When Health Care Can Make You Sick
Remember my little trip to the ER the other week when I fainted due to dehydration? The attention I received from the hospital was great, no denying that, but today I received the bill which nearly made me faint again. Although like everyone else in this country who can afford it we have excellent health insurance, I still have to pay just over $700. I could joke about how the ambulance proved to be the world's most expensive taxi ride, but for once I'm struggling to see the funny side.
The hot topic in this country at the moment is health care reform. It's a complicated issue. Some Americans who don't know any better think the British National Health Service is the way to go. Not sure they would be happy to be on a list for months waiting for necessary but non emergency surgery. Others are completely against it. They're concerned that the system will be abused by immigrants getting health care for free when they've paid nothing in.
My concern is for the millions of people stuck in the middle like me. Fortunately we have health care, but can we afford unexpected bills of hundreds of dollars? No we can't. Personally I would have preferred to have laid on the floor of the restaurant and waited until I had come round, but I didn't have any say in the matter. Supposing I was in a car accident and woke up from a six month long coma to be hit with a million dollar bill? What happens to the elderly who need dementia care? Do they have to use all their savings and then revert to Medicare?
In the Naperville area, I meet many people who are calling out for reform. Even if they can afford treatment, they appreciate that not everyone can. Similarly some believe that its too risky to change things in case of abuse. To me, that's ridiculous. It's like saying I'd never buy a car because someone might steal it.
As regular readers will know, I love living in this country and 99% of everything in it. I don't have the answer to the problem, and can't even begin to imagine how the Government will ever be able to make even small improvements. But I do know that something needs to be done.
The hot topic in this country at the moment is health care reform. It's a complicated issue. Some Americans who don't know any better think the British National Health Service is the way to go. Not sure they would be happy to be on a list for months waiting for necessary but non emergency surgery. Others are completely against it. They're concerned that the system will be abused by immigrants getting health care for free when they've paid nothing in.
My concern is for the millions of people stuck in the middle like me. Fortunately we have health care, but can we afford unexpected bills of hundreds of dollars? No we can't. Personally I would have preferred to have laid on the floor of the restaurant and waited until I had come round, but I didn't have any say in the matter. Supposing I was in a car accident and woke up from a six month long coma to be hit with a million dollar bill? What happens to the elderly who need dementia care? Do they have to use all their savings and then revert to Medicare?
In the Naperville area, I meet many people who are calling out for reform. Even if they can afford treatment, they appreciate that not everyone can. Similarly some believe that its too risky to change things in case of abuse. To me, that's ridiculous. It's like saying I'd never buy a car because someone might steal it.
As regular readers will know, I love living in this country and 99% of everything in it. I don't have the answer to the problem, and can't even begin to imagine how the Government will ever be able to make even small improvements. But I do know that something needs to be done.
posted by Hilary at
1:32 PM
6 Comments:
I shan't say a word....
Diane
By
Anonymous, at 4:32 PM
I don't believe in censorship. In the world of the blog, everyone can say what they want as long as they don't spread a virus and expect me to pay for it!
By
Hilary, at 4:56 PM
To get a bill like that is very scary and that’s with a great insurance??? Would this not be a good place to start with reform? The whole world knows how vulnerable EVERYONE is made to feel here with the medical situation. The right kind of reform for everyone’s sake, YES!!!!! Good luck to the pioneers!!!!
Anonymous, Las Vegas
By
Anonymous, at 12:05 AM
I shall say a word or two and start with "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water" followed with "Watch what you ask for, for you may get it".
Clearly the folks who can't deliver the mail to the right address ought not to be charged with taking care of one's health. We may have 'expensive' health care but it is the best care in the world that people come from all over the world to get. Simply the best. And they come here from the UK, Canada, Saudi Arabia and all over the world to get it. That which is truly 'expensive' is that which does not work.
Remember there is no free lunch.
Raised costs come from frivolous lawsuits, excessive awards by the courts, and a hand full of incompetent doctors making a bad name for the many excellent ones who work long hard hours and have huge education expenses and are sadly and immorally underpaid by Medicare and then have to pay huge malpractice insurance bills before they make a dime to make up for the few bad apples in the barrel. And when their malpractice bills are big to be fiscally responsible they must pass those costs along to their patients. You or I wouldn't go to work for nothing and it is immoral to expect a physician to do the same and absorb costs that he or she can't be paid for just because we need help.
Reform is needed. Tort reform for starters and weeding out the few bad doctors, not by fining all the good doctors and ultimately all of us, but by revoking their license if there is true malpractice and lack of keeping up with medical advances. All of this while recognizing that not all illnesses are curable and that both doctors and patients have to accept that. Death is an inevitable part of life and to think otherwise is foolish and to expect every doctor's patient to become whole again is equally unrealistic. Certainly no dedicated doctor likes to lose a patient or have less than full recovery but that is part of life, reality, and medical practice in the real world.
But to ask the government to take control of our health care is to ask for a repeat of what you saw in the UK and if it were that great you would not likely be here. We complain if we have to wait a few hours in the ER with a less than life threatening problem which pales compared to waiting for months for care as you said happens in the UK, Canada and elsewhere.
And the 'poor', be they citizens or not, cannot be denied any care in an emergency room. Just read the sign on the wall when you go back there so here there is essentially nobody who goes untreated or dies on the street so that whole concept holds no water. Certainly there are those who would buy a new car or larger house or a boat rather than buy health insurance but that is a lack of personal responsibility which is their problem. They can't come and cry 'wolf' after they need something they could have afforded but chose not to buy.
One thing that those in Congress ought to consider, should they still demand that the government be given control of health care, is that they ought to be required to accept their health care along with the rest of us under such a plan which is something they have refused to do thus far by opting themselves out of Medicare and Social security. Certainly if they can ask to pass laws that effect us they should be required to be effected by those same laws themselves. They are elected, not elite, and they should be treated as such. The concept of 'Public Servant" seems to have long ago been abandoned by long term professional politicians in this country.
Finally, and again relating to back to personal responsibility, each of us can eat less and exercise more and help prevent many of the problems we blame on the 'system' once we become ill at our own hand.
By
Anonymous, at 11:31 PM
Thank you. May G-d bless you, writer, and may G-d continue to bless America.
L'Shanah Tovah.
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Anonymous, at 5:37 AM
We agree with you Hilary! even in Argentina the system is better!
By
Marta y Alberto - Oswegoland, at 11:49 AM
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