Our broken health care system

Today's QuickVote question on the CNN site is the following:

Have you or anyone in your family ever had a nightmarish ER experience?

Yes - 41%

No - 59%

Needless to say, I answered "yes". In fact, I have had two nightmarish ER experiences. There's something very wrong when this many people are so poorly served by our hospitals. But then, what can you expect when uninsured people are forced to use ERs for primary health care?

The article that prompted the QuickVote question is entitled "Five things not to do in the ER". Here's an excerpt:

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- The video is deeply disturbing.

In it, CNN Headline News anchor Glenn Beck describes going to the emergency room in intense pain -- so overwhelming, he wept.

He says that for two hours, no one gave him pain medication. In fact, he says, no one lifted a finger to help him at all for 40 minutes.

Beck says his wife literally held him up in the emergency room, while nurses looked on and chatted about their holidays. He does not identify the hospital.

Okay. Glen Beck is a heartless reactionary politically speaking and, quite frankly, I'm glad he had this experience. Maybe he'll realize something needs to be done about medical care in this country besides line the pockets of the big for-profit hospitals and insurance companies.

Two hours is nothing. Heck, 40 minutes is REALLY nothing. When I went to the ER with appendicitis last summer I was on the floor in fetal position for five hours before I was seen. And during that time I was ordered off the floor by a hospital employee who insisted, "We can't have you on the floor" because of liability. But no help was offered. I simply didn't move. I couldn't. It was because of being on the floor that I was seen after five hours instead of the seven I was initially told I would have to wait.