That woman at the doctor's office was mean

Sadly, Casa de Hawg has been full of illness as of late.

I've harped time and time again here about my pesky ulcerative colitis flaring up and I wound up with some nasty sinus infection over the weekend, to boot. Both of my kids are nursing strep throat and my wife tells me she's not feeling too great, either.

My wife took our 11-year-old son to see the doctor today and I knocked off work early to take our seven-year-old daughter to see a different doctor. Why didn't they both go to the same doctor? I have no idea -- my wife set it all up and I've been married long enough to know when it's best to do what I'm told and ask no questions.

Now, my daughter's visit to the doctor was awful. Her doctor is in an office that's in a complex connected to Saline Memorial Hospital here in Benton. The place is dingy and has all the charm of the county revenue office -- the place where one has to go to get a driver's license, register new vehicles and all those pleasant things.

Like the revenue office, the doctor's office was packed full of people who looked mad about being there. Upon walking in, I knew it was going to be a bit of a wait. I wouldn't have been surprised if someone had removed all the hands from the clocks in there as that office (like most medical offices) is one of those places where time just has no meaning.

So we checked in and settled down. After only 10 minutes, one of the women behind the counter called my daughter's name! Yes, I was excited. It appeared the trip would be a short one, after all.

So I got my daughter and went to see the lady as I was sure we'd be called back and we'd get out of there in a hurry. She asked me if I had my insurance card. I started to dig for it in my wallet and she said, "Oh, never mind. It's right here in your daughter's file."

We were then smugly instructed to wait some more.

I realized right then why that woman was hiding behind a thick pane of glass. I'm convinced she was messing with us -- that she's the type who gets bored and likes to make people suffer. That, folks, is what I call mean.

So we waited for another 40 minutes. We got called back to see the doctor and waited another five minutes and visited with the doctor (who was very nice and my daughter declared upon leaving that she liked her) for about five minutes. So, the visit took about an hour and the payoff was about a five minute visit with a very nice doctor and a prescription for antibiotics.

So, nice doctor. Mean staff. OK.

While waiting in the doctor's office, a nasty thought occurred to me. I've got some kick-ass insurance -- my employer pays the premiums and I have no deductibles. That's right -- 100 percent coverage. Add my wife's AFLAC supplemental to all that and it's a pretty sweet deal.

All this talk of universal health care coverage worries me. Why? Since I started working, the government has found a way to deprive me of a lot of good things. For example, I've watched more than a few raises bump me into a higher tax bracket, resulting in a net gain of about nothing for my family and me.

I'm a bit worried, then, that the very government that seems hell bent on defining "justice" as that which makes us all suffer equally will be targeting my benefits before long. Throw in my long-held belief that those who rely on the federal government for anything will likely be disappointed and I do believe we're heading for a mess.

Getting the feds even more involved than they are in medical care will likely make those miserable trips to the doctor even worse.

Want some real health care reform? Start with a healthy dose of tort reform to keep the sue-happy lawyers in line and medical costs should drop accordingly. Then concentrate on those efforts that allow small businesses and individuals to "pool" and take advantage of the group rates that corporations enjoy. Those two measures, taken together, may help everyone in need of affordable, quality insurance.

Oh, and as for the pooling, here's little article about the Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP) that's kicking around in congressional subcommittees. Arkansas' own U.S. Sen. Blanche Lambert Lincoln, a Democrat, is one of the cosponsors of that legislation and has been a cheerleader for it all year long. She's one of those Democrats that I'm inclined to listen to as she's learned the difference between representing her constituents and representing her political party. By the way, Republicans and Democrats who are more interested in pushing the national agendas of their respective parties than representing the people who put them in office aren't worth a damn.

While the feds messing around in the free market often leads to disaster, that legislation may well represent a reasonable approach to dealing with the very serious problem of affordability of health insurance. It's worth considering, at the very least.