Episode 26: Down the Rabbit Hole Yet Again aka Health Care Due Diligence

Health care due diligence.

Has a nice ring to it.

We patients, the so-called "consumers" of health care, expect due diligence when we entrust our bodies and minds to that system.

But that's not what the term refers to.  No, "due diligence" is an accounting term, a requirement to investigate a potential investment before recommending it to clients.  If you are an investment banker, that is.  And you know how concerned they have been about our welfare over the past, say, oh, twenty years. These shills for the megarich are selling our flesh on the open market, while the megarich buy personal physicians and specialists who come to their homes or live there, sort of like modern-day Rasputins.

And the rest of us are relegated to a system built on corruption. I don't mean the health professionals and researchers and all of those who, with integrity, are working to make lives better for their fellow human beings.

I'm talking about the ones who are exercising their due diligence.  You know, them.

"'The best sort of due diligence process begins with a game plan [or strategy], and it proceeds along that game plan, only changing as dynamics of the due diligence changes or as [new issues] are discovered,' says Mr. Van Demark," one of the principals in the investment firm quoted in an article online (URL below).

I'm glad to know our physical and mental anguish is bandied about on the market as a game. Gives me extreme confidence in the system, let me tell you.

Episode 24: Down the Rabbit Hole aka the U.S. Health Care System

Should you find yourself on the cusp of death in these United States, be afraid.  Be very afraid.

Okay, so we’re all afraid on the cusp of death, so how about this:  Should you find yourself sick for any reason in these United States, be afraid.  Be very afraid.

I live close to the finest medical institutions on this planet, and I have arguably the best insurance company covering my care, so my care should be top-notch and should not end up bankrupting me, right?

Well, it was a different insurance company covering me when I did have to go bankrupt due to losing my job because I was ill—yes, I know that’s illegal, but you just try to fight it and see how useful that in—in my case, I gave up after one of three appeals because I was so darned sick, so exhausted, and my mind and abilities to do paperwork were not up to the task, and so I let it go.

Let it go.

Let everything go.

Because when you’re sick in the United States today, that’s likely what you’ll have to do.

The issues abound, and I intend to take each one on in future episodes, but for today I’ll focus on what I believe to be the underlying problem, the fundamental issue escalating costs and reducing coverage.