A healthy respect.

• Author: Wallace, Eric
• Position: Comment on Alaska's healthcare industry

Very early in life, at 7:12 p.m., Wednesday, Sept. 10, 19__, I had my first contact with the health care industry. I immediately developed a healthy skepticism towards anyone who would rudely drag me out of amniotic heaven, slap my backside, and then send my parents a bill.

"Health care" often means matters of life and death, but more and more it clearly means business, too. In Alaska, the health industry IV line constantly nourishes the economy with employment and dollars.

Each little Alaska bacterium going about its own business obviously has lots of clout. The financial fabric of our state can be affected by its microscopic antics.

Of course, since the health care industry itself is now under the microscope and may eventually undergo radical surgery, there's an understandable pre-op nervousness in some quarters, particularly in accounting departments and health insurance offices.

No one likes to know that an orderly with a razor and an enema bag is just outside the door. But even before major surgery occurs, there needs to be one particular change in the industry.

Apart from the fact that there are thousands of Alaskans who don't have medical insurance, apart from the fact that many of us who are insured are paying through the nose (causing frequent myonasal infarctions), apart from the fact that health care costs are jumping farther and faster than Hilary Lindh -- apart from all those things which need addressing, there's an attitude problem.

While perhaps we can't bring back the days of highly-personalized service, including house calls, (in my youth, even our local barber made house calls), surely we need to deal with today's widespread attitude, which puts dollars ahead of common sense and caring.

Item: I go to an emergency room because of intense stomach cramps. Doubled over in pain, I'm required to fill out forms -- standing at a counter. I straighten up, fill in a line, bend over in agony, come up again, another line, then down. Ad nauseam -- literally. Probably look like one of those bobbing, water-drinking toy birds, but I can't seem to laugh about it.

Item: I visit an unfamiliar medical office on a referral. "Name? Who's paying?" are the first three words I'm greeted with. The next cheery ones are "fill out both sides."

Item: I'm handed a prescription by the pharmacy...