What a load of...

This post is written in honor of this past weeks's Health Care Reform Summit where President Barack Obama and Congressional leaders came together to discuss differences and agreements. With my work deadlines, there wasn't a chance to watch Thursday but instead I spent much of Saturday watching it on You Tube, where it was divided into Part I and Part II. Aside from all the political tugs of war, there are a few elements that should be central to any plan impacting the Diabetes Community.

First, we need to better distinguish between the different Types of Diabetes. We have Type 2, which can surely have the umbrella phrase "Diabetes" (I am serious. And don't call me Shirley.")

But, we'll no longer have Type 1, a term that too often gets lost in the abyss of the worldwide epidemic of Type 2. Instead, those of us who've been insulin-dependent since childhood or have reached a stage where we now must take insulin to survive, will have something else:

"Catastrophic Ruthless Attack on the Pancreas." Also known as: CRAP.

We don't know why it happens, but suddenly we forced to live with this chronic condition that is uniquely a load that must be managed daily. Sadly, we must clean up or manage the mess with dollar bills that we never ever have enough of.

While clever and funny, the CRAP concept isn't mine. It first came up in a TuDiabetes Discussion a few years back. Bernard Farrell gets props for coming up with the term. But it seems to be quite appropriately utilized with all the crazy misconceptions about overall "diabetes" and that's even playing into the health care reform debate now.

There's been much debate in the Diabetes Community lately, and through the years, about renaming this chronic condition because of the generalization and misinformation out in the mainstream. The ADA likes to tout what it's doing about Type 2, but in many ways it helps feed the misconception. Its unfortunate, but the vast majority of people are very ignorant regarding diabetes and such statements are indicative of that ignorance. In March 2007, Medtronic Minimed hired Harris Interactive to do a survey that found 80% of the of the 2,436 American adults surveyed could not distinguish between Type 1 and Type 2. Even more troubling was the finding that nearly 67% of those who responded to the poll incorrectly believed there is already a cure for Type 1. Other key findings:

- 51% knew there were two types of diabetes
- 36% thought there was either a "type 3 or 4" diabetes
- 25% believed that proper diet could "cure" or "reverse" the disease
- 32% believed exercise could be a "cure"

So, this makes the case for CRAP. While it cause problems distinguishing between CRAP and #2, that's a problem we can leave to the ADA and those in Congress who dole out enough of their own CRAP on a regular basis. It fits right in, and clearly illustrates why our CRAP should be weaved into their CRAP,

That's the first point for reform.

Secondly, there's a lot of fuss about pre-existing conditions. Everything under the sun appears to be lumped into this category by insurers, such as backpain, acne, etc. So, I say we embrace it.

We create new ones that should be covered:
-Chronic Health Insurance Headaches, or CHIH.
-Health Coverage Emotional Distress, or HCED.

Full coverage. The logic is simple for insurance companies to understand: You create the problem, therefore you pay for it. Specific reasons on how the Insurance Industry creates these conditions can be clearly seen here, and here.

Of course, the way the system currently works, even though it SHOULD be covered, it likely won't. So, we take it a step further.

We throw CRAP at them to make them listen. We can hire some monkeys (Congress men and women??) to toss it their way, and make them see why our CRAP-PY conditions and subsequent CHIH and HCED are so smelly and undesirable. Our CRAP can clog the toilet of the health care industry, but together we should have a chance to work with insurance companies and lawmakers to plunge that big toilet.

So. That's that. Here's to Health Care Reform, as long as I am a part of the solution and it's not left up to the Federal Government or Insurance Industry to inadequately plug things up or create more clogs.