Healthcare

Health care reform. I try to stay away from this subject, yet it flits around me constantly. It is too emotional a subject for me to discuss rationally. But today, on Facebook, people post their support for health care reform. The subject hits me broadside and I have to comment. I have to post, briefly, Colby's story.

I post that I know that my son is no longer here because our health care system failed him. Hospitals sent him away, even when he told medical personnel that he didn't want to live. People comment back that it can't be. Hospitals are required to "treat" people. Yes, each hospital processed Colby in, took his vitals. One ran a blood test for drugs. That is the extent of their "treatment." The hospital has satisfied the law and the patient, weeks later, is dead. So my son with schizophrenia, panic attacks, anxiety, depression and as a result of a lack of long term health care, addiction, is sent away with a list of resources we exhausted months ago.

That, friends, is our health care system today. I don't see how anyone can tell me our current system is right, moral, that it provides "adequate" care. I don't have a detailed solution, but I know that our lawmakers need to find a way to make health care available to all. Colby was a bright, young, talented, funny, kind, caring, loyal person. That he is no longer here with us is a tragedy, not only for me, but for the world.