel far more undressed, as it were, than when I think the people reading my blog are folks who live somewhere else, who've never met me in person - or who aren't my mother.  I forget that there are people in my small audience who actually do know me offline.  Its just...odd.

I'm tickled by how I found Ru's blog, though.  I love those moments in life when we are happily surprised by a connection we didn't even know existed.  I remember realizing that my friend Steph, who I've known since I was pregnant with Race Car Man, also reads Adrienne's blog and  vice versa because Adrienne commented on one of Steph's posts.  I get unreasonably excited about things of this nature.  "Look, this friend who I think is so cool also knows this other friend who I think is so cool, and we all know each other and we didn't even know it, isn't that freaking COOL????" 

So Ru, I hope you're not discomfited that I'm reading your lovely blog and enjoying all of the pictures of you and your hubby and your family! 

My problem with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

I have “left-of-center” stamped on my very bones.  In every argument or discussion I’ve ever had about politics, my question has always been “how do we care for those who can’t care for themselves?”  It is truly one of my biggest concerns.  I love underdogs, I hate bullies, I wish desperately to live in a world where the powerful don’t enrich themselves by sucking life, energy and money from the weak.   I want to live in a world where sick adults don’t molest, rape or murder children.  I want to live in a world where its OK to be whatever color/culture/religion/orientation/gender/size you happen to be and you don’t get points docked for not fitting a cultural norm.

No, that world will never exist.  I will nonetheless always seek to support a reality where people care for one another, where the ideals we live by whether we are Christians, Muslims, Atheists, Jews or Pagans include at the top of the list ”LOVE ONE ANOTHER.”

I love the idea of ensuring health care for every man, woman and child in this country.  It’s an ideal well-rooted in humanitarian principle.  But, my dear friends, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act doesn’t ensure health care for everyone.  It ensures everyone has health insurance.

Insurance is not care.  Having health insurance doesn’t mean we get quality health care – or affordable health care, for that matter.  In fact:

A 2009 study published in the American Journal of Medicine found that in 2007, 62% of people declaring bankruptcy had over $1000 of unpaid medical expenses.  92% of those cases had medical expenses over $5,000, and 80% of people filing for bankruptcy had medical insurance.  What does this tell us?  That even people who have medical insurance cannot afford their medical bills.

The costs of basic medical procedures have risen dramatically since 1943, when Congress passed a new tax policy making employer-provided medical insurance tax-free.  This subsidization caused the employer-provided-insurance model to become the dominant system of medical insurance in the U.S.

So why has this caused medical costs to rise?  A lot of reasons.  For a start,  if the employer is paying 80% of the bill for my annual exam, I as an individual have nearly zero incentive to price-shop amongst medical providers for the most efficient and cost-effective practitioner.  My selection criteria becomes one of convenience:  How soon can you schedule me and will you bill my insurance company directly so I don’t have to waste time filing a claim? 

When consumers no longer see cost as a factor, costs will naturally rise.     Spending on healthcare has risen at more than three times the rate of the consumer price index since the 1970's. 

I think it becomes even more complicated when doctors are required to offer certain discounts to private insurance enlistees.  In order to keep their bottom line, the list price of the procedure must rise.  This means that any individual who doesn’t have health insurance or for whom that doctor isn’t in their network will pay more for the same procedure than the person whose insurance network the doctor belongs to. 

So cost of care is a big issue that isn't really solved by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, because the system that caused prices to inflate over time is left intact.  But that's not my biggest problem with the insurance companies.  The biggest problem I see with Obamacare, or any legislation that attempts to overhaul healthcare whilst leaving Big Insurance intact, is in effect leaving the cat in charge of the creamery.

Over time, the insurance companies, not our doctors, have gained control over most of the decisions to be made about what courses of treatments, medications and number of visits or treatments the patient may have.   When my doctor recently prescribed thyroid medication for me, the insurance company didn’t want me to take the dessicated pig thyroid my doctor wanted me to have, andwhich costs considerably less than the synthetic form.  They wanted me to take synthetic thyroid medication and would only provide benefits if I got the synthetic instead.  I ended up buying the natural thyroid and paying for it out of pocket.  Likely my copay on the synthetic product would have been about the same as paying in full for the naturally obtained medicine, but why would I take a more expensive, synthetic product just so my employer could pay money to the pharmaceutical company?  Furthermore, how could an insurance company claims analyst who has never met me have more power to determine what medication I should take than my own doctor?

They don’t, really, but over time what’s going to happen, now that insurance coverage is a mandate, is that the doctors who have heretofore been able to maintain discretion in the treatment of their patients because they don’t participate in network plans will either become tools of the Big Insurance or they will go out of business.

The other problem with Employer-provided medical insurance is the lack of choice to the consumer.  We are paying for group plans with coverages some of us will never use.  I’m pretty sure my single coworker Bob would rather not pay additional premium for an annual gynecological exam and birth control coverage.  I’d prefer not to have part of my premium going for obstetrical care, since I’m all done with the baby-having, but since its part of our “plan” I don’t have a choice. 

Thanks to the plan passed by our President and our Congress, Big Insurance is still fully in control of our health care.  That means our health care costs will continue to rise, even more dramatically once there is no longer any competition in the market.  All doctors will march to the orders given to them by non-medically trained personnel who process claims based on complicated algorithms about which procedure or medication is more profitable for the insurance company.

So we're stuck with  a nightmare of mounting insurance costs, mounting medical costs, and more people not getting the care they really need because they can’t afford it.   

If the Republicans succeed in their vow to repeal Obamacare, you can be assured that they will craft a plan equally as heinous.  It might not contain an individual mandate, but you can bet your bippy it won’t address Big Insurance either.  After all, Big Insurance spends millions of dollars (if not more) helping our leaders in Congress to get elected.  Politicians don’t bite the hand that feeds them – and trust me, that hand doesn’t belong to you or to me.

True healthcare overhaul would deconstruct the health insurance system as it exists.  It would put the power of treatment back into the hands of doctors.  It would create a competitive market for healthcare providers so that doctors could choose what to charge for their services.  Charge too much, you limit the number of people who will seek treatment from you, particularly if any number of equally good doctors are charging less for the same.  It would reward practitioners with low costs and high success rates.  It would allow consumers to choose what kinds of medical insurance they would like to carry, and provide pools of funding for the poor and the currently unemployed to obtain basic medical care.  It would seek ways to assist patients with catastrophic medical issues in finding appropriate care and having some power in making decision about the courses of treatment they wished to pursue.  It would address and alter the relationship between Big Pharma and the FDA.  

Big Insurance has no compassion for the patient.  Big Insurance cares only about profit margins.  Sick people aren’t profitable, so they’ve found a way to make well people pay more all the while raking in the money while patients continue to receive substandard care and grapple with out-of-pocket costs that set them back or make them go bankrupt.

What, you ask, about the people who can now get insurance that couldn’t before because they were already sick?  They’ll benefit from the pre-existing conditions clause of Obamacare, won’t they?  Yes and no.  I know plenty of people who have pre-existing conditions who are thrilled right now because they can finally get health insurance.  But is health insurance what they really need?  Or is it affordable health CARE?    Wouldn’t they benefit more if the costs of the procedures they needed costs only hundreds or thousands of dollars instead of tens and hundreds of thousands?  Wouldn’t they benefit more if we allowed them to see the doctors they were comfortable with rather than the doctors the insurance company says they must?  With properly funded pools for the uninsured, they’d have financial support for the treatment they needed, and that treatment need not come at a grossly inflated cost.

The concept and the dream behind Obamacare, that I get.  I agree and I applaud.  Everyone who needs medical care should be able to obtain it.  

The reality of the plan that has now passed the scrutiny of SCOTUS frightens and worries me.  Our government keeps getting bigger and costlier and keeps feeding the giant corporations that are chewing up and spitting out people like you and me as if we were simply more fodder for their coffers.  They grow fatter and wealthier while I put off getting my own medical needs met so I can care for my children, because our insurance isn’t so great on the mental health and autism issues, and I have two children who need a psychiatrist to manage their medications.  I should have better choices than this.  Thanks to legislation that continues to put all the power into the hands of my insurance company, I probably never will.