Nurse practitioner Keisha Saunders examines Clarence Workman at the Tug River health clinic in Northfork, W.Va.
Credit: The Washington Post
NORTHFORK, WEST VIRGINIA — Another morning, another list of patients and problems in the hands of 35-year-old Keisha Saunders. Diabetes, depression, heart disease. Robert needs lower blood pressure. Buffy needs prescriptions filled. Mary needs to lose 50 pounds, so she can get what she really needs, a new hip.
Again, the list extends to the bottom of Keisha’s notepad, as it has so many days since the Affordable Care Act mandated that everyone have health insurance. Unlike in Washington, where health care is a contentious policy debate, health care where Keisha is a nurse practitioner is a daily need to be filled. The high rates of chronic diseases in McDowell County have made it the county with the shortest life expectancy in the nation.
It’s also a place that voted overwhelmingly for President Trump, whose promise to repeal the ACA will soon affect nearly every patient Keisha treats at the Tug […]
I expect symptom-focused medicine is the same all over the world, although other parts of the world may have useful things that are denied to Americans.
Pharmaceuticals are not good for you. Many of them are only marginally effective and most of them come with long lists of sometimes-fatal side effects that potentially cancels any benefit the patient might receive from them.
Physically wellness will only come to people when we get the same kind of care that cattle and other livestock have been getting for many years.
That may sound crazy but for years the feed mills in the Midwest have been producing feeds that are specifically blended based on a vet’s assessment of the nutritional needs of the animals being fed.
The Trump plan may stink, but the ACA has done nothing about the epidemic of obesity and diabetes that is plaguing our nation.
I think people need to stop defending that useless program and starting demanding that we have a national health plan like other advanced nations.
Many people need to start taking personal responsibility for caring for their own health.
Skhoveland: Excellent point leaning truewise. How would you propose getting the idea of national health plan past the profit seeking AMA? The models are there. It ain’t happening here.
You are always talking about massive transfers of wealth to the already-rich.
That is exactly what the ACA did- transferred huge amounts of wealth to the insurance companies and the companies that get paid by them.
Get the numbers. More of our GDP goes to “health care” than it does in Germany.
“Health care” has become a parasite sucking the life out of our economy
It is nice to see this article in a widely distributed newspaper. I am hoping people will take notice, and write to their Representatives and Senators about which direction the replacement should go in our new government. Maybe, then, we could change some minds in Washington and end up with a real “wellness-oriented” system of healthcare.