Comments on: HealthFrag

By: Queen of Optimism

Queen of Optimism — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 02:52:10 +0000

Excellent post and If I may, I would love to earn one of your badges.

I’m on the fringe of the online medblog community – paying more attention to my cathartic patient blog writing than much else. I must say that the grouping of patients by illness doesn’t help me feel anymore integrated. I’m undiagnosed.

Thanks for this post.
-Q

By: Grand Rounds | The Health Care Blog

Grand Rounds | The Health Care Blog — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 23:16:40 +0000

[...] Ducan Cross is equally not happy. He takes a look, hard look at some of the finer points in the new Wellsphere FAQ. [...]

By: dx

dx — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 20:08:23 +0000

@Lisa – I’m one of those patients with decent insurance and low co-pays; if we focus on that alone, you and I don’t have much in common. But that’s not all there is to it; I have a lot of sympathy for you and others in your situation, more so folks with no coverage at all. I have a lot of anxiety – and I’m sure lots of folks in my situation do, too – about losing coverage. Anything that helps you pay your bills is also going to help me not worry about mine; let’s get there together. My point is that there are any number of issues like that – things we experience or fear as sick people – that we can work together to fix. But first we have to be willing to look past our diagnoses….

@Christine – welcome, and thanks for your comments. Just FYI: I fixed the HTML in your URL, so folks can click through to your blog.

By: Christine Kraft

Christine Kraft — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 19:02:29 +0000

Your post is right on … and, I agree, your badge is very cool.

People, not patients!

Christine

By: Lisa Emrich

Lisa Emrich — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 16:00:25 +0000

Thanks for the shout-out!!

I agree with you strongly that we, as patients, share experiences greater than symptoms and diagnoses. When I started my blog, I didn’t focus on the diagnosis (or rather multiple diagnoses). Instead, I focused on health policy and the problems I experienced within the current system.

My largest complaint had to do with health insurance being vastly different if you were part of a group or a self-employed individual. It was only through having MS that I discovered the horrendous holes and pitfalls in my insurance coverage and the dwindling safetynet programs.

I’m certain that I’m not the only patient living with chronic illness who has prescription coverage limited to $1500 each year. Hold that up against the cost of my drugs which approaches $30,000 each year. Unfortunately what this does is serve to diminish my sympathy for other patients who complain that the cost of their co-pays increased from $25 to $50 (just using those numbers as an example).

When I read that same answer above, my first thought was ‘cool, so finally someone is thinking of the bigger picture.’ It was the “communities of action” which caught my eye, maybe a bit like Care2.com which is organized around causes and has a way for people to join forces with petitions. BTW, Care2 recently added a Health Policy section which a friend of mine writes for.

Perhaps what this means is that more ‘networking’ will have to take place and perhaps it will be up to the patients to make that happen. But once I started talking about my MS and connecting with other MSers, I haven’t ventured out as much to get around. LOL.

BTW, I really LOVE your new badge!!