For years my wife and I have been financially poor -- just not quite poor enough! We seemed to always bring in $100 - $300 above the threshold to receive any type of federal or state aid. In essence, we fit the definition of the working poor.
As I've chronicled over the past year, we've gone from being poor to being very poor and, of the two, the latter is better than the former (sounds weird to say, doesn't it?). In addition, I finally won my disability case with Social Security, though for a disability other than what I had listed.
Besides receiving food stamps, a monthly disability check, reductions on our property taxes and a reduction on our sewage fees, I now have Medicaid. The latter is very important when you consider what befell me last month. One week after receiving my Medicaid coupon, I was in the local ER with an inflamed gallbladder. A few days later, I had it removed.
Yesterday, we received an accounting of the costs concerning the surgery. Had I not had Medicaid, we would be staring at a bill of $14,000!!!! Of course, we couldn't pay that amount outright, so we would have had to set up a monthly payment plan. About the most we could afford would be $100/month which means it would have taken us nearly 12 years to pay off the bill!
Twelve years of scraping by just to pay for one surgical procedure. No one should be subjected to something like that. This is why we need universal health care.
As I've chronicled over the past year, we've gone from being poor to being very poor and, of the two, the latter is better than the former (sounds weird to say, doesn't it?). In addition, I finally won my disability case with Social Security, though for a disability other than what I had listed.
Besides receiving food stamps, a monthly disability check, reductions on our property taxes and a reduction on our sewage fees, I now have Medicaid. The latter is very important when you consider what befell me last month. One week after receiving my Medicaid coupon, I was in the local ER with an inflamed gallbladder. A few days later, I had it removed.
Yesterday, we received an accounting of the costs concerning the surgery. Had I not had Medicaid, we would be staring at a bill of $14,000!!!! Of course, we couldn't pay that amount outright, so we would have had to set up a monthly payment plan. About the most we could afford would be $100/month which means it would have taken us nearly 12 years to pay off the bill!
Twelve years of scraping by just to pay for one surgical procedure. No one should be subjected to something like that. This is why we need universal health care.
Thank goodness you got the Medicaid in time!
ReplyDelete"Twelve years of scraping by just to pay for one surgical procedure. No one should be subjected to something like that. This is why we need universal health care."
ReplyDeleteYep, it's pretty much really that simple...and that unjust. It mystifies me why more people, and especially more lawmakers, can't get the simplicity and justice of this issue through their heads....
The U.S. of A., richest nation in the world, and the only developed country where even basic health care is not a fundamental right.
Ain't it a great country?
;)
Forest,
ReplyDeleteYou & I both know WHY lawmakers don't see this -- they HAVE universal health care! It's one of the perks of getting elected to Congress. In addition, they receive loads of campaign contributions from the very industries that don't want the system changed.
I hear you. I estimate that the provincial government has spent about $40K in me.
ReplyDeleteI, too, am glad that is spite of it all, you've found a way to stay within your means. Life is tough, isn't i?
So, I'm supposed to be happy that I help support you now?
ReplyDeleteYes LL, you should be dancing in the streets! :D)
ReplyDeleteTrouble is, if we had universal health care, you'd probably die while on a waiting list.
ReplyDeleteLL,
ReplyDeleteI hear this criticism a lot from people who oppose the concept of health as a basic right (like "free speech"). Funny though, none of my acquaintances from the various nations with a type of universal coverage seem interested in the least in abandoning their scheme for ours! Hmm. I wonder why that is...
Because it's all they know.
ReplyDeleteI've read several articles in the UK press recently, doctors lamenting the fact that they cant treat some forms of cancer, they just treat the pain, women dieing from brest cancer while waiting for treatment....
We can trace high health care costs right back to congress and the creation of HMO's. Every time the government sticks its fingers into something, to make it better you get a bad result.
I don't know how old you are, but do you know why HMOs were created in the first place? Back in the day, there was a public outcry because doctors were ordering too many tests and very expensive drugs, often because of cozy relationships with big Phrama and the hospitals or clinics who administered the tests. People felt doctors were running up the costs to pad their own wallets.
ReplyDeleteSo, to combat this, HMOs were created to keep the medical people in line. But this is one of the hallmark problems with a capitalist system -- whoever gets to guard the hen house also gets to steal most of the hens.