You are so right. I watched my FIL and MIL get old and die and they used a lot of healthcare, thus medicare money in their last years. FIL (starting in his 90th year...up until then he had very few health problems) had cancer, but recovered. Then he fell, broke his hip, got MRSA and lingered for months, the cost was outrageous for the antibiotics to treat his MRSA, but you can't not treat. He lived a long time, considering his condition, in a specialty hospital that had a high level of care and charged big $$$.
I sure have used my share of our health care benefits over the years...we have group insurance through my husband's company. But could I have prevented my illness (MS)...no. All other aspects of my health are fine. People do not have control over many chronic illnesses and the meds to treat many of those illnesses are very expensive.
You are so right. One thing never really discussed in political discussions of health care reform is the affect socialized medicine (or whatever Hillary wants to call it) on the development of new treatments for MS and similar diseases. There are a lot of new things in the pipeline for MS, and a new associated gene was recently identified. All of that is money WELL spent, but it is expensive to do the research and drug development. When federal dollars start getting sucked into free wellness checkups for everyone, and for whatever national lifestyle/health programs that the politicians du jour dream up, what happens to discretionary spending on research? I guarantee that as federal budgets tighten, NIH research funding will diminish.
Also, although I’m not defending all actions by drug companies, if the government makes it unprofitable for them to do R&D for drugs that they can’t market to large groups of people, that R&D will dry up.
I hope your MS is quiescent and stays that way your entire life. I know how expensive MS drugs are, and I’m really happy to hear you have good group insurance. My personal belief is that people with diseases that they have no personal control over, like MS, deserve assistance with health care before those who through lifestyle choices contributed to their own conditions. I’m not being judgmental of them, but having MS and similar diseases is something that you have no control over, like losing your house to a tornado. I’m really sorry you’ve had to deal with this.