Everyone except HMO/PPO C-Suite basically hates the medical industry; the overworked techs, physicians, surgeons, nurses, pharmacists, etc. Every single year, some combination goes on strike, grinding our care systems to a halt. Happy employees? Sure.
Except for the two (one retired, one active) CEO and VP of hospital and healthcare systems who happen to be in my family; and they strongly maintain a disfavorability towards their own industry. Oh, the stories they tell at Thanksgiving over the decades. Things did not use to be this way.
So then, why do we see the following headlines? I didn't bother to keep the links, mostly because I was engaged with feeling my own deep-seated distrust and hatred for an industry which has done nothing but make life harder than it needs to be for every single disabled person navigating the gross-systems of ethical failures which define "Healthcare Done Wrong, USA Style".
- “When Health Meets Profit: The Dark Side of Patient Data Harvesting”
- “Privacy‑By‑Design or Profit‑By‑Data? Rethinking HIPAA in the Age of AI”
- “From EHRs to Data Farms: How Your Health Record Becomes a Commodity”
- “The Great Health Privacy Lie: Why ‘HIPAA‑Safe’ Isn’t Safe Enough”
- “Patient Sovereignty vs. Data Brokers: The Battle for Control of Your Chart”
- “Confidentiality Cracked: Inside the Ransomware Wave Targeting Hospital Records”
- “Health‑Data Capitalism: When Hospitals Trade Your Illness for Dollars”
- “Zero‑Trust, Zero‑Privacy: The New Norm for Online Patient Portals”
- “Consent‑Chaos: How ‘Opt‑In’ Policies Leave Your Medical History Exposed”
- “The Untold Cost of Interoperability: Who Really Wins When Records Flow Freely?”
- “From Bedside to Marketplace: The Unseen Journey of Your Health Data”
- “HIPAA’s Blind Spot: Why State‑Level Laws Can’t Stop Data‑Broker Exploits”
- “The Ethics of Anonymization: When ‘De‑Identified’ Still Means Identifiable”
- “Patient Privacy in the Cloud: Storm Clouds or Silver Linings?”
- “Data‑Harvesting in Scrubs: How Big Tech Is Redefining ‘Care’”
- “The Health‑Data Breach Playbook: Lessons From the Last 5 Major Hacks”
- “Sick of Being Sold: Reclaiming Rights Over Your Medical Records”
- “When Health Records Go Rogue: The Rise of Insider‑Leak Epidemics”
- “Profit‑First Medicine: Why Non‑Profits Still Cash In on Your Data”
- “Guardians of Health? How Trust (or Lack Of) Shapes Patient‑Data Policies”
Parting Thoughts
Sometimes a creative streak allows me to reframe pedestrian-level blasé phrasing into expressions of semantic beauty, but right now I'll say what I really truly mean deep down into my probably mercury infused not-adamantium boned marrow: FUCK THE PROFIT-DRIVEN MEDICAL INDUSTRY AND FUCK DATA BROKERS.
Now, please excuse my horrid language while I get ready for a specialist visit to go review the two MRIs and CT scans that I should have had earlier in the year to prep for another round of Gamma Knife targeted radiation into the depths of my genetic-outlier skull. That will be $60 co-pay and $22,000/month for my Recombinant Human Growth Hormone (rHGH aka Somatropin aka Omnitrope). Also, they did not cover my EpiPens so if I get stung by a bee again I'll likely stop breathing and experience a painfully silent yet fully conscious suffocation with eyes wide open.
Oh, but there's also the $26K/yr OOP-Max and $2.9K/m monthly premium. Shall we cover the other 10-12 Rx that I have to take, so what choice do I have but to make A FUCK LOAD OF MONEY AND HAVE NOTHING TO SHOW FOR IT but scars and beam-forming target reticles burned into the skin
Thanks Kaiser, thanks Blue Cross, thanks UHC, thanks Cigna, thanks... for nothing. One of these days I'll stop being an insurance liability, but until then I want my money's worth.
