Ten Bears comments here frequently. From his blog:
I’ve been railing about “health insurance” for quite some time now, and as the debate has deepened it has become increasingly clear that what Americans want, what we need, is health care, not insurance.
When you’re doing without, you do what you can to take care of yourself, and hope nothing ever happens. When you find yourself on the floor with an accute appendicitis, well”¦ you put yourself in debt. By Saturday afternoon I was been prepped for surgery, by Sunday morning I had checked myself out against advice as I just can’t afford it.
I’m extremely grateful to those who were there in my need.
This is just wrong. We need a health care system that provides real care to everyone without impoverishing people.
Get well soon, Ten Bears.
I’m OK, thank you – perhaps I could have been clearer, the appendictomy itself was resolved late Sat night, I checked myself out Sun against the advice I stay another night, to the tune of I yet don’t know. I am resting comfortably at my son’s house (as comfortable as grandkids allow).
From previous experience I knew what I was dealing with as I lay on the floor fading in and out with uncontrollable shuddering from the fever and the intense localized swelling and pain. I was pleasantly surprised to wake and find not a railroad track of stitches up my belly as my son but that I had been “vacumned outâ€, the nearly burst appendix “lasered†with but two small incisions and my belly-button very sore. It is indeed a very simple operation.
The bone that didn’t need be brought to this home, however, if we in “America†had “health careâ€, as opposed to a government imposed system not unlike usury – the profit of others’ misfortune – where a very fucking few profit from the potential of others’ misfortune, this probably could not or would not have been avoided but the additional overwhelming cost of seeking out last minute last saving medical care by way of the emergency room could have.
As an accountant, that’s one of my pet peeves: they “can’t” tell you how much a procedure (or lab test or x-ray) will cost before you do it. There’s no negotiating for “do this but not that.”
Ironically, most health insurance companies recommend that you “shop around” to get a better price. But that’s virtually impossible as hospitals won’t give you a quote.