I recently saw a teenage boy with headaches.  His father, wringing his hands, said that the headaches had been present for two years; but that the child had never been evaluated for them.  No imaging, no neurologist.  No insurance, of course.

A family friend, another child, had been diagnosed with a brain tumor.  The family of my patient was terrified.  Where to turn?  They were, reasonably, concerned about cost.

Contrast that with the woman I saw on state assistance.  Her non-urgent, non-life-threatening medical complaint, which shall remain unspecified, would probably improve with weight loss.  Significant weight loss.

‘Medicaid was paying for my diet pills.  They were $300 per month, but I couldn’t get them this month.’

Does the morality of this seem inverted to anyone but me?  Federal/state assistance to an individual who is obese, not starving, and who needs federal/state funds for diet pills to lose weight.  All while a teen cannot afford to see a neurologist to rule out dangerous etiologies for headache.

We have some serious priority problems in America today.

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