I wrote a diary about a year ago on how I left the Republican party and the other day I was talking to my wingnut father (he claims independent but a wingnut none the less) regarding health care in this country. The conversation basically went like this:
Me: So what are you going to do about :my brother: if he gets sick since he doesn't have health care.
Him: I don't know. But what I do know is that a Canadian friend of mine came to the US because it was going to be a 6 month wait for his hip replacement.
Me: 6 months eh? I wish I had that problem. I had to wait 16 months to get my tonsils removed.
Him: Because I DIDN'T HAVE health insurance until I got into my new job 10 months from the outset. And i didn't exactly have the $5,000 to have it done out of pocket.
So that little exchange brought me here to share my story.
It was March of 2002 when I came down with the initial episode. I went to the doctor and he did confirm that I had strep. He gave me some antibiotics and sent me home. It did the trick, however 2 weeks later i came down with it again. Back to the doctors. His thought was that the antibiotics didn't take care of all the strep bacteria and put me on some stronger stuff. Turns out I was allergic to the meds and was basically bed ridden for a week. I was hourly paid so i missed a weeks worth of income.
My girlfriend at the time (later to become my wife) called the doctor and told him what happened he prescribed some non penicillin antibiotics but he didn't want me taking it until the reaction wore off due to potential side effects. After another month of dealing with the strep, the second bout (around the end of April.)
The next month it reappeared and i asked the doctor about the tonsilectomy where he told me that it cost $5000 out of pocket. Considering my credit card maximum limit was $3000 that was even out of the picture.
I proceeded to come down with the ugly thing each month from June until i got my new job in September where I actually started having strep. Each time they tried different medications and sometimes reverted to ones I already tried.
So in September of 2002 it finally went away and didn't come back until the beginning of December when I finally went to see an ENT. I had all the records to show him and asked about the procedure. He agreed but wanted to give one other antibiotic a shot and if that didn't work then we'd go ahead w/ the procedure.
Needless to say it didn't work and I scheduled another appointment for the consultation in March and was on medication until the day of my surgery in mid June. And I have to say that's the most painful recovery one can go through that side of cancer. It sucks. But it was also the best thing I could have done.
So putting together the cost of all my Dr. Visits, drugs, co-pays, deductible on the surgery, and a week + loss of income. Total cost around $4,500. Not joking.
So here is my clear cut example on simple math equation that even a Republican can answer.
If you take my out of pocket expenses $4,500 and add that to the cost of the surgery $5,000, that equals $9,500. How much would the entire system have saved if I had a government run public option?
So there, I just wanted to get that out as such a simple example on how I could have saved the system money. It amazes me just what a bunch of dumbfucks these dumbfucks are.
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P.S.
First and foremost I'm not necessarily a conservative anymore hence my screen name. I may disagree w/ some of you on certain aspects of policy in having a more traditional conservative view, but that's what debate is fore. Social aspects I'm about as liberal as anyone here.
Cheers
ERR