Attack of Bursitis, and the Emergency Room Club

By Douglas V. Gibbs

I had never heard of Bursitis before, but when the pain hit my elbow, it was unmistakably attention grabbing. The slightest wrong move, or any contact with the area afflicted, resulted in a very sharp pain.

I didn't know what it was, but it hurt enough to send me to the hospital.

My current insurance coverage, in the hopes of keeping the monthly as low as possible, has a rather sizable deductible attached. The idea is that for regular visits we can pay ourselves. We reserve the insurance for the big expenses.

Therefore, the emergency room visit was on me.

Bursitis is when a sac in your elbow, which is there to provide fluid as a lubricant for the joint, fills with liquid from irritation, or overuse. Sometimes called "Popeye's Elbow," due to the lump that forms, the best way to bring down the size of it is with a steroid. The pain, however, is quite severe when the sac is enlarged, and the pain killers had to be some heavy duty stuff. In addition to the medicines, they also wrapped it up.

Anyway, it was a new experience that I would rather not go through again. The fact that I lift a heavy draw bar many times a day at work can't be helped, but my tendency to lean on that elbow when typing is a habit I will need to break if I don't wish to go through another attack of Bursitis again.

Most of the people in the waiting room, as I gathered from conversations in English and Spanish, were there on government paid health programs. And when it comes to these kinds of programs, I have no problem with it if they are used sparingly, and on a temporary basis. Technically, Medi-Cal, or whatever other public health system there is, is fine as long as the funds are exclusively from the State. However, federal funding into such plans are unconstitutional. There is no authority in the Constitution that allows for federal funding of health programs.

Anyway, the folks in the waiting room epitomized the kind of people that abuse the system. They were there for sniffles, headaches, and a small cut - You know, the kind of stuff that could be taken to the urgent care, or held off until the next day and then taken to the family doctor. Instead, they were taking up room at the emergency room, making people with more serious injuries wait.

The only worthy injury that I saw was a broken hand.

Anyhow, the conversations revolved around how the system needs to do this, and the system needs to do that. These people were treating the system as if it owed them something.

I got to thinking about it. Obamacare would have even more people in the waiting room. Instead of five hours, I may have to wait days for a more serious injury than sniffles and headaches. The people were treating the visit to the emergency room like its a trip to the market.

And they expected it to be available forever.

I finally closed my eyes and went to sleep, allowing the voices to fade away, until my name was called, and my elbow was wrapped.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary