A few weeks ago I had a morbidly obese Type 2 Diabetic patient who was on oral hypoglycemics and insulin for blood sugar management. Her medicaid 3rd party prescription provider no longer covered the syringes or lancets so she told me to put them back because she would rather have her cable tv.
This left me wondering if she would just stop her insulin therapy. I explained to her the importance of her medication regimen in preventing further complications and increasing the quality of her daily life. She again stated that she would rather have her cable tv. I am talking $22 for 100 syringes and 100 lancets. She only used them once per day so she would get over 3 months out of each but still cable was more important than her personal health and well-being.
These are the patients that are the reason government funded health care needs a huge overhaul and strict conditions for qualification. If you don't give a shit about your health care why should the hard working tax payers cover for your ass? Why should the ambulance wheel your ass to the ER to fix you when you stroke out or have that first heart attack? Why should the doctors bother to help you when you are not going to follow their advice and use the medication? Why should you get free health care when there are others out there who cannot afford health care yet make too much money (which ain't a whole hell of a lot) to qualify for medicaid?
The system was a good idea in the beginning but it has lead to a subculture of people who take no personal responsibility for their health care or the healthiness of the "food" they eat. On the other hand most Americans overindulge in "food" in general because restaurant portions are way out of control and the corn industry plus government subsidies make junk food much cheaper than everything else. I use the term "food" loosely because you have all witnessed the bullshit that most folks put in their carts at the urging of their children or because it tastes good or because it was a new product that had a coupon, etc.
Do you know we have children under the age of 10 on statins to lower cholesterol? Do you know we have doctors performing gastric bypass on children under the age of 18? Do you know that we have more Type 2 Diabetic patients than any other nation on the planet? Did you know that complications from morbid obesity are rising to the top of the most common causes of death in America? Did you know that mortuaries now carry super-sized coffins because morbidly obese people who die are not gonna fit in that already over sized regular coffin that everybody else gets buried in? Did you know our military believes that the rise of childhood obesity will leave us with a huge deficit of eligible people to serve and protect over the next 30 years?
WHAT THE F*CK AMERICA???? Have we lost all sense when it comes to obesity and diabetes? I am waiting for the study to be done that proves that Type 2 Diabetic parents produce Type 1 Diabetic children. We are seeing rates of Type 1 Diabetes skyrocket or is it that Type 2 Diabetes is starting really really early due to childhood obesity? It is going to take a whole hell of a lot more than Michelle Obama's urging and public speeches to change this problem. Perhaps we could get Oprah, Jerry Springer, and Judge Judy to take a stand and educate everyone on nutrition, diabetes, and the horrible co-morbidities and dreary outcomes of being fat from the get go. The general population seems to listen to them more than their health care providers anyway. What a world, what a world.
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9 comments:
You hit the nail on the head. Too bad the US voters, as a group, refuse to do anything about it.
The irony is, just when you are about to pick up that phone and call your congressman, you see the one patient whose QOL was dramatically improved by Medicaid coming by just to say hi. And you hang up the phone....
I'm just wondering where this chick was getting $22 cable.
It wasn't $22 cable it was that she was going to use the $22 she should have spent on diabetic supplies to pay part of her cable bill which contributes to her sedentary life which worsens her outcomes for diabetes and all its not so wonderful complications.
Those studies exist. Metabolic dysfunction in mothers induces metabolic dysfunction in fetuses, including Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes.
Stupid people deserve what they get. Pity it's the rest of us responsible citizens who get shafted for their poor decisions.
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God bless you for your insight and willingness to inform and educate regarding the issues that plague this country. The sad fact remains that we're all stuck in a system funded by money. As we'd all like a prefect system with no abuse, better compliance...scratch that how about just a smidge of common sense--in actuality all those involved in this shit*y system have a job. It breaks the back of some yet puts food on the table for many others. As much as I hate it, if we did overhaul the system and did manage to cutout the b.s. a lot more people might be in the unemployment line.
The cost of obesity in the coming-up generation will far exceed the cost of smoking by baby boomers. Maybe we need to start a national "Anti-Fat Pig" campaign.
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