You Have GOT To Be Kidding

There is a financial crisis in far too many governments--local, state, AND federal--and it seems as if the powers-that-be can't figure out why.  Most of the 'common, little people' have a bit of a clue as to the reason:  OVERSPENDING!  And where is this money going to?  Services, salaries, and just, plain redundancy, in many cases.  While this story is NOT one of government excess, it does illustrate a problem that is seen far, far too often in this country.

Not too long ago, I told the story of a friend of mine, Pete, and the way he is dealing with his leukemia.  As I said in the post, he was diagnosed with AML almost one year ago.  He has spent a good deal of his time in various hospitals since getting this diagnosis--dare I say almost 50% of his days?  It has been AT LEAST one-third of his time spent in the hospital and much more of this time sick, while being under DIRECT medical care for almost all of this past year.  In that time he has been stuck with more needles than he could possibly count, been poked and prodded more times than the average person could be in several lifetimes, had more tests done, and had to give up more bodily fluids to medical personnel than a 500 pound man has in his entire system.  You would think they couldn't ask for anything more--especially considering his blood-marrow transplant is going to happen sooner, rather than later.  WRONG!!

Yesterday, Pete got a package from the hospital that he has spent so much of his time in this past year.  In the package was a 'test kit,' asking him to swab the inside of his cheek so that they could test his HLA type.  (HLA testing is what they do to find a bone marrow donor.)  Once he did this, he was supposed to send this package back--Fed-Ex Priority Mail, nonetheless.  After all of this time, after all of the testing he's gone through, the hospital neglected to test for his HLA type in anticipation of his transplant--something he was told many months ago is probably his ONLY chance for a full and (possibly) permanent remission/cure.  So, instead of doing a cheek swab when they actually had him there in person, they SENT a kit to him--via priority mail--and want him to send it back to them--via priority mail.  UNBELIEVABLE.

While, in the whole scheme of things, this is a drop in the bucket in terms of cost--I don't even WANT to know how much Pete and his wife are going to have to spend for his 'cure'--it is a redundant cost.  If this country--not to mention our health care system--is run so inefficiently, is it a wonder we are going broke?  Is it a wonder our health-care is so expensive?  If we could only get some common-sense people to become 'powers-that-be,' could we get back to being the great country that we once were?  Unfortunately, I don't know if even a change in those in power can help things along.  After all, "Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely."