Do you care? Do we care?

Do you care?
We met a new patient, a patient with AIDS which had been controlled on medications, but they could no longer afford the medications, so they were stopped. Unchecked, AIDS did what AIDS does, and the patient developed pneumocystis pneumonia, and was hospitalized, subsequently going into kidney failure, all of which required an expensive stay in the ICU. Thankfully, the patient's acute problems improved. Now, in addition to having to find an AIDS specialist that the patient can afford, and a source of affordable medications, not to mention the general stress of having to live every day with a life-threatening condition, there are also massive hospital bills to contend with.
Do you care?
I'd mentioned a patient last week who, unable to get health insurance or afford their cardiac medications, had a heart attack. They required 3 stents to re-open the blocked arteries in their heart. Very expensive. Now on another medication, Plavix, necessary to keep those newly opened arteries open. Also expensive. Has a follow-up with the cardiologist next month, a planned nuclear stress test, and a renal artery ultrasound (to see if there is a special reason that the patient's blood pressure is so high). All very expensive. And oh, by the way, still doesn't have health insurance...pre-existing conditions.
Do you care?
Member of my health care team told me about a loved one who had the pleasure of having a kidney stone recently. Despite working in the health care field...no health insurance. They knew they couldn't afford a visit to the ER, so sat at home, in tears, and waited the agonizing hours, through excrutiating pain, until the stone passed.


This is all occurring in a prosperous small city, nearly in the shadow of a gleaming new hospital, filled with the best that modern medicine has to offer.
Do we care? Do we really care? Because if we really care, then relax, because all this is fixable. We have treatments for all of the problems mentioned above...we have great clinicians, amazing medications, mind-blowing surgeries. All we need is a system that delivers them in an affordable manner. And if we really care, then that's the easy part. A challenge, yes, but still the easy part.
We're faced with an intimidating array of challenges today. But in those challenges are the opportunity to re-capture the best that we are capable of. Other generations have faced worse circumstances, most notably our parents and grandparents, who responded to the Great Depression and World War II with wisdom, sacrifice, and might.
We can't sit back and watch from the sidelines. Our system needs participation to function. President Obama won't be able to do this on his own. Wake up America and do what Americans do best...do we care?