Recently, two interesting things happened pretty much simultaneously. I was hospitalized with pneumonia and released, and Congress passed the historic (although quite controversial) health care legislation expanding medical coverage, eliminating caps and pre-existing condition clauses.
When I lived in New York and had a regular job, I had an excellent and quite expensive policy which was almost totally paid for by my employer.
Then I moved to New Mexico, become self-employed (which translates to taking a major financial cut), and had to scrounge for my own medical insurance. I ended up buying an individual policy which was fairly reasonable mainly because I have been lucky enough not to have any of those nasty pre-existing conditions.
For several years I’ve paid my money and hoped that when I needed it the policy actually would cover something (after my $1,000 deductible and my $1,000 maximum pay for it myself). Frankly, it remains to be seen how good my policy really is. The bills are just now coming in.
Assuming that the policy will actually cover what it says it will cover, I won’t have to fork over $15,000 plus for my unfortunate brush with pneumonia.
But what if I didn’t have insurance?
I’d be staring at the hospital bill and wondering what the heck I was going to do. And I only had pneumonia.
You have issues with the health care legislation? Too bad. Someday you might be looking at a hospital bill you can’t afford to pay and thinking — if I only had medical insurance.
Thanks to this legislation you won’t have that problem.
Can the country afford it? Hey, economically we’re in the toilet anyway, at least no one will lose their house, or their car, or their whole life savings because they got sick.
And our children will get their medical care.
What the hell do you say about a country that can’t provide medical care for its children (and Arizona had cut that coverage claiming lack of money)? You call it a fourth world country and send them UNICEF funds. Oh, wait. I forgot – that was almost the USA.
Tags: health care
Hear hear!
I’m in exactly the same situation. After not ever having a hospital procedure in 55 years, I had two in the second half of 2009. The bills are still coming in from the hospital 4-6 months after the fact. In no case did the insurance company pay what the doctor charged. I never met most of the doctors who are billing me (e.g.,, radiologists, anesthesiologists). How are we in a position to know what is fair and reasonable? Our system is ridiculous, and I think the biggest mistake that the Democrats made was in acting as if people who do have insurance are happy with the system. At least the two of us aren’t.
Yeah, I damn near choked where I saw the CT chest scan cost $2,000! What???
And the first thing they said to me was – Do you have both your kidneys?
Well, yes, and I’d like to make sure I have both of them after the scan as well!