Since when did the medical community agree to pay off the national debt? This is the conclusion I've come to. There can be no other reason why the majority of some people's income must be used to pay exorbitant medical bills.
I thought last year would take the cake for my out-of-pocket medical expenses, and that things would go down considerably after that. After all, I did have a fairly major surgery. In case you don't trust my point of view, I paid over $7000 in expenses last year---almost 25% of my take-home pay. In the last month, I've had another little run-in with the medical community. So far, I've been asked to pony up $1800 ABOVE what my insurance will pay. After an outpatient procedure at the hospital this week, I'm sure there's a lot more to come.
Is this an exaggeration? No way. It's been this way for a long time. I remember my grandmother's $4000 Life-flight ride from Pryor to Tulsa...and that was 15 years ago. Just a couple of days for her in the hospital, and a couple of stents, totaled up another $50,000. I remember one of the last times I went to the emergency room for a migraine and drug interaction, about the same number of years ago. I got a bill for $600---for two shots! I would love to know what was so incredibly valuable about that stuff; was it weapons-grade plutonium? Am I now worth $600 more than before the shots?
Of course not. That's the real irony of modern medicine: except in rare cases, they aren't adding new hardware or improving on the original model. It's just maintenance. For that kind of money, though, we should be better, faster, stronger----bionic. Or at least we should be better-looking. Oh, yes, they can certainly do that, but there's no guarantee on that kind of body work. Poor Kenny Rogers had a face lift and came out looking like a playground pervert. And Burt Reynolds? It gives me the shivers to see pictures of him now; he's just no longer The Bandit. He looks like he's been in a strong Oklahoma wind for way too long---very painful to look at. Oh, and all the silicone implants in this country must have done wonders for the chiropractic industry; otherwise, how do people like JWoww and Pamela Anderson keep their back ends in alignment with their front ends?
The stories go on and on. One family I know paid off each child's birth about the time the next one was born, and they are at least three years apart. Another friend was hospitalized for two weeks and had no insurance. They saved her life, apparently so that she could literally spend the REST of it paying off the bills. Insurance companies don't seem to care that hospitals hike up prices for those that have insurance; I've been told that myself and seen it in action. The premiums themselves are beyond understanding. But who dares to go without insurance?
I'm beginning to smell a conspiracy here, and it stinks. It seems the only way to deal with it for now is to pay the bills, laugh, and quietly wait for the day when some doctor desperately needs me to proof the text of some journal article he wants to publish. I think $2000 per column inch is perfectly reasonable, don't you?
PS---I have a WORLD of wonderful doctors who have saved my life several times over in different ways. Plus, I know countless good and kind people working in the medical professions. This is certainly no reflection on their work; I am most grateful for them. It's only a tiny little rant about the money aspect of the whole game. Like religion, medicine is a difficult field to reconcile financially.
No comments:
Post a Comment