My recent health insurance experiences leave me wondering if universal, government regulated health insurance is really what we need.

This story starts around Christmas when I began to feel exhausted all of the time.  I could sleep one hour or ten hours at night and not feel rested.  I was in a terrible mood all of the time and took it out on my family.  Eventually, at the mandate of my wife, I made a doctors appointment. 

The doctor suggested several courses of action and the one we settled on was to get some blood work to rule out some conditions and start me on a medication.  He gave me a month's worth of samples of this medication and asked to see me back about a month later.  I began to feel better almost immediately after beginning the medication and this trend continued until I was almost feeling normal again.  After about 3 weeks, I set up my next appointment.

I was told by my doctor at my follow up visit that all of my blood work was normal and that since the medication seemed to be working, he would write me a prescription for six months worth of the medication and we would reevaluate at that time to see if I needed to remain on it or not.  I left the doctor's office, prescription in hand, looking forward to a great day. 

The next evening (a Friday), I dropped the prescription off at a local pharmacy and told them I would come back on Saturday to pick it up.  This is the story goes bad.  Actually, it may not be all that uncommon, or even a bad thing, but it really got to me.  Around noon on Saturday, I went back to the pharmacy to pick up  my medicine and was told that they couldn't fill the prescription yet because the insurance company requires a pre-authorization from the doctor's office for that particular medicine.  Of course, this can't be done until Monday.

This is where my problem begins.  I don't understand why or how some suit in some office in some city, probably no where near where I live, can decide if a medicine is right for me.  I feel quite certain that the person who gives the authorization for this medicine has not goen to medical school.  I can assure you that this person has not evaluated me, or probably even met me for that matter.  What has happened to the doctor led healthcare?  Shouldn't it be enough that the person who went to medical school and has evaluated me thinks that it would be in my best interest to take a particular medication?  What if this was a serious condition and my life was on the line?  Would I still have to wait an extra 48 hours to get the medications because it is a weekend?

My fear is that the democrats will get into office and try to "governmentize" our healthcare.  That would be a disaster.  I just read that Hillary Clinton would not be opposed to garnishing the wages of people who did not want to purchase health insurance.  The kicker is, if I didn't have health insurance, I could have walked out of the pharmacy with my medication, of course at a much higher cost, but I would have it.  In my humble opinion, health insurance should be treated like automobile insurance.  If I had the opportunity to hire and fire my insurance company, they would have to cater to me if they wanted my business.  As it is, I have no control over who I get my insurance from so they are not worried one bit about keeping me happy.  That is the ultimate failure of our heathcare system now.  The end user, the patient, has no involvement whatsoever in negotiating and selecting their coverage.  It is like going into a resaurant and being brought a meal that you had no choice of, and then leaving the bill for you to pay.  None of us would put up with that.