Who are the 44 million uninsured?

Amarillo Globe-News ^ | 5/9/05 | Samuel G. Dawson

[InterceptPoint]

I don't know if I would agree there. Insurance (by a non-government entity) is a good thing. Can everyone afford to break a leg and spend $5300 for a cast?? Or get cancer and spend a half-million bucks?

Then insure yourself against having a serious illness or a major hospital bill. But there is a world of difference between insuring yourself for the rare major hospital bill and having every little visit to your doctor covered by that same plan. Catastrophic health insurance is OK. Insuring ever doctor visit is a bad idea that just adds layers and layers of bureaucracy and mountains of paperwork that just runs the cost of health into the stratosphere.

[Colorado Doug]

I Agree with much of your post, including Medicare but not that hospitals are as good as they used to be. It gives me a pain too when I see people running to the Dr. with every little thing. I have an elderly mother who had an angiogram a few years ago. I remember reviewing her bill to see what her supplemental insurance would cover and what Medicare would cover. What I saw was quite eye opening. I think that Medicare did open the floodgates. Hospitals got used to creative billing that would not be checked.

This year, I had the bad fortune of having a blood clot in my leg. It all became so clear after that. I was billed $2,700 about four times for the same procedure. It was just called different things like an Aortogram that took less than ten minutes while they were doing an angiogram on me. Never mind that my problem had already been diagnosed. I needed to buy some needles with medicine already in them. Most pharmacies wanted about $76 per dose. The hospital pharmacy wanted $176 per dose.

My Doctor was great. He and his staff did most of the work and charged less than $5000 to do an artery bypass in my leg and several followup visits. That seemed fair. The hospital did little for the almost $60,000 that they want. I could have bought all of the equipment used on me for less then a third of that. (second hand of course) Still, I did buy my own doppler to track my blood flow and test equipment to get my "blood thinner" on track. I saved $45 bucks a visit and did a better job than the clinic. I only spent one night in the hospital after my surgery.

After all of the quadruple billing from radiology, they still misdiagnosed my problem big time. I haven't even gone into the part about the first hospital I went to.

I live halfway between two different cities so either of two hospitals would have been the same distance. I called them before I came in and told them that my leg was white from the knee down, I was in great pain and was sure I had a blood clot. They told me that they would be waiting with a wheelchair outside for me. I got there and after examining me, they told me that I had a blood clot and that they couldn't treat it there. They sent me to the other hospital and billed me around $5,000 for the twenty minutes I was there.

I still have an aneurysm behind my other knee than needs surgery. If I thought for a minute I could talk my Doctor into it, I would buy all of the equipment I need, have a clean operating room built from scratch, hire round the clock nurses and spend a week recovering at a five star hotel. I would still save a fortune! Something is wrong with this picture. There should be an economy of scale at a hospital, particularly a "nonprofit" subsidized by all of our tax dollars.

Sure the hospital had fancy equipment like IV dispensers that would beep when they were empty. I bet they cost a bunch. All that beeping didn't get the nurse to change it though. It just made it more annoying listening to it while the nurse did not come.

Another poster said that we all have to pay for this Mercedes care. I would rather have a good Doctor and a good nurse, nothing fancy and a bill that's not going to kill me.