How much do you think the property tax is for one McCain property?

I officially started my time in the hospital proper.  Until now, I've been at the medical center, but technically I was assigned to the outpatient clinic of Internal Medicine.  Now, I'm on inpatient medicine of Internal Medicine.  These are the patients who are the sickest - CCU, MICU, ICU, etc., as well as the well-loved "wards" are all part of Internal Medicine.  Outpatients aren't as sick, because they can walk in and walk out again.  Inpatients are kept overnight, often for several nights.

I'm starting out responsible for one patient.  He is a man who's fallen on tough times.  He's a skilled worker in the civil engineering industry, but since land development has come to a screeching halt (though not evidenced by all the building going on across my street, darnit), he's been laid off.  Money woes caused problems with his family, and that made him more stressed out.  That led to an exacerbation of his illness, but he can't buy medicine because he doesn't have money anymore.  So he doesn't get better, so he can't get a job, so the financial picture doesn't improve his family relations... and it goes on and on.  In his hospital admissions interview, he cited finances were the thing that worried him most about being in the hospital.  Why can't people's biggest worries be about their illness?  And he has some serious stuff going on.  Why is it that in the USA, in the 21st century, a skilled worker cannot pay for the medications he needs?  Why is this so often the boring, dry topic of my blogs?  I wish I had sunnier things to post!  Or I could just content myself with telling funny stories.  But when you see patient after patient, concerned with or worse, suffering as a result of, the inability to pay for their health care, what do you do?  How can I meet patients like this day after day and not spout off every so often?  

Seems like it used to be that doctors had to bear the looks in the eyes of their dying patients and live with the guilt of not being able to save them.  Now, doctors scramble to do whatever they can to get patients medications and treatments so they will not have to look into their eyes, knowing they *are* able to save them, but having to weigh the cost.  What is the value of a human life?  According to one of my professors, the average cost the U.S. as a society has deemed acceptable to save a life is about $50,000.

I wonder if my patient is going to vote for John McCain.