IN HINDSIGHT...remember back in the 90's all the propaganda about the human genome project.....

[jus_the_facts]

.....and how it was gonna help make HEALTHCARE and our lives so much beter??? That was a major talking point in Bill Clinton's run....we got HMO's instead.

All I see now is how much WORSE it all is...it's as if they decided to use what they learned to hasten death and also used what they learned to make drugs to string out your demise or just straight up GIVE you diseases....ahhh well...flame away...tell me how I'm hopeless and ask me why I'm even here on DU if I think this way....won't be the first time...but may very well be the last....like that matters much in the grand scheme of all the fucked up things that our wonderful gov't does to improve the lives of it's people.

Yes I AM the most cynical person you'd ever meet...because of unbiased observation...jus the facts ya'll. :eyes:

[havocmom]

1. We didn't 'get HMOs' then. We already had them much earlier

We just didn't get an alternative to them, and they, along with insurance companies, were embolden to fuck more of us more often and more visibly.

[MADem]

2. Well, the human genome project has brought a huge amount of understanding to

illnesses that used to be a complete puzzlement. In the big picture, it's still early days yet.

If you like your glass half empty, bottoms up, I guess.

[onyourleft]

3. The advent of HMOs actually occurred...

...in the 1970s, well before Bill Clinton's run. I believe the HMO act itself was around 1973. Many of us in the health care field at that time were very concerned about HMOs, all of which fell on deaf ears.

[jus_the_facts]

4. I stand corrected then....still.....they exploded after the first attempt at Universal Healthcare...

.....don't really think all the hoopla now will make things any better...things are so screwed up...and the light at the end of the tunnel is a mirage. :(

[onyourleft]

5. Did you just mix a metaphor?

The light at the end of the tunnel could be an oncoming train. :)

I share some of your concerns. My main concern is that health care/medical care reform has morphed into insurance company reform, which I don't see happening to any extent that would be beneficial for everyone, particularly if it further morphs into mandatory insurance coverage. Let's have a Medicare program for all with the government administering that program. What a simple concept. Not only would it help every individual, but it would also create some jobs.

[jus_the_facts]

6. I worked in an ICU back in the late 80's...there were nurses then that ranted about patients

....that were on Medicaid...like it somehow made THEM personally poorer...since then I've seen and experienced personally how my own family members have been treated and have died at the hands of the system....seems like simple concepts aren't so simple anymore.

[onyourleft]

7. I am sorry about your family members.

To which system are you referring, Medicare or insurance?

[jus_the_facts]

8. Both.....

....unfortunately...and thank you...lost my Dad in '05 after a bone marrow transplant at Baylor in Dallas...he'd been sick and went to the doctor several times over the course of a year and a half before he was even diagnosed with stage 4 leukemia...he had GREAT insurance coverage....I still wonder about the bone marrow transplant too because my mom said his doctor at Baylor cried like a baby after he died...that bit of info still haunts me...I'd not been able to go see him for the 2.5 months he'd been over there because I couldn't afford to take off work. :cry:

I could write a volume here about my other grandparents...but here's one example...my mamaw was diagnosed with cancer of the eyelid...they threw her out of the hospital after only 3 days with a massive hole in her face when they removed her entire eyeball along with the eyelid...5 minutes after driving 3 hours home...she went to use the bathroom and had a stroke...she was a vibrant and active 80yr. old on Medicare one week...she was in a coma and the doctors proclaimed she was brain dead the next...yet she lived another 4 years after my ignorant family decided to listen to the doctors and take her off all life support....she could only nod yes and no and was paralyzed on one side but she wasn't fuckin' brain dead...who knows how much better the rest of her life could have been had they DONE SOMETHING instead of declare her brain dead?????

I had a breakdown over it all...my fundy family had me committed to the charity hospital psych ward for a week....which happened to coincide with GWB's inaugural....took me a good many months to get my brain chemistry back to normal after the shit drugs they gave me while there...sigh. :(

[northernlights]

9. I'm sorry, I don't understand what the Human Genome Project has to do

with health insurance?

The Human Genome Project has given tremendous basic information about our dna that is leading to a better understanding of many diseases.

It will take time and research to be able to exploit that information fully.