![](\"http:\/\/cyber.law.harvard.edu\/blogs\/static\/dowbrigade\/witchd2.jpg\")
Massachusetts has "the world’s costliest health care," with
\n average annual spending above $7,000 per person, according to an analysis
\n of federal data to be released today.<\/p>\n
The report by Boston University’s Alan Sager and Deborah Socolar, health
\n care advocates at the university’s School of Public Health, is based on
\n state-by-state 2004 expenditures disclosed last month by the federal Centers
\n for Medicare and Medicaid Services .<\/p>\n
The findings also show that health care spending in the state increased
\n faster than in the rest of the country from 2000 to 2004, the period covered
\n by the data.<\/p>\n
from the Boston Globe<\/a><\/p>\n Lately the Dowbrigade has been studying the Massachusetts health care Our long-time Primary Care Physician is a moderately overweight laid-back As soon as we got to the office we were informed by the receptionist secretary 45 minutes later the doctor finally hurried in. Half an hour after that "Sorry I’m running late. I was at the hospital. I just had a patient die, "It must be difficult," we ventured, wondering what the poor bastard had We agreed that the people were nicer and the official corruption more Finally To put everything back where it belonged and tie it down took popping Of course, our Primary Doc referred us to a new specialist in town, who But we gritted our teeth, found parking in the neighborhood, and shuffled And there’s the possibility that our current stomach Today we went in for the CAT scan. Same hospital. Luckily it was in the It was almost half time when they finally called us. We were led into What shake? we asked. No one, it seemed, had remembered to tell us when We grew incensed with the ineptitude, incompetence and insulting inefficiency "Can I help you?"<\/p>\n "Not now, you can’t. But you could have helped me two days ago when I "Well, I’m sorry, sir," she was glancing nervously around, looking for "Well, I was, and nobody said anything about any white liquid. I had to "Actually, we’re just admin staff. I’ll try and find a nurse." Her eyes "Never mind" It occurred to us that she might have a silent alarm below We hate losing our cool, but that damn hospital creeps us out. As we hurried It was on the way out that we finally asked our friend the doctor what He gave me a weird, reluctant look like he wished he could lie but couldn’t, "Ruptured diaphragm"<\/p>\n Too close to home.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Massachusetts has "the world’s costliest health care," with average annual spending above $7,000 per person, according to an analysis of federal data to be released today. The report by Boston University’s Alan Sager and Deborah Socolar, health care advocates at … Continue reading
\n system up close and personal. Last Friday we let our unmentionables
\n go fifteen minutes early because we
\n had a doctor’s
\n appointment
\n over in
\n Cambridge.
\n Five months
\n after
\n surgery for a tear in our diaphragm through which our stomach had migrated
\n from
\n our abdomen to our chest, we were still experiencing an assortment
\n of stomach pains, nasty gas and sulphur burps.<\/p>\n
\n middle-aged Jewish guy, like the Dowbrigade, with a penchant for mixing
\n work and
\n pleasure on
\n extended trips to exotic locales. Luckily, he had a cancellation and
\n was able to see us that week.<\/p>\n
\n that he was running late – had not yet arrived, in fact – due to an emergency
\n at the hospital. Such is life, we thought, glad we had brought the New
\n York Times and a pencil.<\/p>\n
\n we were invited into an examining room and 15 minutes later the doctor
\n finally came in.<\/p>\n
\n suddenly. He wasn’t expected to die, but he just took a turn for the worst,
\n and in two hours, he was gone."<\/p>\n
\n died from. However, wanting to move the appointment along, and lighten
\n the mood, we didn’t ask. Instead we made some small talk about Ecuador,
\n where the doctor had recently advised the government on a UN-funded supplemental
\n health care program.<\/p>\n
\n endemic than in any of the other South American nations we had visited.<\/p>\n
\n we got down to business. We have been having digestive problems lately,
\n involving socially questionable symptoms such as voluminous farting
\n and
\n burping. Five months ago we were operated on for a hiatal hernia – a hole
\n in our diaphragm through which our stomach had migrated from our abdomen
\n into our chest.<\/p>\n
\n us open like a lobster tail and mucking around quite a bit. Our stay at
\n the local City Hospital, whose precise name we have been advised by counsel
\n not to mention, was a nightmare involving a historic blizzard, a seven-hour
\n surgery, awakening in an equipment storeroom, mind-boggling post-operative
\n pain, delirious ravings, pharmacueticals purloined from prostate patients and a 5-foot, 300-lb
\n female African nurse with a gleaming white human bone on a leather thong
\n around her neck. We are trying to forget the whole thing.<\/p>\n
\n of course had his offices in the very hospital from which we had barely
\n escaped five months earlier.<\/p>\n
\n in to see, believe it or not, Dr. Payne. Turns out we had been at college
\n together, he two years ahead of us, but in different fields and out paths
\n never crossed. 30 years later, we got on famously. He ordered blood work,
\n a three-day course of fecal analysis, a CAT scan and an endoscopy. If those
\n don’t turn
\n up
\n anything they’ll make us eat a radioactive egg and watch it digest.<\/p>\n
\n problems are stress related, caused by worrying about our current financial problems, which
\n have been created by our stomach problems.<\/p>\n
\n afternoon, so we didn’t need to miss class. We had to register, dropped
\n our samples
\n at
\n the lab, and waited for our turn in the Big Tube. France and Togo were
\n just starting a World Cup match on a tiny monitor hanging from the ceiling.
\n We watched standing next to a middle-aged gentleman from an indeterminate
\n Caribbean
\n nation.<\/p>\n
\n the back and given a hospital johnny. We were putting our cloths in a plastic
\n bag when they asked us if we had been able to get down all two liters of
\n the chalky white scan-shake.<\/p>\n
\n we made the appointment, that we needed to pick up said reactive material
\n and ingest it all two hours before
\n our appointment. A simple oversight. No way to continue. We needed to reschedule.<\/p>\n
\n shown in this simple oversight. Fortunately, we had the presence of mind
\n to realize that the people in the CAT scan lab had nothing to do with the
\n mistake. Quickly and silently we dressed, got a new appointment for Monday,
\n and stomped upstairs to Medical Specialties, where they had given us the
\n appointment two days earlier.<\/p>\n
\n was in here getting the appointment for my CAT scan. You could have
\n told me, for example, I needed to pick up these two bottles of white shake
\n and drink them before my appointment. Since you didn’t, they couldn’t do
\n the
\n scan
\n and I’ve wasted half a day!"<\/p>\n
\n a weapon or a clear escape route. "I wasn’t even here Wednesday."<\/p>\n
\n find a substitute teacher to teach my class this afternoon, and pay her
\n out of my own pocket. I’m out $100 and half a day of my life. I missed
\n my student’s final presentations. Do you have any idea of the effects of
\n your little "mistakes"?"<\/p>\n
\n continued darting around the area, but the office suddenly seemed strangely
\n silent and empty.<\/p>\n
\n the desk to summon security,and the last thing we wanted at that point
\n was to spend a few more involuntary hours in that hospital, "But when you find
\n the person responsible make sure they know that they wrecked my entire
\n day and I will<\/strong> come back soon to talk to them about it."<\/p>\n
\n out to save the White Whale from the Parking Police, we thought back to
\n the original appointment with our late-running Primary Care Doc. Why
\n hadn’t we let well enough alone?<\/p>\n
\n had been the immediate cause of death of his unfortunate patient at the
\n hospital that day.<\/p>\n
\n and answered.<\/p>\n