I never ceased to be amazed how dysfunctional and bad our joke of a health care system is. This is the tip of the iceberg…..
A few nights a year Tennessee holds a lottery for applications for help with health care expenses.
State residents who have high medical bills but would not normally qualify for Medicaid, the government health care program for the poor, can call a state phone line and request an application. But the window is tight — the line shuts down after 2,500 calls, typically within an hour — and the demand is so high that it is difficult to get through.
There are other hurdles, too. Applicants have to be elderly, blind, disabled or the “caretaker relative” of a child who qualifies for Medicaid, known here as TennCare. Their medical debt has to be high enough that if they paid it, their income would fall below a certain threshold. Not many people end up qualifying, but that does not stop thousands from trying.
Medicynical Note: America is unique in so many ways, some however are just plain embarrassing.
It should be noted that America (the U.S.) is the only industrialized country in the world without a system to provide health care to all it’s citizens.
Medicynic 