Deciding what makes me feel worse

Crap.

That's what I've felt like for the last several days.

I'm pretty sure it's a cold. But I'm not sure whether it's developed into bronchitis.

I haven't been to the doctor, and that's one of the issues that's compounding the fact that I feel like crap.

I feel like health care is treating me like crap.

Yes, I have health care coverage and thank God for it. But it's not very good, with a pretty high deductible, which means I have to pay for doctor's visits and tests and what-not until I reach my deductible.

And that's a problem when there isn't a whole lot of extra money floating around the checking account.

It means that I and lots of other Americans are making decisions about getting medical care based on whether we can afford the out-of-pocket expense.

I also recognize that health care is expensive and one reason why it's expensive is unnecessary visits to doctors and specialists. So I also think that maybe I shouldn't go see the doctor because I'd be contributing to the big waste of time and money.

There's just something wrong. For a country with such advanced health care, why is it's delivery cumbersome and expensive? I'm a Baby Boomer who, despite hopes to the contrary, is getting older.

All in all, I'm healthy. But that may not always be so. Am I going to be forced to make decisions about health care based on how much money I've got in my checking account?

So maybe the cold is just a cold, and it'll run its course and it'll go away. I'm medicating with tea and honey, chicken soup and Theraflu.

But I don't like the fact that both the cold and health care make me feel so lousy.