Fuck this bullshit.

[jianantonic]

I woke up this morning feeling fine. Then I got to work and my left eye was suddenly all blurry. It didn't go away and there was nothing in it, so I posted to Facebook, and everyone was like "that could be serious, get it checked out." I called a vision clinic near my office, described the condition, and the woman scheduled me an immediate appointment, saying "we do NOT take this kind of thing lightly." So I was freaked out and glad I made an appointment.

Turns out it's no big deal. I likely have an ocular migraine, which will go away on its own and may or may not be the precursor to a migraine headache (let's hope not). But no detached retina, no neurological bullshit, "just" a migraine. So that's good.

And then I go to pay for my 20 minute appointment...the doctor looked at me for about 5 minutes total, and they did use some fancy equipment to photograph the inside of my eye, but other than the wipe they used on the camera stand thingy where I rested my chin, my visit didn't cost them any one-time-use supplies or anything like that. I'd guess my actual cost to the office was somewhere in the neighborhood of a dollar, and then whatever five minutes of the doctor's time costs. My bill was $200, which was a discounted rate because I don't have insurance and paid out of pocket.

Then I posted this on Facebook, to follow up to my earlier post:

Meg Massie Myers

about an hour ago

Just paid $200 (that's the DISCOUNTED rate for people who don't have insurance, sigh) to be told "it's nothing serious, but you may get a migraine headache." That bill is giving me a migraine  Can we please have socialized health care now?

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• Danny Sprung likes this.


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  Michael Lane Who do you want to pay for your appointment?

  22 minutes ago · Like · 1


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  Meg Massie Myers I want it to work the same way many other public services and institutions are socialized. We all pay our share for everyone to have use -- I pay taxes that go toward plenty of things I don't use, or don't use my "share" of. However, health care seems as fundamentally important to me as things like education, roads, law enforcement. It's despicable that I CAN'T get coverage, even in the current system. I would pay for insurance if I could get it, but no one will approve me because of my depression, or maybe it's that time I broke my foot. I want public health care. I would settle for ANY.

  12 minutes ago · Like


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  Leanne Inge Last month I had to have a whole slew of labs run---the bill totaled $800. I about had a heart attack until I realized that the lab had run it through an old insurance company. When I got the new bill the total was $45. I haven't even come close to meeting my deductible for the year so my insurance company didn't pay a penny to cover the difference--it was all in the insurance companies negotiated price. Perhaps Meg is suggesting that we need our collected group leverage to make up this HUGE difference in health care expenses.

  9 minutes ago · Like
  
  
  Mike Lane is a former bridge partner from Charlottesville, and a card carrying Republican, so yeah, okay, he's anti-public health care. He can also afford whatever the fuck he wants because he's a gazillionaire and will never have to worry about where the money will be in an emergency. The girl who "liked" his comment is some girl I know from high school, who never posts political things and I know nothing of her politics, except that apparently she thinks, like Mike, that public healthcare is some sort of welfare request.
  
  This attitude is so frustrating and upsetting to me. No one should have to choose between staying healthy and staying housed. People in countries with socialized health care are overwhelmingly happy with it. I haven't heard any stories of people who are destitute as a result of the taxes they pay toward health care programs, whereas here, people die ALL THE TIME from treatable maladies because the treatment is too expensive for them. Hospitals turn people away when they can't pay for their treatment. The fear of paying taxes is KILLING people. And my guess is that for a lot of people, the tax won't even be as much as their current premiums.
  
  Now let's just pretend that public health care is never going to happen and we'll always have the private insurance system that we've got. Fine. I'd fucking pay for it if I could. It's not a matter of affordability in my case -- I cannot fucking get coverage. I have applied to every program I can, and I have been flat-out rejected for coverage. Not, you can have coverage if you pay us $5000/month (which, no, I can't afford), but just straight up "we're not going to cover you. Tough titties." I'm fucking willing to pay for the coverage, be it through taxes or private insurance. But I can't get it at all in our current system and that is not OK.

Comments

[deepseasiren.livejournal.com]

Being self-employed all my life since college I had to pay out of pocket. I can't afford it now but I need to get it once I start getting disability and then going back to work. I was paying 475.00 a month for health insurance. Unfortunately it had a 2000 dollar deductible and one time when I thought I took too many pills, the emergency room visit cost me 1700 and I had to pay that out of pocket of course. On a payment plan. They were very understanding about it and I paid like 100 a month.

I'm glad your eye wasn't anything too serious and glad you're better.

[camlost.livejournal.com]

Even if it's the "discounted" rate, it's not necessarily reduced as much as they are willing to reduce it by. You can call and ask for a [cash] discount.

You can also try to ask for the billing (CPT) codes (in medical, this is usually a 5 digit number) and try to see if the rate is reasonablecomparable.

[quandary87.livejournal.com]

It seems that just because something is important doesn't mean that it should be or typically has been provided by the government. The government provides roads, law enforcement, military protection, environmental regulation, business regulation and the K-12 education system because these are economies of scale (roads, education) or inherently derivative of government (law enforcement, regulation). Food and housing are fundamentally important, but the government doesn't provide these things to everyone. Health care is not exactly an economy of scale, like the interstate system, but I haven't answered the question of whether it begs government intervention. On the one hand, it is certainly not something like the military, which needs to borrow legitimacy from government, but on the other hand, it doesn't behave like a rational market because people understandably won't be in the best emotional state when making the hard decisions here, so government intervention might produce better outcomes (and be necessary to prevent the price gouging you suffered).

On your last point, I agree entirely. The ability to buy health insurance, at some price point, even if unaffordable, in a civilized country, should be a right because health insurance is quintessential for peace of mind in this day and age. The fact that you can't here again demands government intervention (government run exchanges? Federal coverage policies available for everyone? something?).