by Laura Conaway

Susan writes:

You've been talking health care for average folks, but what about those of us who aren't average? There's a saying doctors learn in med school, "When you hear hoofbeats, think of horses," but every once in a while it turns out that what you hear is a zebra.

In medical parlance, I'm one of those zebras: I did a lot of running around getting all sorts of negative or inconclusive tests, until finally my naturopath got me on the right track that led to a good allergist/immunologist (after years wasted with a lousy one), who ordered an expensive ($500) and rare test, twice (second time at a
different lab to confirm, as results were almost too unusual).
Result? Turns out I have a random 1 in 10,000 immune defect (which she treated successfully with a protein vaccine, G-d bless her).

Before that was discovered, I had a lot of doctors treating me like a psychosomatic, since if they couldn't find anything wrong, it must be all in my head. And my concern is that calculations of false economy could result in zebras like me not getting the diagnoses and care that we need to get back to participating fully in life.

By false economy, what I mean is that, on the surface, we are an unfair drain on the system, getting a lot of expensive and inconclusive tests, taking a lot of expensive specialists' time. But in a larger sense, if you look at me not as an economic variable in the health care system, but rather as an economic variable in the greater economy of domestic production, by helping restore me to health, you're getting back many times the health care investment by restoring me to full economic productivity.