250,000,000 Insured, But Still in Trouble

[deadparrot]

NEW YORK--Some people are just cheap. Others are playing the odds, reasoning that paying for doctors and prescription medications on an ad hoc basis will prove cheaper than the $500-plus per month they'd have to shell out for health insurance. But most of America's 47 million uninsured live and die without coverage because they can't afford it. Worse than a national scandal, our failing healthcare system is an international disgrace. Hundreds of thousands of Americans are so desperate that they travel overseas in order to leech off socialized medical care systems, which are prevalent in other industrialized nations.

"We are overwhelmed by you (expletive deleted) Americans," an exasperated emergency-room physician at a Canadian hospital across the border from upstate New York told one of my friends, whose girlfriend had driven him the eight hours from Manhattan to Quebec after he'd fallen down some stairs and broken his arm.

We are Canada's Mexicans.

Fortunately we have our first chance to fix the sorry--more like non-existent--healthcare system since 1993, when the Clintons botched things up with a convoluted scheme designed to protect insurance industry profits. Democrats won control of Congress with two promises: getting us out of Iraq and fixing healthcare. A USA Today/ABC News poll conducted two weeks before the midterm elections found 80 percent dissatisfied (60 percent highly dissatisfied) with the staggering cost of healthcare.

http://fe66.news.sp1.yahoo.com/s/ucru/20070117/cm_ucru/250000000insuredbutstillintrouble

[Deja Q]

1. Oooh, man o' life hates Americans. What will he do when Americans

dodge the draft and mosey on up to Canada? Shoot them personally with his needle? Cut them up with his surgical knives?

The doc can shove the thermometer where the sun don't shine. Canada will eventually have to offshore too.

[liberalhistorian]

2. Well, I'm one of those 45,000,000 currently without insurance

and I can tell you that it ain't no picnic at all to be without insurance in this country. Even when I did have insurance, the deductibles and co-pays were ridiculous. And medical debt collectrolls are even more aggressive and vicious than the regular collectrolls, (it's actually documented that hospitals and most other medical providers are some of the most aggressive debt collectors in the country) is truly, pardon the deliberate pun, sickening.

I just try to take care of myself and keep health, and I hope and pray every day that nothing major will happen to me, because I will then be in hock to the fucking so-called "health care" system for the rest of my natural life. They will suck from you what little you have and keep on sucking even when you have nothing left. They are especially vicious with the uninsured, and we are charged at least twice as much, if not more, than the insured. I am currently doing without my bipolar medicine and psychiatric visits because I don't have the money for the monthly prescription, and I can't find a doctor who will accept uninsured patients without the entire payment upfront, which I simply don't have since it's more than I make in a day.

In fact, I can't find any doctors around here at all, of any type, who will accept uninsured patients even if they pay upfront, which most of us simply cannot do anyway. Even a simple visit to the ER can cost hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars, which they will then proceed to aggressively collect regardless of whether or not you have anything at all. That will then ruin your credit, which will make it even harder to find a job (I don't think medical bills have any business being on credit reports, but that's another thread). Been there, done that. Fortunately, all of the other times in my life I've been uninsured nothing major has happened, so hopefully that will be the case this time. I'm working, but neither my employer nor myself can afford insurance, he's uninsured himself.

I wish all of those who claim that we have the best health care in the world could follow just one person and/or family without health insurance, or an insured person with a major illness, for just one month and they'd see how quickly that claim turns to bullshit. It's just absolutely exhausting. I can't even go for routine doctor visits for mundane stuff, I don't have the fee upfront and they don't take uninsured patients anyway.

I'll never forget a time about seven years ago when I was uninsured between jobs, I had a nasty throat infection and the doctor's office, where I'd been a patient for over eight years, refused to let me see any of the doctors at all until I'd paid a back balance and made payment arrangements for future balances, even though they knew I had a very high fever, and was in such pain I could hardly talk. I couldn't make arrangements because I was job hunting at that time and didn't know what my income situation would be yet, but that didn't matter to them at all. I'm in a different state now, but things aren't that much different here, either. I can't find a doctor who will even take uninsured patients; even if you're a current patient of them, if you become uninsured, you're persona non grata as far as they're concerned.

I'm going to start a diary of what it's like to be uninsured right now in this country, even though I'm very lucky in that I'm pretty healthy and don't have any major medical conditions. It's difficult enough for me, I can't imagine what it must be like for those uninsured who do have major or chronic conditions and/or who aren't in the best of health. The only thing I have to worry about now is being bipolar and unable to afford my prescription or find a doctor who will accept uninsured patients. Where I am, there's a public facility for those with substance abuse issues, but no community mental health clinic or anything like that. Fortunately, I have a good support network and am pretty stable for now.

[silverojo]

3. What state are you in?

I've never heard of a doctor that wouldn't accept payment up-front. Most of the time, even if you're insured, you have to pay up-front anyway, and then you have to wait till your insurance company reimburses you.

Weird.... :(

[liberalhistorian]

4. I'm in South Dakota now, but I lived most of

my life in Ohio. I think it's common practice nowadays for doctors not to accept uninsured patients even if they have the money upfront. And the ones who do usually demand more than the usual office fee, in cash upfront. Most of the time, at least at the physician offices I've ever been to, you pay the insurance co-payment at the time of the visit, but they bill your insurance for the rest. They used to do it the way you say, but both dr. offices and insurance companies found it to be too cumbersome.

[Porcupine]

5. Uninsured. Couldn't buy it if I had the cash

Due to the fact that I have existing medical problems with back pain, GERD and depression.

Makes it hard to get a job too as the asshats put their bills on your credit report. So basically I'm just hanging out waiting to die here in California. The Gropenfuhrer will be no use either.

[liberalhistorian]

6. That's one thing that has always truly

infuriated me, the inclusion of medical bills on credit reports. They have absolutely ZIPPO business being on there. It's not as if you charged up a bunch of stuff on a credit card then just didn't bother to pay, or something like that. We can thank Reagan for it, who lifted the ban on the practice.