I was talking to a cabbie who I ride with every now and then (some days I don’t take the bus), and remarked that I had not seen him for a while. Apparently he had a mild heart attack over the holidays (he is 61), and was admitted at around midnight on December 21st and released on the 25th. He had a number of procedures, to include having some stents put in, and he just got his bill yesterday:
$65,000.00
I asked him if he had insurance, and he just laughed and said he could never get it, but that is ok, because even if he could, he could not afford it. He’ll never be able to pay the bill, and he has to go back for some more procedures and is heading to the VA to see what can be done.
Our health care system makes no damned sense whatsoever. Not to go all pinko-commie, but with the markets about to go all Black Tuesday on us with the sub-prime and looming Alt-A mess, our never-ending adventure in Iraq sucking hundreds of billions of dollars, the boomers retiring, I simply don’t understand how reasonable and realistic people can assert that we can afford to pay triple what other nations pay for health care. Something is going to have to give, and quite honestly, I find it amazing that the Republican candidates never even talk about the subject other than to scare people with phrases like “socialized medicine” or “Hillarycare.” The Republican attitude towards health care right now isn’t just stupid, it is grossly irresponsible and negligent.
At any rate, my cab driver friend thanks all you out there with insurance, because believe me, he isn’t paying the bill. You are. And you are a damned fool if you think you aren’t.
Davis X. Machina
Republican candidates never even talk about the subject other than to scare people with phrases like “socialized mediciine” or “Hillarycare.
They do it because it works.
The salient fact in American politics — and we forget it at our peril — is that there are usually people enough in this country to elect a president who would volunteer to live with their family in a cardboard box under a bridge, and eat sparrows toasted on an old curtain rod, if you could promise them that the black, or Mexican, or gay guy in the next box over doesn’t even get the sparrow
Tim (the other one)
That’s cool, I’ll help pay his bill. That’s what pooling our financial interests can do if we all decide that’s the way to do it. But don’t take my word for it. I’m just a Liberal Fascist.
cleek
the Republican attitude towards everything is irresponsible and negligent.
FlatTax, 100 more years of occupation in Iraq, align the Constitution with the Bible, build a 2000-mile impenetrable fence!
it’s like they’re all fucking retarded.
Keith
Here’s a little anecdote that contains a lesson about hospital bills: last year, I had an MRI done (one of a few expensive procedures that docs scheduled for me “just to be on the safe side”). Anyway, I though insurance covered it all so didn’t even open letters from the MRI place. Then I got a phone call from them. Apparently, insurance didn’t cover $2k of the bill, and I was 6 months late paying it. However, if I’d only pay them $1k immediately, they’d call it even.
The hospital bills are jacked up quite a bit (look at your insurance forms…even the companies are negotiating the final bill) and see if you can talk the hospitals down (assuming you want to even pay the bill…although I heard from someone that in the last couple of years, hospital bills could end up on your credit report, which was news to me)
Jake
Because that’s what their masters at AHIP want to hear.
The question is, will AHIP continue to scream about commiepinkocare while states come up with 50 different solutions?
Then they’ll really have something to cry about.
Gregory
And the stupid, it is grossly irresponsible and negligent Republican attitude towards health care right now differs from the Republican attitude towards health care over the last 14 years how, exactly…?
craigie
I blame American Exceptionalism. If we didn’t spend so much time telling ourselves that we are the coolest, smartest people who ever lived, then we might be more willing to ask why other groups of people are able to behave smarter than us in many areas.
As with all thing, ultimately, I blame conservatives. They’re idiots.
trollhattan
But, but, but Fred Thompson just told me we have the Best Medical Care in the World(tm).
I dunno, much like climate change needs somehow to be disconnected from Gore for us to move forward as a nation, healthcare needs to be disconnected from the dems/Hillary for us to even have the national conversation. “Only Nixon can go to China” and all that.
Good Saint Mitt, deliver us.
Naaah.
Svensker
My husband just had a four hour stint in the hospital for some outpatient surgery (he would have stayed over night but we didn’t want the higher tab) — bill? $22,000. For 4 hours. Add $9,000 for surgeons, $2,000 for tests, and another $2,000 for miscellaneous pre-surgery stuff. We DO have insurance, but with a really high deductible and a 20% pay after the deductible is met up to a certain point. We are going to be shouldering about $10K of the total.
Now I need to go see the doc, but am hesitating because I’m worried about affording another $10K right now.
Of course, I could have been a “responsible” citizen and got a job that paid for health care, or taken out a non-deductible policy (about $15K/year for our family)…
Personally, I’d just like to have the same kind of health insurance that our government employees have. But that would be “socialism”, wouldn’t it?
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
Makes perfect sense, once you realize that you cannot expect a right to good health. Everyone kicks the bucket at some time, and your cabbie’s life-extension apparently costs around $65000 in a free market.
Now, if you’d like to argue that, as a wealthy nation, we should be subsidizing such things instead of killing brown people… I’m very amenable to that.
I’m also cool with lightly regulating the industry to make sure we’re not paying for anything more than the innovation that has been researched. I’m not very open to the idea of “whatever the market will bear” when the market might be asked to bear illnesses from unnecessarily-delayed treatment.
But this makes perfect sense to me. We die, and life is expensive.
(Also, you imply this guy is a vet, I certainly have no qualms about pitching in for his health. They put up with shit so we don’t have to, so it only makes sense.)
Jen
I love that. Elegant and succinct.
Tim (the other one)
I don’t think I have a right to good health. That’s a “talking point” meme. We all seem to want national health care but apparently we have to ask politicians for it. Can’t this great nation of ours’ analyze the best and worst of other countries health care systems and bang one out for ourselves ?
Grumpy Code Monkey
As part of our acquisition by another company last year, our health care plan changed. Under the old plan, the company paid 100% of the premiums, I was responsible for a modest co-pay, and that was pretty much that.
At the end of last year, the representative for the new plan came in to explain it all, calling it “consumer-driven health care.” What I heard was, “you’re all about to get fucked with a hammer — sideways.” It’s a high-deductible health plan with a health savings account. The good: preventative care is 100% paid for. The bad: my deductible is now north of $2500, I have to pay the full negotiated price for prescription meds (not retail, but not the co-pay amount I used to pay), and I have to mess with the stupid HSA bookkeeping.
If you’re young, healthy, and don’t have a habit of falling down and breaking pieces of yourself, you can come out ahead on this plan. If you’re getting old and decrepit like me, though, it’s a loser. I’m not going to be able to keep enough in the HSA to earn any significant interest, and I have the fun fun fun of the bookkeeping to go along with it.
All I want is something that’s reasonably simple and provides adequate coverage. Whether that’s single-payer or some other plan I can’t say, but almost anything has to be better than this current clusterfuck.
Punchy
3.5 days in the hospital (intensive care, natch) with stents, and surely drugs…$65K sounds a little low, actually.
I had a friend, that as a condition of her CF, hadda go in twice a year for a week at a time for a “tune-up”. One time, on a whim, she demanded an itemized bill from the hospital, even though her insurance covered all of it. It was LOADED–no exaggeration–with fake shit; tests a CFer would never need, meds at amounts that would have killed her 20x over (f.e., 24 Tylenols in a 24-hour period at about $5 a pill). The hospital completely padded the bill to the tune of about $20K on a $85K bill.
So….the hospital’s inflating the bills, forcing insurance to pay more, driving up the cost of insurance to everyone, making it less affordable for many, causing more people to default on their bills, causing the hospital to try and recoup that loss by padding others’ bills, and repeat.
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
Hey, you did just manage to compress the platform into 21 words. You have 9 more available before the average voter starts commenting on Bill Parcells and menu at Hooters.
It’s not the candidates that are retarded…
Buck
Reminds me of a conversation I had with an elderly fellow at the barbershop a few weeks ago. He told me that he had recently been diagnosed with prostate cancer and had to go through all of the treatments and then had surgery. He told me that as far as he knew everything had been taken care of. Then he looked at me and grinned and said “It cost somebody $38,000!”
TheFountainHead
They ARE all fucking retarded.
As a relatively young person, I’m beginning to develop a relatively justified resentment against the boomers of all political persuasions for sitting back and enjoying the 80s and 90s instead of dealing with the problems a million people could have told them were coming.
Nash
You found Friedman’s cab driver!
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
FTFY.
I got that in a previous operation, but from the same dickwad. First he buys a premium plan, because we’re all elite financial traders (not really, though), and that lasts for 3 months. Then he says “you know what, you’re all young, why should I pay for this? I’m scaling back the insurance.”
Insurance broker that sold the first plan said “WTF r u doin? You’re locked in. You already bought it. No backsies!”
He got stuck with it.
And this was probably all because he fucked up another crude oil play. Putz.
Tim (the other one)
I’m sorry you’re pissed at me FountainHead. I was trying back then. I really was.
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
Ditto. We should start a club.
myiq2xu
The sad part is he probably went to a crowded emergency room filled with people who had routine problems but no insurance either.
PeterJ
I recall reading that McCain, Giuliani and Thompson all have “plans” that wouldn’t give themselves coverage, all of them being cancer survivors…
Dreggas
Healthcare is just one in a long line of things that Republicans didn’t care about, see also Labor Laws, safety standards. You know, all the things that keep you from losing limbs on the job?
ThymeZone
Your cab driver got lucky. Seriously. I had the same event in 2005 and the invoices came to over $150k.
The system we have now, which I shall call the Darrell Model of Healthcare and Insurance, is a trainwreck waiting to happen for the people in this country.
It has to go, it is not sustainable.
And yes, in case you haven’t read my rants on this before, I have great insurance and I personally paid maybe $300 for the whole event in 2005. But I am extremely, incredibly lucky.
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
I imagine that the relationship between these companies is like every time I change my phone bill.
When I alter something, they give me what I demand in the most contrived way possible (despite the fact I’m asking for what everybody else wants), and then they “forget” to hit the button that tunes the bill down to what they advertised.
One time, AT&T charged me $400 for a $10 addition. I tagged them on it, someone other than the culprit innocently exclaimed surprise, they gave me another 400 anytime minutes free of cost (whoopdee-fucking-doo).
Except, with hospitals, the insurance company barely can threaten to switch hospitals, and they do this all fucking day.
I can sort of understand why insurance companies are so fucking psychotic.
But only sort of.
ThymeZone
It’s a touch low, but it depends a lot on the number of stents, the nature of the stent placements (it’s a long story, but they differ widely), and the particular stent devices used.
In my case we did what is known as an off-label stent placement, and it was quite complex. The latest and costliest stents were used and it took two hospitalizations to complete them. Ergo, my $150k tab.
Ted
Cue Michael D. coming in to tell us all about the wonders of Health Savings Accounts.
ThymeZone
Not really. The insurance bill is generally around 60% of the walk in price. That’s what my insurance paid for my little shop visits. That difference is what the hospital saves by not having to try to collect from the patient, among other things. The guy who gets really stuck, and by that I mean totally fucked, is the guy who walks in or gets wheeled in without coverage and then actually pays for his care. He pays the retail rate and is completely hosed.
Zuzu
Let’s hope the Malkin folks don’t see this story.
They’d be writing about that cabbie’s counter tops in no time.
ThymeZone
Har, or better yet, tax rebates for health care. I can just picture my tax rebate of $150k saving my ass from financial ruin. Yeah, sure.
Eric S
As I understand it they are not supposed to. Technically. My brother’s mother-in-law works for a small medical office. She once explained to me that when big establishments can’t collect on a bill they sell it a collection agency. The collection agency ends up reporting it to the credit bureaus.
As far at the $65,000 bill. I agree it sounds low and would expect more to come. I spent a couple hours in an ER after I thought I broke my ankle last May. Fortunately I was wrong. So far I’ve paid out $2500 (no insurance here) and another bill showed up in the mail yesterday.
Jake
Bravo to your friend for asking for an itemized bill. It isn’t just hospitals, unfortunately. Hospitals just have an easier time loading bills and when they get caught they tend to whine that if they have to pay all that money back they’ll have to shut down.
Andrew
No, Michael will just tell us about the libertarian solution to health care which, of course, is that you die if you are poor.
Zuzu
Hey TheFountainhead, plenty of us boomers were researching, advocating, voting, and yelling during the ’80s and ’90s. Also the ’60s and ’70s for that matter.
myiq2xu
Hell, we spent the time fighting to hold on to what our parents and grandparents had achieved. You should be grateful we did as well as we did, because back then “liberal” was a dirty word and we were pretty lonely out there.
Egilsson
I’ll just point out that no one ever gets 1 bill from those sorts of hospitalizations. That $65,000 is probably one of several heading that poor bastard’s way. In fact, he’ll be lucky to figure what ARE bills or how to read them.
My daughter went through years of intensive treatment, and it was like monopoly money. And don’t get me started on the paperwork…
Our system is soooooo broken.
lutton
if we’re paying three times what others pay, then where is that money going? And why don’t republicans want to change that system? Oh…nevermind.
Punchy
I too was uninsured when I went to get stitches a few years back (tried to not go, but had no choice, eyelid was gashed). Told everyone right from the get-go (check-in guy, nurse, doc, etc) that I had no insurance, and wanted the most ghetto and cheap care possible. The nurses actually filled gloves with ice and tied ’em shut to avoid billing me $20(!) for an ice pack. Even demanded they reuse the bloodied guaze (they declined).
Still ended up a $K down. For 8 friggin internal and external stitches. Hadda remove the stitches myself, with rusted sewing scissors, to avoid another $400 return trip.
THAT’s the great healthcare Thompson is boasting.
TheFountainHead
Not to start a gender gap war (I can do that with my Dad any day of the week) but, I’m sorry, who were you fighting exactly? I’m not saying everything was sunshine and daffodils, but when the largest generation EVER simultaneously becomes the wealthiest generation EVER, you’d think they could have said, “We should make some plans.”
myiq2xu
70’s – Nixon, Ford, Carter
80’s – Reagan, Bush I
90’s – Bush I, Clinton, Newt Gingrinch and the “Contract on America,” Ken Starr, Impeachment.
00’s – Chimpy.
That’s 12 out of 37 years under the GOP, with 6 of those 12 years the GOP having control of Congress.
myiq2xu
Check out my last post
Brachiator
The Massachussetts health care plan is apparently not perfect, and California is considering some semi- kinda- semi- universal plan proposals. Other states are also starting to think about the issue even as the federal government tries to evade the issue altogether.
By the way, the current (Jan-Feb 2008) issue of mental floss magazine has a nice and concise article on “The Truth About Universal Health Care,” which summarizes how various countries deal with this. One thing that you quickly see is that no nation has come up with a solution that satisfies everyone, or even which guarantees that the health care provided will be consistently good. Also, I’ve read some stories recently in UK newspapers reporting how some Brits have gone to Poland for dental care because the NHS just is not acceptable.
TheFountainHead
I think actually, you are making my point. My father’s generation, the boomers, have been electing Republicans (for whom the future is someone else’s fucking problem) since they were of legal age to vote. Don’t make it personal,I certainly don’t, but would YOU want to be a twenty-something without health insurance paying off student loans in the current economical forecast?
myiq2xu
Try being 40-something and in the same situation.
TheFountainHead
I’d like to, but I imagine by the time I get to 40-something, things will be MUCH worse.
Z
I’m not surprise the Repubs don’t touch healthcare. Think about that 3-legged stool:
1) Business cons- I have mine, the silly peasants can pay for their own! Let them eat hospital bills!
2) Social cons (statistically more likely to be elderly, thus medicare) – I gots mine, and I is scared o’ change.
3) Libertarians – I am highly educated and have insurance. I am ok with the excess deaths dictated by market prices.
Dreggas
Fixed.
myiq2xu
Back in the early 80’s, my employer paid all of the insurance premiums for me and my family, and all I had to pay was $5 per office visit and $5 for each prescription.
My wife gave birth to 2 kids during that time and I paid less out of pocket than I did with my first kid, who was born while I was in the Army, because Champus charged me $25.
As the years went by, the premiums went up along with the co-pays, while the coverage went down. When I say up I mean waaaaaay up, from $0 to several hundred a month.
My pay however, increased much slower.
I am currently self-employed and my insurance plan is called “Don’t get sick.” If I do get sick or injured and the bill is more than a couple thousand, I won’t be able to pay it.
But I can’t afford the several hundred dollars a month for coverage either, especially when you consider how much I’ll pay out of pocket on top of the premiums.
Most of those low-premium ads you see for medical insurance are for plans that don’t pay for shit.
I have never had any serious injury or medical problem. Imagine what I would be paying if I had a history of diabetes or heart problems.
Zuzu
myiq2xu and TheFountainhead:
Sorry, there are too many of us who cared for me to accept being painted with your broad brush.
And unless you weren’t old enough to vote until this year, you can share in whatever blame you care to assign.
Fledermaus
No if it was Friedman’s cab driver, he would be extolling all those hard working CEOs, our corporate overlords and saying how much he doesn’t like all that nasty “class warfare” the democrats are always talking about.
Zuzu
Uhm, after reading more of your posts, I may have judged you too harshly. Sorry.
Zuzu
That last was to myiq2xu.
Dug Jay
A patriotic and decent American would never get seriously ill and would thereby avoid burdening their fellow citizens with paying for their health care costs.
Tsulagi
It’s a big tent, they got room for more.
I’m also a little surprised more candidates aren’t talking more about health care. Damn near everyone either has their own horror story or know someone who does.
Cost for 5 hours (mostly waiting) three months ago in an ER for my sister and her 8-year-old son? $24k plus $900 for the ambulance ride to get there. An uninsured mental and financial turnip turned left into her car.
Five hours (some tests) confirmed she and my nephew where just a little banged up, but she thinks so far she’s spent near 100 hours trying to get her auto and health insurance carriers to coordinate paying the bills and allow more of the charges. She knows she and her husband will wind up paying thousands, they just don’t know how many yet.
Jeff
Daughter’s bill for 3 months in the NICU came to about 750k. Thank goodness I have insurance through work or we would have been dropped for sure. The insurance companies typically pay about 1/3 the price that is billed due to negotiation of rates, so your cab driver could probably negotiate the bill down quite a bit if he was willing to pay some of it.
crw
Try 60 years. The Democrats have been trying to get some kind of national health care passed since Harry S Truman. See here. The opposition players never change. Neither do the arguments.
numbskull
Hey Fountainhead,
What have YOU, personally, done TODAY to fight social problems? What have YOU actually DONE to effect change TODAY.
Mentally masturbating on this blog doesn’t count, Sonny-Jim.
demimondian
Middle demi-kid’s bill for nine days in NICU — $35K.
Jeff
P.S. For those with insurance who have paid copays, you cannot be billed separately after paying the copay, at least in California. When the doc accepts the reduced payment from the insurance company, they’ve accepted payment and cannot go after you. You can get your insurance company to send the doc a Cease and Desist letter. Did this with an extra bill the MRI lab sent my daughter.
Tim F.
We elected Bush. Twice. Maybe we should just let France take over for a while.
Cain
I don’t know why this isn’t changing. Maybe we need some Gore-type to start doing a power point presentation and do their own version of “Inconvenient Truth”. Sure, we have “Sicko” but the fallout for that seems pretty minimal. Now is a good time to make it known.
cain
TheFountainHead
Well, this week alone I’ve donated nearly $300 (better there than an insurance company) to a candidate who will bring at least SOME relief to this system. I’ve three times participated in events to help elect two Democrats to the senate (okay, it was in California, so it’s not like they were really hard fought races, but I did what needed doing anyway) and for the a little more than a year before that I was living out of the country and therefore not able to do much about the current situation. This will be my second opportunity to vote, but having previously been registered in California and living abroad, my absentee ballot probably didn’t mean a whole lot. I may not be the guy out there every night handing out fliers for this social change or that social change, but I do my part in the Democratic experiment. Hell, if I spend just 4-6 hours a week trying to educate my peers on the trainwreck we’re all about to be a part of, that’s something right there.
canuckistani
Bill for my wife’s successful cancer treatment with state of the art modern procedures overseen by a world-famous oncologist – $0.
Suddenly my higher taxes don’t seem quite so painful. Not meaning to gloat or anything, just pointing out possibilities.
Zuzu
Well actually, most of us voted for Gore in 2000. 500 people in Florida elected GWB … by acccident.
Cyrus
I forget, is there a real Dug Jay as well? It seems that sometimes he is much more convincing as a right-winger. But on the other hand a non-spoof probably wouldn’t name himself after DougJ, so maybe not.
Actually though, this reminds me of a talk a few days ago with a Republican acquaintance. I really wish I’d had my recorder going in advance, because it was amazing. She was explaining that a Vermont company doing business in New York paid more for its employees’ insurance than its New York competitors, because of Vermont laws to make insurance more affordable. She said something like, “You see, Cyrus, your insurance rate is higher because here in Vermont someone with diabetes pays as much for their health insurance as someone like you, who chooses a healthy lifestyle.”
I shouldn’t put quote marks around that whole sentence because I don’t remember exactly. It’s not a direct quote. But I swear to god, this Republican contrasted diabetes against “chooses a healthy lifestyle.”
ThymeZone
Hey, diseases are character flaws, everybody knows that.
That’s why the ER waiting rooms are full of Democrats.
Zuzu
Great. Now multiply that by 30 years. And see how you feel about being told it’s your fault because you’re so lazy and self-centered.
By the way, 46% of the “youth vote” went for GWB in 2000 (plus 1% for Buchannan), and 45% of you voted for him in 2004. You’ve got your work cut out for you.
Graeme
As a 30-something, I’ve been dealing with HMOs and PPOs my entire working life. Every year, I pay more for less, no matter who is employing me.
I just paid $160 for an ER visit that my last insurer denied, even though I should have been covered. I gave up fighting it when the hospital sent it to collections. Fuck it. I should have just paid it in the first place, knowing the insurer would deny my claim… Why should I expect more for my money?
I’m originally from Kentucky. My family and friends of the family are all GOP voters. It’s getting harder and harder for them to defend the status quo as they age. They’re paying more for less, and those of them who are Boomers are realizing that they can’t afford to retire. A big part of the reason for that is the cost of health care, even given Medicare D.
So I think a lot of people are coming around, assuming my experience is any indication. I used to be rabidly pro-market, but… I give up. The market is feeding me shit. I was wrong. Let’s try something else.
myiq2xu
Fixt (but fucked up)
sglover
I don’t understand the problem. The market has spoken, and it has rationally and dispassionately decided that your cabbie isn’t yielding a satisfactory return. If he can’t sell a kidney or something, plainly the only ethical thing for him to do is die.
sglover
I know the Republicans aren’t going to make things any better, but I suspect that anyone looking to the Dems to fix our broken and unsustainable health care system is going to be bitterly disappointed. As far as I can tell, Clinton, Obama and Edwards have ALL got donations from the medical insurance pirates, and NONE of them advocates reform that takes on the insurance industry directly. Because make no mistake, the health care insurance industry is the biggest single institutional obstacle to a sane and humane system. We’ll never see a genuine health care system until those corporations are confronted and dismantled.
trollhattan
Bzzzt. We, actually, have no bloody idea whatsoever what the cabbie’s life-extension costs in a free market. This occurred in the States.
You’re welcome.
Dreggas
It’s also one of the last legs our economy is standing on. It’s pretty sad that part of our economy depends on not helping people who are sick get better or have an operation which would make them productive members of society again.
Xenos
It is like the fall of the Roman Emptire – the social only social institution left is healthy only because it sytematically exploits and ruins the rest of the society. Eventually the society is so weakened that the remaining power center can not serve its primary purpose, and every last thing falls apart.
For-profit medical insurance companies are a parasite that is going to kill the host.
Zuzu
True. The 500-vote thing is GWB’s best-case scenario. Amazing, huh?
RSA
I mentioned a while back that a member of my family is recovering from brain surgery; we expect the final bill to be somewhere in the neighborhood of $150K, with almost everything (we hope) covered by insurance. Now, when I say “insurance”, what I mean in practical terms is three years of a monthly payment of between $200 and $300 for a catastrophic illness policy. Looking at the numbers, I don’t see an enormous difference between our case and that of the cabbie–most of the bill is footed by others. And yet because we put in a relatively small amount of money and have the paperwork, we’re solid citizens, while the cabbie is a drain on society. That’s nuts.
Krista
How can anybody even THINK of defending that. How? I’m sorry, but I can’t find a shade of gray on this subject. Charging people that kind of money in order to save their freaking lives — it’s just plain evil. And wrong. And unacceptable in a country like yours.
To actually be reluctant to go to the hospital when your fucking EYE is slashed open, because of what it might cost! I mean, come on!
I wish people would stop being so absurdly afraid of the “socialism” boogeyman and realize that their cowardice is killing their fellow citizens.
Tax Analyst
Well put. Thank you.
LiberalTarian
My roommate has a brain tumor, and all he can hope for is more time (less than 2 years it looks like). There are medicines that could improve his quality of life, but they are hella expensive. He is on Medical and SSI–not exactly raking in the dough, and can’t afford them. So, he can live another 2 years, he just won’t be allowed to enjoy it as much as he could (because the medicines are there, but effectively not for him).
Fucked up. BTW, he turned 27 yesterday. Happy birthday.
Kat
John Cole: …my cab driver friend thanks all you out there with insurance, because believe me, he isn’t paying the bill. You are. And you are a damned fool if you think you aren’t.
Whether we have insurance or not, we’re all paying in another way (with my bold emphasis):
ER Waits Dangerously Long in US
Patients seeking urgent care in U.S. emergency rooms are waiting longer than in the 1990s, especially people with heart attacks, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday.
They found a quarter of heart attack victims waited 50 minutes or more before seeing a doctor in 2004. Waits for all types of emergency department visits became 36 percent longer between 1997 and 2004, the team at Harvard Medical School reported.
…
“If a loved one has a heart attack, it doesn’t matter whether he is well insured. He still has a one-in-four chance of waiting over 50 minutes, because of ED (emergency department) overcrowding, and this wait will only increase,” Dr. Robert Lowe, an emergency medicine expert at Oregon Health and Science University who did not work on the study, said in a statement.
…
They used other surveys to calculate that the number of emergency room visits rose from 93.4 million in 1994 to 110.2 million in 2004.
During the same time, 12 percent fewer hospitals operated emergency rooms, according to the American Hospital Association.
“EDs close because, in our current payment system, emergency patients are money-losers for hospitals,” Wilper said in a statement.
Harvard’s Dr. David Himmelstein, who worked on the study, also lobbies for some kind of national health care system. “One contributor to ED crowding is Americans’ poor access to primary and preventive care, which could address medical issues before they become emergencies,” Himmelstein said in a statement.
…
“Emergency physicians have said for years that crowding and long wait times are hurting our patients — insured and uninsured equally,” ACEP president Dr. Linda Lawrence said in a statement.
…
The study is available online at http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/abstract/hlthaff.27 .2.w84
Richard Bottoms
And 28% of Americans prove it by still supporting the Smirking Chimp.
JF
You guys want to see something funny? Check out this CNN article – Glenn Beck complaining about ER care. Glenn fucking Beck!
http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/01/15/ep.emergency.room/index.html
What is a Democrat? A Republican who can’t afford to go to the doctor, I guess.
emald
This is one SICK damned and doomed country. Profiting off human bad health is really sick in my opinion. But here is an idea that could radically change our health care: How about we initiate another military service that does nothing but health care? It could take the health care over from all the other services, sort of like the VA on steroids. Imagine walking into a hospital, anywhere in our country, with a problem and not giving a thought to the cost. This is exactly what our self important senators have, why not all of us?
A military service dedicated to health and wellness. What a concept.
Original Lee
What I don’t understand is why hospitals keep talking about all of the people “clogging” their ERs with things that are not exactly emergencies while sitting around waiting for a solution. I’m not an expert or anything, but it seems to me that they need to add Urgent Care clinics to their mix of services. If they had Urgent Care clinics right next door to the ER department, they could do the triage and send the ear infections and broken fingers and whatnot over to Urgent Care, freeing up the ER facilities for traumas and heart attacks and so on. Insurance companies generally prefer Urgent Care clinics (in terms of coverage) because they are more like a regular doctor’s visit, and the uninsured would be more likely to be able to pop for a $75 charge than for $100s or $1000s. One of my cousins was involved in a trial setup like this back in the 90s, and it was deemed successful but not profitable enough. Maybe the time has come to look at it again.
JF
Original Lee, I just thought about that and remembered when Bush said, maybe a year ago, that we do have free health care in this country, “just go to the ER room”.
Truly, a leader for all ages.
bud
Let me get this straight, John.
A cabbie with very little financial worth just walked into a hospital and got major help, including a stent insertion worth $65K… and you consider this to be an indictment of the US health system?
See your anecdote and call with mine:
http://www.youtube.com/v/H4u5x9XAsAs&rel=1&border=1
Short version: wonderful Ontario “single-payer” system delays his care such that it would have been fatal, had he not paid his own way in the US.
Sure, your cab driver (what ever happened to the Teamster’s Union in this tale, anyway?) may get dunned a bit, but he did get taken care of.
Argue all you want that Socialized Medicine is somehow better, but I don’t think this little story shows what you want it to.
Now, if he’d been refused care because he didn’t have the money…
Got any of those anecdotes? I might be more impressed.
skip
You always hear (that is, the AMA makes damn sure you hear) about bungles with the Canadian, German or UK medical care systems, but somehow I never meet a Canadian, German or Brit who’d trade theirs for ours. Never!
Never forget the PR money that is behind our system (Docs and pharm companies).
The only reason it is all being questioned now is because other businesses (eg.g. auto manufacture) are no longer competitive under the burded of US medical care costs.
skip
You always hear (that is, the AMA makes damn sure you hear) about bungles with the Canadian, German or UK medical care systems, but somehow I never meet a Canadian, German or Brit who’d trade theirs for ours. Never!
Never forget the PR money that is behind our system (Docs and pharm companies).
The only reason it is all being questioned now is because other businesses (eg.g. auto manufacture) are no longer competitive under the burded of US medical care costs.
sglover
You’ve got a point. Maybe you’d prefer this tale: Indigent kid has dental care neglected, gets infection, dies — after the usual heroic, ER treatment. Aside from the horrible death, the whole fiasco ends up costing a quarter million dollars, and would have been prevented with about a hundred dollars worth of treatment. All this within ten miles of the Capitol, and ten miles of some of the wealthiest neighborhoods on the planet.
God bless America.