Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss

I sent this to Barach Obama at change.gov, since he claims to be looking for good suggestions. If anyone else has sent anything, you know this is just a way to harvest email addresses on their part. They send back a junk email message with no content or specifics in it. It simply has the word change in it a million times. Please, excuse any typos or grammar mistakes; I have not exhaustively edited this prose, because I am disgusted that no one ever read what I wrote, gave it any consideration or told me to do something to myself that is anatomically impossible. Dear President-Elect Obama: I would like to comment on the state of healthcare, my experience with the system and suggest a useful changes that I think would make a difference in the quality of people's lives. My particular affliction is Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, and I have been ill with it for about the last fifteen years. The major problem I have had is that no physician has wanted to diagnose the disease until about two years ago when it was so painfully obvious that I was sick that no one could deny it. Very few knowledgeable Lupus experts exist, and competent ones are hard to find. Also, my general practitioner was unwilling to cooperate when it came to helping me find help, so there was basically nothing I could do when it came to trying to find a specialist. Specialists take the stance that anyone who is not referred by another physician is a liar, charlatan, drug addict and/or mentally ill. During the entire time I have been ill, I have taken a couple of prescriptions of a level IV controlled substance called Propoxyphene, and that is it for the controlled substances. There is no way I could be a prescription drug addict, but I have still been accused of it with absolutely no proof to substantiate the claim. Physicians and the American Medical Association have too much power. Medical doctors can totally ignore patients they do not want to treat, call people names, deny obvious facts that have substantiation, and there is absolutely nothing sick people can do about it. Physicians have a monopoly on healthcare, and very few people have the resources or the time to visit tens or hundreds of medical practitioners until they find one who is competent or willing to provide needed treatment. The first Lupus symptoms I ever had consisted entirely of an enlarged prostate, and since I was twenty years old, I mostly got called a liar. In all fairness, it is very rare for someone that age to have that problem, but it is a symptom that is a easy to substantiate. The urologist accused me of having a sexually-transmitted disease, but he provided no proof in that he documented no symptoms of such a phantom illness. Nor did he offer me any treatment for his mystery sexually-transmitted disease. He should have been obligated to do so simply by the scope of his practice and standard of care if he really suspected such a thing. Most physicians I have ever dealt with are responsible for wilful professional misconduct and blatant patient abuse, and the sick people they mistreat have no course of action except to beg for better treatment that they rarely get. I could not buy the medications I knew I needed for years without a permission slip from someone with a medical doctor's degree, and lately I have developed what seems to be Myocarditis (judging purely from the symptoms). The general practitioner I go to commented on it the last time I saw him, but he is one of the main people who was so adamant for many years that I did not have Lupus. Without his recommendation, I could not get a specialist to take me seriously, and now my heart is inflamed, and I will probably die from the condition. Had I gotten treatment earlier, it might not have progressed to this point. However, my main thesis is that adults should have the right to buy drugs they need or embark on treatment plans they think appropriate. It is inhumane to make people die in agony because they do not have or cannot even find adequate medical care. No one should have to suffer at the hands of medical practitioners; the American Medical Association and its members should not have a monopoly on medical treatment when they are unable to administer their power effectively and compassionately. I would suggest a means to redress the situation, but I do not think there is one. Evidently the powerful financial and political interests involved are too concerned with their own desires to even provide for the basic welfare of the patients, who are supposed to be the focus of the system. The one simple thing I would like to do is to be allowed the respect and dignity to buy and use the medications that I think would best help me. No one else seems to care what happens aside from the amount of money with which I provide them, so I would like to be able to claim the rights afforded to me by the United States Constitution. I want to be able to provide for my own healthcare without breaking the law. Sincerely, W. B. LeCroy