On August 3rd this year my wife took me to Fisherman's Hospital in Marathon to have some wax in my ear removed. The offending item, lovingly recorded here, got wedged after I spent some time underwater snorkeling at Looe Key, near my home. After a few hours hanging around my ear was flushed by a kind nurse, I paid my hundred dollar copay and went on my way.
I work for the city of Key West, a government union job that I took in 2004 fully expecting hard times ahead, times that have become considerably harder than I ever expected, and as a result despite the right wing attacks on this last bastion of living wage employment I am most grateful to have a job with health insurance. Then the paperwork wars started.
I paid a hundred, the insurance paid 154 dollars after a 28 dollar discount and then the mofo's at Fisherman's sent another bill for 495.73. This is the curse of unregulated private health insurance. there is no accounting there is no estimate there is no accountability. Send the money or we go to collections. These days my wife and I couldn't care less about our credit rating. like millions of Americans our only revolt is to tell the bastards to take their credit rating cage and wrap someone else around it, we've been obedient and trapped in it for too long.
I am boring and annoying when it comes to the issue of health insurance. My wife has rheumatoid arthritis and is uninsurable if she loses her job (Republicans please note: the system does need to be changed) but thanks to her government job teaching she can pay the co-pays on thousands of dollars of drugs monthly that have side effects but keep her mobile and employed. Embril, Methotrexate, Prednisone etc etc ends up costing thousands each month. Over all this is the constant demands for paperwork to "confirm" she still has arthritis. Threats to cut off her expensive medicine land on our doorstep from time to time. Complexity is sown in our path just to test our mettle. Believe me, if she could throw off the arthritis she would. So when we got a demand for $500 more I sent the above letter to the insurers and the hospital administration which I believe was engaged in illegal double billing. The Republican candidate for Governor in Florida headed a corporation fined 1.7 billion dollars for just such illegal practices so if he gets elected we can imagine what's to come for we the people of Florida...
No one I know believes me when I say single payer health care would be beneficial to us as a nation, would be better for us as patients and would eliminate the gross profiteering by companies that exploit our current non system. Fair enough I say, then lets reform the current system. Republicans made every effort to block reform while not to putting forward better proposals of their own, and I lost faith in the Obama Administration when they yielded to the corporate interests in this fiasco.
The sad thing is I wrote the above angry letter and have received word the bill is paid and I owe 11 dollars which I will mail out tomorrow. How many uninformed semi-literate, fearful Americans would have stood up to these health care "providers" and faced off this bill? Not many, and I know this because there are numerous instances in my life where I have done this and my doctors and dentists have told me I am the only patient they have that will do this. They express the wish more people would. 
So go on, tell me the system doesn't need to be changed. Would you take your car to the shop and pay whatever the mechanic demanded, even months after service was rendered, with no accounting, no estimate. no recourse? I know single payer won't happen in my lifetime but I know this system such as it is has to change. With Republicans determined to wreck what little reform we have in place, I see no bright future for a country with no safety net, no private sector employment to speak off and burgeoning national debt. Oh and a massive, embarrassing and continuing wars in countries we can't even locate on a map. All those shredded bodies get single payer, government funded health care for life when they come from a war that has no meaning, no purpose and no end. We could fund everyone with the treasure we waste in war. But we won't by God. And then they wonder why I'm bitter. My wife's calling, her arthritis is bad today and she can't open a jar, so I'll go and do it for her, then I'll help her inject herself with her weekly dose of thousand dollar Embril.
I work for the city of Key West, a government union job that I took in 2004 fully expecting hard times ahead, times that have become considerably harder than I ever expected, and as a result despite the right wing attacks on this last bastion of living wage employment I am most grateful to have a job with health insurance. Then the paperwork wars started.I paid a hundred, the insurance paid 154 dollars after a 28 dollar discount and then the mofo's at Fisherman's sent another bill for 495.73. This is the curse of unregulated private health insurance. there is no accounting there is no estimate there is no accountability. Send the money or we go to collections. These days my wife and I couldn't care less about our credit rating. like millions of Americans our only revolt is to tell the bastards to take their credit rating cage and wrap someone else around it, we've been obedient and trapped in it for too long.I am boring and annoying when it comes to the issue of health insurance. My wife has rheumatoid arthritis and is uninsurable if she loses her job (Republicans please note: the system does need to be changed) but thanks to her government job teaching she can pay the co-pays on thousands of dollars of drugs monthly that have side effects but keep her mobile and employed. Embril, Methotrexate, Prednisone etc etc ends up costing thousands each month. Over all this is the constant demands for paperwork to "confirm" she still has arthritis. Threats to cut off her expensive medicine land on our doorstep from time to time. Complexity is sown in our path just to test our mettle. Believe me, if she could throw off the arthritis she would. So when we got a demand for $500 more I sent the above letter to the insurers and the hospital administration which I believe was engaged in illegal double billing. The Republican candidate for Governor in Florida headed a corporation fined 1.7 billion dollars for just such illegal practices so if he gets elected we can imagine what's to come for we the people of Florida...No one I know believes me when I say single payer health care would be beneficial to us as a nation, would be better for us as patients and would eliminate the gross profiteering by companies that exploit our current non system. Fair enough I say, then lets reform the current system. Republicans made every effort to block reform while not to putting forward better proposals of their own, and I lost faith in the Obama Administration when they yielded to the corporate interests in this fiasco.The sad thing is I wrote the above angry letter and have received word the bill is paid and I owe 11 dollars which I will mail out tomorrow. How many uninformed semi-literate, fearful Americans would have stood up to these health care "providers" and faced off this bill? Not many, and I know this because there are numerous instances in my life where I have done this and my doctors and dentists have told me I am the only patient they have that will do this. They express the wish more people would. 
So go on, tell me the system doesn't need to be changed. Would you take your car to the shop and pay whatever the mechanic demanded, even months after service was rendered, with no accounting, no estimate. no recourse? I know single payer won't happen in my lifetime but I know this system such as it is has to change. With Republicans determined to wreck what little reform we have in place, I see no bright future for a country with no safety net, no private sector employment to speak off and burgeoning national debt. Oh and a massive, embarrassing and continuing wars in countries we can't even locate on a map. All those shredded bodies get single payer, government funded health care for life when they come from a war that has no meaning, no purpose and no end. We could fund everyone with the treasure we waste in war. But we won't by God. And then they wonder why I'm bitter. My wife's calling, her arthritis is bad today and she can't open a jar, so I'll go and do it for her, then I'll help her inject herself with her weekly dose of thousand dollar Embril. ====================================================================
And here's a funny coincidence: in today's Solares Hill weekly in Key West we read of a long time resident and all round good guy who has a treatable form of cancer of the jaw (I think) and he lost his job which had benefits, his COBRA has run out and he can't get treated because the charming Sylvester center in Miami demands insurance or cash. They give a 30% discount for cash but the bill is going to be $250,000. So they are holding a bake sale for him. Good luck with that.
Interestingly he applied for private insurance after his COBRA benefits ran out and they quoted him (before he got the cancer) a rate of $32,000 a year. It would have been a bargain had he known he was going to get cancer. Though of course as we all know insurance companies deny service anyway because they make up crap and claim non disclosure on your application.
Ain't the private sector great? Not slimy at all.
23 comments:
Dear Mr. Beattie:
You just don't get it. The European model will never work here... And the America model is working anymore either. What's needed is a hybrid approach.
You won't get it anytime soon. Many of the whores in Congress will get thrown out on their asses in two weeks (leaving the school marm in the White House). And then just like the running of the bulls in Pampalona, the purchasing of the elected officials will begin in January.
We need a leader who will take a whip and beat the money leaders out of the Capitol.
Fondest regards,
Jack • reep • Toad
Twisted Roads
Good for you, Conch, and sorry your wife is having a bad day. Having gone through my husband becoming disabled at 36 due to a work accident, fighting with his former employer, insurance companies, and the government for 3 1/2 years to get him treated and determined to be disabled, and knowing this will go on for the rest of our lives, I empathize.
Diana in Citrus
And I love Riepe's idea. If only such a thing would occur. Why we are such sheep, I don't understand.
Conch - my keyboard is dying, please accept this ammended comment. - Sal
Conch - you are 100% right. I have the best government health insurance and my wife works for UHC, but we are still not blind to the fact that single payer government insurance works better, delivers more for less money and is more just and fair for everyone. Single payer works all over the world and in our own medicare nd military. I refuse to call a pile of shit ( our current system) a diamond ring and for that most americans would brand me a communist. Ha! Have they no shame?
Sal Paradise
Michael:
Government fingers in the pot escalate cost,inefficiencies, and the slime factor. There are many things that can be done to increase quality and broaden accessibility at a reasonable cost, but a single-payer government-run system is not one of them.
Riepe and I are talking about riding down to visit with you. Talk is cheap, but it's a first step.
Diana -sal it's only when you deal with it that you really understand how screwed up the non-system is, but we have to hope the rest will figure it out with us.
Dear Toad- I need to address you as though you were an insurance company, you dipshit. I KNOW single payer will never come to save us, and indeed the engineered structural collapse of the world economy is wrecking social security across western europe. However I do think our current system needs to be changed and the Republican party, during President Obama's ineffectual efforts to make changes ( the same with president Clinton) just said NO!
We could a) abolish all health insurance, abolish tort lawsuits and have the medical profession take what we could afford to pay. I think doctors and surgeons would be much more decent if they didn't have to cover their backs and feed the insurance machine.
Or we could regulate the insurance industry the way the Germans do and ensure decency, fairness and modest profits. or we could go on fucking the people and claiming we have the best health care in the world (if you can afford it).
Single payer would be best but like everything else that is good for the working class, the propaganda machine has killed that hope dead. And people like you who would beenfit are totally opposed to it.
Imagine how many more Anmericans would be hired by small businesses if they didn't have to deal with the health isnruance issue?
Holland has an extremely highly rated healthcare system with a per capita cost of around $3500 with total coverage of all citizens. The United States per capita cost is twice that and at least one fifth of citizens aren't even covered, making the actual per capita cost even higher.
Before you embark down the "The US is a multi cultural population" digression let me remind you Holland also has a highly varied population, having been a world wide builder of empire with many arabs, indonesians and africans in the white population.
While many Americans believe government operated health care is ideologically a bad thing, a belief that will block implementation in the US, the facts from the rest of the world show a different truth. But facts don't count in the face of received belief ("propaganda").
Furthermore the lack of outrage in the US over the appalling performance of a private industry that records increasing profits and decreasing affordable coverage gives me an idea I really do live in the land of the health care bamboozled.That foreign potentates come to the US to get care doesn't mean shit to an unemployed American who can't afford to get her child treated. Or riepe who can't get his knees replaced.
Look around: do you see other industrialized populations demanding privately run health care systems?
This fact remains: I understand single payer for the US is off the table. Nevertheless we do need some sort of reform and no one is ready to even have a senisble discussion of what could be done. The Republicans just said NO. So those of you without health insurance are screwed. Good luck.
Of course citizens of industrialized nations are not demanding privately run health care.... they, like all humans looking out for their self-interest WANT IT FOR "FREE" - paid for by "someone else"... (a.k.a. single payer, you payer, I not payer, etc.). Why pay for anything when you can use the power of the state to confiscate services from someone else on your behalf? (e.g. why pay the fair market rate for a train ride from D.C. to Orlando... when you can get the hapless taxpayer (now less than 55% of the population) to pony up the difference between what a private company would have to charge and what you paid?)
No one would argue that the current system is not working. Shellacing on a thick layer of gov't "efficiency" isn't the answer. Tort reform, published pricing for services, abolishing the AMA stanglehold on provider supply, etc. would be good places to start...
But haven't we all been thru this a year ago? In the short term, we can VOTE AGAINST ANY INCUMBENT as a start next week.
Will you cointinue your blog once to emigrate to Holland to take advantage of their wonderfull healthcare? That's the beauty of liberty - you can go wherever you feel your needs are best served.
My fantasy is that we could take, say, four or six states, split them up Red State/Blue State, and let them run them as test systems for their political leanings.
Let South Carolina be a Teabagger's paradise, let Oregon become socialist and so on. Then, in five years maybe, we'll see what pans out . . . The rich will flock to SC? The poor will migrate to OR? (I don't think so.) But then who will do all the dirty work for the rich? Who will have to get jobs and create business to fill the vacuum to service the poor? I agree, our healthcare system is a wreck and the few are exploiting it for big money and big money, as usual, holds sway. There's a reason right wingers need a 24 hour propaganda news channel, need brainwashing shows on AM radio and use all that money to convince people that only they are true Americans.
Exactly the reason I have zero desire to spend the second half of my life living in the US, despite people begging me to assist with their projects. Your health care "system" is insane and half of the population is too mule-headed to want change, or even have an opinion based on facts and figures instead of Fox News op ed. Canadian health care isn't perfect, but it's light years ahead of this.
The only people against health care reform haven't gone through exactly what you did Michael, and I salute you for trying to talk sense, bringing a concrete example to the table. My friends tale of a complicated pregnancy costing $50,000 went a similar direction, including the threat of collections. Being financially ruined by your own child at the moment he/she comes into the world puts a damper on the celebration of life. How twisted and sick is that? Small wonder birth rates are down? Somewhere an accountant is laughing.
Wake up republicans, wake up. One day, your health will fail too.
D
Dear Conchscooter,
You too? Our clever planning seems to have paid off.
I took my state job after watching HP repay its engineers for their innovative ideas and years of service by shipping their jobs to Malaysia, and the start-up company I worked for outsource its programming to India for pennies on the dollar, nevermind the abysmal quality produced.
The haters are jealous. (But aren't they supposed to save their money for a rainy day and pay their outrageous hospital bills in full? That's capitalism!)
Well done Conch...however its a good thing that crap in your ear didnt happen snorkeling in Canada..you may have waited six months before their health care system would have gotten around to removing it...dont believe me..spend five minutes in any waiting room in any doctors office here in Buffalo..they are full of canucks..with 20% tax on everything across the board in Canada to support a health care system that just dosent work that well....eh....!!!
Buffalo Bill
Bill I'm a New Yorker who goes back and forth to Canada from time to time and what you wrote is simply not true. Canadians laugh at our system of healthcare.
Sal Paradise
i grew up with single payer in Britain and Italy. It works. Not perfectly but it works. why not have that and allow the wealthy, like buffalo bill, to buy private insurance as a supplement?
Dear Folks:
Despite having bad knees that I couldn't afford to replace on a $85k per annum due to a pre-existing condition ($56k per knee and $60K per hip - barring complications), I have no desire to move to Canada, Holland, Norway, nor Greece because I can get a better rate on my healthcare.
I can stick my hand in the dirt and feel the spirit of Washington and Jefferson alive in the ground. I can look at the waving flag, and hear the bugles blow at Gettysburg, and know that the wind from helicopter blades carrying supplies to those trapped by earthquakes and floods move that flag in a similar way.
The last time that I drove across the country, I watched the purple mountain's majesty, waded through the sea of corn, and drank with farmers and cattlemen. I was amazed at the diversity of America life. I was grateful to be part of it.
There is a word for people whose loyalties and allegiance are determined by the deal they can get at the moment. Grasp the soil... Read the Constitution... And take a stand.
Demand creative thinking from your politicians, as well as results. I would rather hold my elected official's feet to the fire than wear wooden shoes while waiting for my clap to get cured.
Sincerely,
Jack • reep • Toad
Twisted Roads
Dear Jack,
I am not so moved by healkth care reform to want to move either. However i ask myself why they can do better than we can and all those of us who suffer don't demand more?
The fact that Dagney Taggert can't reply to my facts and figures with anything better than "move to Holland" is proof positive to me that nothing will improve as long as we don't demand it.
The reason you can feel Jefferson in the soil is because he's dead and people who quote him don't act him. They are afraid and that for them is reason enough. Me? I'm fighting Wells Fargo in a solitary battle because my friends say it's a lost cause.
I sent my ballot in a few days ago, but I think it a gesture of futility. Citizen initiatives that would cripple state and local government are ahead in the latest polls, and Teabaggers are leading in their respective races. It is said people get the government they deserve, and apparently the government they so desperately want is a plutocratic Fascist kleptocracy. *Sigh!*
__Orin
Scootin' Old Skool
It does seem that way. The Big Lie has taken root so powerfully in the US that people actively vorte against their own self interest. I wish it were as noble as it sounds.
Dear Conch Old Boy:
Since WWII Americans have been electing an absentee government. They send people to Washington and they don't want to hear from them again, unless there is a war or a famine. Ater 65 years of neglect, the American public are now faced woth a crisis: the guys they put in charge have blown it... They have spent all the money... And the nation has damn little to show for it.
Like a body that has been sitting in front of the television for 65 years, the country now has to get off its fat ass and get in shape. This will not happen overnight. It may not happen for another ten years... But what should happen imediately is that the body begins to understand what is toxic, and what has to be changed.
And you cannot rely on these bastards in Washington to do the right thing.
Healthcare is but one issue in a septic stew. And you cannot use the European model here, because we are not Europeans. You have to come up with an American model... And it shouldn't be that hard. But just like the banking industry, the energy indistry, and the labor movement, the entire process is being looted by special interests.
And no one has proposed a plan for dealing with any of that. The answer to dealing with that will come from people like you and me.
Fondest regards,
Your pal Jack
Dear Conch:
By the way, I was terribly distracted by a serious of personal events that I had been hit with prior to your visit, and I was not entirely myself. I was less than 50% understanding what you were explaining to me about the paper trail in the mortgage debacle.
And then I saw it on the news the night after you left. You are quite right in your suit against Wells Fargo. And I think you should scream bloody hell about it. Let me know if I can sceam some too.
Fondest regards,
Your Pal,
Jack
Dear Conch:
By the way, I was terribly distracted by a serious of personal events that I had been hit with prior to your visit, and I was not entirely myself. I was less than 50% understanding what you were explaining to me about the paper trail in the mortgage debacle.
And then I saw it on the news the night after you left. You are quite right in your suit against Wells Fargo. And I think you should scream bloody hell about it. Let me know if I can sceam some too.
Fondest regards,
Your Pal,
Jack
I love this site conchscooter.blogspot.com. Lot of great information. I am Tech guy. I have been a Desktop Technician since 1997 but have tons of other interests. In my spare time... Oh, wait I don't have any of that (just kidding). Anyways, I have been aware of this website for quite some time and decided to join the community and contribute as well as learn a lot from others. I am excited to get started on the forum and am looking forward to a great journey together. Lots of potential friends and I look forward to meeting many online.
Mr. Riepe - you bring too much of an "open mind" perspective to this blog - Conch's world order view is everyone should be riding in the boat whilst the gov't relentlessly flogs the few remaining rowers to "go faster"....
Golly, what a thorny comment from R Thornhill, Esq, implying I am not a rower. I have worked all my life, never taken welfare, and turned my back on two family fortunes with no regrets whatsoever. I was cut out of my father's will and never raised a protest, and I walked away from my inheritance in Italy.
I came to the Us to make my own way which I have, however the notion that the playing field is in any way equalled by free market forces is rubbish.
I believe in good governance, not the rabble that keeps coming up for election. I beleive in the power of good governance, strong simple regulations and protection of the weak from the strong.
What I am viewed as by the anonymous free market whiners doesn't worry me in the least.
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