Posted by SleepyBobR on February 03, 2010 at 04:57:47:In Reply to: Re: Finally...I can breathe posted by westernjoe on November 12, 2009 at 12:32:38:
Thanks for sharing your story; great to hear that things are working out and you are sleeping and breathing better. I have just completed my first month on CPAP and I am sleeping and breathing much better than before and it's very gratifying.
Regarding the political message in your story I would caution you to look more closely before buying the state medicine doctrine. If you think you'd have been better off in Canada, you are dreaming in technocolor. I am Canadian and I have had to literally battle our system every step of the way to get where I am today. I am a retired business manager and am experienced in managing complex business situations. Getting results from the Canadian health care system challenged my abilities. It was my idea to have a sleep study; neither my Cardiologist or GP thought of sleep apnea despite my obvious symptoms - I self-diagnosed. I waited weeks for a sleep study, getting it sooner only because I phoned the sleep clinic every week asking if there had been any cancellations (I discovered that simply being on the cancellation list meant nothing). After the study, I waited weeks for the results. It goes on and I won't elaborate. Socialized medicine with it's long queues, unmotivated and even unqualified practitioners and workers, is not the solution. This is not to say that the US system doesn't need reform. It is clearly too expensive and more competition and portability is needed in the Heath care insurance business; tort reform is overdue. But a government run plan will not solve these problems but simply make things irreversably worse. Do not jump from the frying pan into the fire.