NewscomaGot A Two-Pack Habit And A Motel Tan

I was going through our medical bills this morning and I found about $264 dollars that the Vanderbilt Medical Center charged me for a test that according to my doctor ended up being “not processed properly as ordered.” No where on the bill is the $264 credited. There was also a $45 blood test that did yield results according to my MD. My insurance company credited the $309 bill $222.04 for “contractual discount,” which friends in the medical profession tell me is a standard discount that insurance companies give to hospitals for supplies and service. And my MD tells me that I will need to do the test over again in the future.

Do you see the problem here? Not only is the hospital going to make a percentage of the $87.00 that they say I owe on a test that they screwed up, but the insurance company is going to count a percentage of the $222 they paid toward a total lump sum of expenses that they will use to calculate in the future costs to be passed along to consumers. Once I am charged a second time for the test, then both the medical and insurance entrepreneurs will be guilty of double-dipping. If the hospital labs screwed up the test, then the hospital should eat the loss and not pass them along to their consumers and the insurance company discount should not be paid on the charges.

I offer this to you because I’m about to get my own degree in alchemy and start boiling homemade roots that will most likely make me see my grandfather that I adored and died 28 years ago. And get naked in Wal Mart. These things happen when people need help.

Health care, campers, is a big deal.

Out of control, even those with insurance. A nightmare for those without it.

Health insurance is the bane of my existence. If I didn’t need health insurance, I sometimes wonder how my life would be different because I think I would have probably gone down a different path in the last five years.

The Chrone breaks down the numbers in an extensive piece at her house on the innertubes.

The cost is even more when one is self-employed or when an employer doesn’t offer health insurance and one must pay for it out of pocket. Imagine, the same $4,ooo+ as the families yearly deductible on top of $1000+ per month premiums (that’s a yearly expenditure of $16,000, which is taxable but you never see). You better have a damn good job if you have to buy your own health insurance.

I realize when I read posts like this that I’m not the only one who is a slave to my health insurance. I wish it were different but it’s not.

Would I be self-employed if it weren’t for this issue?

The answer is yes.

I am very serious when I tell you that I think mandatory health insurance scares me. After reading this column by Jamie Court at the Huffington Post, there are a couple of things that bother me.

Go give it a read, I’ll wait. 

You back, good.

Now, the first thing that bothers me about the entire situation is the fact the California General Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez used law enforcement to keep a consumer advocacy group to be detained outside of the state capital. From what I read, it was just the group speaking out about mandatory health insurance, citing they were not happy with Ah-nold’s plan. The situation happened in California.

The other thing that really struck a chord with me was this graph.

The Capitol belongs to all of us, not the Speaker of the Assembly. The fact that Speaker Núñez thinks so little of the uninsured that he is willing to throw them out in the cold rather than have their voices heard in the Capitol speaks volumes about the true intent of his health care plan. It’s also a metaphor for everything that’s wrong with Nunez’s mandatory purchase plan: it polices the uninsured, not the insurance companies.

I’m none to happy with insurance companies right now. (And politicians who won’t let people comment on disagreeing with policy, I might add.) I think if you tried to have a dialogue with me about the beauty of health insurance in the next few days, I would aggressively and angrily throw a sheep at you. I don’t have a sheep, but by God, I’d find one.

The personal stories I’ve heard, and been involved with, in the past few years have made me wonder. Gas is $3 bucks a gallon, milk continues to rise, food is going up and sometimes when you have to make the decision of whether or not to buy milk for you child or fill your car to get to work, the insurance becomes secondary. Don’t get me wrong, I have health insurance, but thus far it has really been more of an issue than help. As Ron Norton, the teacher referenced in this story said, I, as well as countless other folks, have “Mack Truck” insurance where it’s really only good if you get hit by a Mack Truck.

And the sad thing about this and other countless health care situations, is that we are at a point there is little the average citizen can do.

So, they wouldn’t let Ron Norton just talk about it. Well, he did outside of the state capital, but still, Nunez called in the CHP. So a conversation is now worthy of law enforcement?

I spent a good portion of my time yesterday reading up on Cobra, self-employed health insurance and the costs of these things. But you see, where an economist could break down how to budget in health insurance, for me, it was about what more do you sacrifice if you aren’t making very much money. If you wanted to start your business, getting insurance is expensive. I spent almost a fourth of my gross income last year on insurance (all of it, not just health.) And I’m on a group policy.

So, I’ll end this rambling about health insurance with one thought. I am watching the candidates very carefully on this issue. Very carefully. My family (Big Daddy is paying an outrageous amount right now that is mind-boggling that breaks down to two and a half week’s salary that I make.) has been impacted about insurance. We’ve done ok, but what about all of those who aren’t. But what about those who are only making eight or nine bucks an hour and who are spending that money so frivolously.

Like on shelter and food, utilities and transportation to work. Yeah, crap like that they don’t need, but by God they need health insurance, which has become so selective on things that it has become a joke.

Remember, my insurance didn’t allow me a stress test in the fall.  Blood pressure running at 200 over 127. Yeah, I didn’t need that. Not at all.

Where’s the dialogue about real people ’cause I’m one of ‘em. It’s not as simple as talking trends or judging folks who are poor. It’s about making insurance affordable and accessible without it making it a criminal offense. And, it’s about insurance being available to those who really need it.

And, yeah, I’m very cranky about all of this.

I believe there is a collective bone-rattling sigh going around with everyone. Man, the holidays are tiring. I think my head has frozen into this Mary Sunshine face mask that has become etched into some sort of Nicole Kidman thing. In other words, I’m one scary girl to look at.

Yesterday, some friends and business people in our community decided to throw my friend, who is ill, a benefit to help defray some of his medical costs. I have written about him before. If everything goes OK then we will be holding it on January 14th. Thus far, everything is coming together and I love it when people come together for a cause. We will have some T-shirts for sale pretty soon which are being donated for cost, we are holding an auction and have requests for open donations. All the proceeds of this benefit will go to him and his wife.

If you have anything you would like to donate or if you want to purchase a T-shirt, I’ll have those things up here as soon as it’s all ready, which should be the middle of next week with all the details.

I wrote about my friend here earlier this year. 

I talked to him late yesterday and he’s been taking radiation and chemotherapy, dealing with nauseous moments that he says just blind side him and many times are explosive. He’s also dealing with the emotional ups and downs that walk hand-in-hand with sitting on an IV drip for seven hour sessions and then the abundance of pain medication.

Needless to say, he’s fighting literally for his life. Squirrelly and I are going to see him, most likely, tomorrow.  As he is a wonderful and funny man, I’m going to see if he will let me set him up a blog so we can talk to him. He has one form of cancer in his left hip and shoulder and then he has a tumor near his kidney. He’s having trouble getting around, needless to say, and I thought this might cheer him. He has written ad copy, performed as a very popular stand-up comedian and had his own television show about country music at WLJT  which is our PBS station at UT Martin.

We do benefits occasionally and we are hoping to help him with this one as the costs are just horrific. He has health insurance, but he can’t work now, so the day-to-day stuff is about to get tight.

He’s just wonderful. I think he might like this blogging thing. We will see how he feels, but the interaction might be something he might enjoy.

Ironically, when I was speaking to him, I was reminded of when my mother had cancer. I told him of some things we used to do with her to help out. I told him about them and they were things he hadn’t considered. I thought I might share them with you as well:

1.) If someone you love has lost their appetite due to the chemo, one thing we found with my mother is she could eat ice cream. We would mix Boost, Ensure or sometimes even a Slim Fast in with her milkshakes so she could get the vitamins and nutrients she needed. During her remission, this also helped her put on a bit of weight. During the dark times, it just kept her going. At times, we would get her to drink a couple of them before her chemo or when she just wanted to get out of the house for awhile. It helped.

2.) Occasionally, the pills she had to take would choke her, so we would crush them up (under her watchful eyes) and put them in the milkshake. I don’t know how doctors of oncology feel about this, but it seemed to help.

3.) My mom needed stimulation. Her body was under attack and she didn’t have a lot of energy. We always made sure she had plenty things to watch on television and would rent her horror movies, as she loved them. This seemed to help distract her from thinking about how sick she was, and that was good. There is a level of deep depression that accompanies those who are very ill.  As she was an avid reader, she sometimes didn’t have the strength to hold a book, so this was helpful. This also seemed to assist in lifting her out of dark, frightening moods. When you have cancer, sometimes the thinking will get to you.

4.) We always had her favorite food available. Most of the time, she couldn’t eat it, but when her appetite would surge, at least it was there.

5.) We never shied away from talking about the cancer. If she wanted to talk about it, we did. We let her set the tone for those conversations. She didn’t talk about it a lot, but when she did, she needed someone just to listen. People need to be listened to anyway, and those battling cancer need a safe space to process their fears. 

Everyone deals with caring for sick people differently. These were just a couple of things off the top of my head that I shared with him, and a couple of things I will share with him and his wife this weekend.

We want to help our friend. The financial part is drowning him. Hopefully, we can assist a little.