Have you heard these commercials that start off with
fun funky tuba music and end with a woman's voice
(brain washing you to believe)
"Here at Kaiser we want you to live well and THRIVE!"
Well ain't that just bunches of rainbows and butterflies their trying to shove up your butt?!?
Let me begin by saying this is not geared toward one particular person who works for Kaiser. If you work there and love your career, fantastic! This is a rant intended to express my feelings about health insurance as a whole and I just happened to have Kaiser.
Don't get me wrong there are some great aspects of Kaiser's philosophy, but the reality is, a butterfly can't thrive with holes in it's wings.
Good things about Kaiser.
I love that when I had my third child it only cost me a co-payment to see my doctors; when my friends that have other insurance companies had to pay a deductible. Of course, when I had Medi-cal the bill was 100% paid. I do love that most things are in-house, like x-rays and the pharmacy. But I have a few complaints too and maybe others out there have the same?
If I had to categorize my complaints, I think I could group them into pills, psychologist and alternative medicine.
❤ ❤ ❤ So first pills ❤ ❤ ❤
In my short 30 years and 3 kids later, I have never been around so many doctors that push pills on you. They have a pill for everything! Or so they think! It's all trial and error until they get the right combination for you, but in the meantime you get crazy side effects that make whatever you had, seem insignificant now because the side effect is darn near killing you!
Oh your crazy in the head?
We have a pill for that!
You will have to try 30 different pills till we figure out which one quiets the crazy in your particular kind of head though.
But what they don't educate you on, is those darn side effects...
It might calm the crazy, but it will also kills your liver, make you hallucinate, give you shakes, trigger headaches (or migraines in my case), cause premature menopause and you may become more crazy than you started off!
Oh but that's just what happened to me, others have had it way worse on this stuff! The stuff doctors give you and lord knows it's not just Kaiser, but doctors in general can't keep up with the amount of sickness in this world, so pills are the easiest, quickest and most profitable way to keep the public at bay.
Not to get all religious but isn't it funny that the Bible
(written 2000 years ago)
predicted that the world would be like this in the time of the end?
I'm no dooms day nutcase or anything, I mean there is good news too! The Bible also tells us there will be a time when ALL of mankind's woes will be gone. At Revelation 21:3,4 we have a marvelous hope to hold out for!
But in the meantime while I'm waiting for that to happen, do you think you can try to get it together Kaiser?!?! I don't just what pills, I want care... Someone who genuinely cares that I will get well and/or if there is no cure, be able to manage my pain (and crazy) on a daily basis. Which leads me too my next point.
❤ ❤ ❤ Psychologist ❤ ❤ ❤
I live in Ventura Co. and although they do have ONE facility caring for my area (that consist of Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks, Moorpark and West Lake ) it's PACKED. I could drive 30 minutes to Woodland Hill for a therapist, but it's PACKED there too. The... world... has... gone... CRAZY!
So with such a high demand for psychologist, getting in to see one, sounds something like this: Oh you need to change your "crazy lady pills" that WE put you on because they're causing you to hallucinate? You can see the doctor next month! That is no joke, they actually told me that, minus the crazy lady part...
Although I liked the therapist they put me with the first time, she left and I had to tell my insane story to another person; I like her too, but I'm tired of telling a new person my story every 6 months. I've just started telling them go read my blog and you'll know everything about me! I have had psychologists that make me out to sound more crazy than I really am, made me cry and wanted to put me on a crazy amount of, you guessed it... pills!
That's not even the worse part! They only have a therapist for adults, who are alone. No family therapy and no marriage counseling. You want warm and fuzzy, actually help you mend your relationships and survive your mate/kids/parents/siblings/family? Go pay $150-300 a session out of pocket for a therapist like that because Kaiser only deals with single adults and only at this location.
You want your kids to go to therapy because they are bouncing off the walls from ADHD (like mine)? Well... they only see kids in Sherman Oaks (almost a 1 hour drive in traffic) and that particular facility is also the closest thing they have to a drug rehab. So, great, they put the kids with the druggies! I guess they figured after they're done drugging our kids they will need to come back later in life for drug rehab anyway! Added bonus they'll know where to find the facility!!! Now going to the therapist for your kid, has become an all day event and you now need to go to the nearest PACKED facility to see your own therapist!
Or you could just read your Bible, in your spear time, at night, once the kids are finally asleep and your husband is satisfied and the household chores are done and, and, and "Where's my wine?"
Does anyone else want to lose there mind yet?
❤ ❤ ❤ Alternative Medicine❤ ❤ ❤
Ok, where do I even start with this one??? After all that I have mentioned about taking pills and the adversities it has caused in my life, I turn to alternative medicine. What I'd like to know, is why is it called alternative when it's natures way of curing us? It came first!
Let me tell you a story...
I think this say's it all about why "All Natural Medicine" is my preferred choice.
But Kaiser hates alternative medicine. They say they don't, they even partner with an alternative medicine insurance company (ASH aka American Specialty Health) that is supposed to cover alternative medicine practices like acupuncture and chiropractic care. But what they don't tell you is that once you start using these types of care and they start working for you, they are going to give you the run around to keep using them.
What do I mean?
Well let me share what's been happening with me. I suffer from migraines. There is NO cure for migraines, only ways to take the edge off. Acupuncture does not cure migraines, but for me I have noticed that when I am getting treatments twice a week, the severity is not as bad and the amount I get is less.
I have never been able to go longer than 6 months of treatment though.
Why?
Well, the insurance company gives my acupuncturist the run around about 6 months into treatment. This is the FORTH acupuncturist I've had, that couldn't get paid from the insurance company and stopped seeing me. The one before this didn't speak English very well, so I called Kaiser and ASH to find out why he wasn't getting paid and they just point the finger at each other.
This to me is like...
Oh you have cancer? Well we can only approve you for 2 chemo therapies because we don't know if it's going to work and we don't want to shovel out the money to find out.
I'm a butterfly with a broken wing!
Borrowed from Hanson Photography
I can't THRIVE if I can't see my acupuncturist.
I can't THRIVE if you just shove pills at me.
I can't THRIVE if you tell me
essential oils, herbs and natural remedies aren't doing anything for me.
(I actually had a doctor tell me they are pointless! Remind me again where your pills come from? Nature... reconstructed by man, oh that's right!)
I can't THRIVE if I have to drive all over God's green earth for care.
I can't THRIVE if you don't listen to me when I tell you what works for me.
I understand that doctors go to school a long time to learn the practice of medicine but the problem is doctors are human too and they make mistakes. My kids pediatrician had the gall to tell me something along these lines, when I questioned the need to vaccinate my youngest...
"I'm a scientist. I know what's best for your kids. You need to just listen to me." Needless to say, I switched pediatricians that day.
Can't we just get back to the basics?
God created things in nature to help us cope with this world, why do we keep trying to invent the wheel?
You want me to really believe the commercials when I hear Kaiser can help me THRIVE?
Than take what I have to say into consideration, it's my health after all and I know my body.
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