Our Healthcare System is Filled with Nothing but a Pack of Bastards
Okay, I'm warning you now, this will be a rant-filled post about the American healthcare system. If this is something you don't want to read, I urge you to move on. But from one who's had to deal with this system on a regular basis, let me tell you: I've learned a few things about the massive amount of fuckitude that we accept without question, the bullshit they hand you about diverse programs and the free market, and more than anything else, that ultimately, we live in one of the most bigoted countries on this planet when it comes to our medical system.
All right. Now that I got that out of the way.
Today I got my SECOND bill from the Austin Medical Center across the street from me for my last ER visit. The first bill I had no complaints about: for one thing, the insurance company was the one to tell me to go so they covered almost all of it, and all I had to pay was a $50 co-pay. Honestly, I don't have much to bitch about there, so I paid it straight away about a week ago. But then I got this SECOND bill, not from the HOSPITAL, but from the DOCTOR himself who saw me for all of 30 seconds, took one cursory glance at me, said I was good to go, and discharged me. At the time, we noticed a sign on the hospital wall saying that we'd be notified of all costs before anything was performed. But not only did I not get notified that my lab test would be billed to me (though honestly, I could have assumed that) but apparently the doctor that saw me for all of 30 seconds is not affiliated with the hospital itself and so can charge me a separate $350 FUCKING DOLLARS for those "highly valuable" 30 seconds of his time. Had I been told at the time that seeing this guy would have cost me another $300, I would have declined: I already knew that the vomiting had stopped, the nurse had just seen me and checked all my vitals and said I was good to go, so all the doctor did was confirm this fact. Thank the Lord Almighty I declined have intravenous liquids! Or God knows what else I would have been charged.
And here's the thing: why in the bloody fuck are doctors allowed to charge SEPARATE from the hospital? What did I pay the hospital for? I should NOT be billed twice. This poses two issues: First, I got charged two co-pays because as far as my insurance is concerned, I went to two separate doctors, the hospital and this other guy. Second, even though I have a 250 deductible, so I still have to pay the $300 (because yes, he actually charged around $900 but the rest was covered by insurance) this asshole doctor actually charged the insurance company a DIFFERENT price than I was charged, a lower one. Which is illegal. We called the insurance company and they proceeded to bitch at the doctor for this telling him it goes in direct violation of their policy (because apparently there is a cap of $300 that you're allowed to charge and they're charging me $323 at this point) and we're calling up some local officials to deal with it, too. When you compare the fees for the hospital bill and the separate doctor's bill, they're the same. He is literally charging us twice for the same services. What a mother fucker.
And here's the catch, kiddos. This is a common practice. It's completely legit for a doctor to charge you separately at an ER from the hospital, apparently even without telling you. We're still going to have to pay that $300, but we're determined to cost them far more than that in the bureaucracy to prove it.
Our medical system in this country is down-right immoral. My parents have to pay over $3000 a month in medical fees because my mother had a pre-existing condition that has nothing to do with lifestyle: she's had breast cysts that were never cancerous that had to be removed, but they fear her getting cancer, so charge her out the ass for it. Although I'm still covered, I have plenty of medical issues that have NOTHING to do with my lifestyle. I'm healthy, have amazing cholesterol, exercise enough, eat right, weigh 112 lbs for fucking sake's, and yet I am victim of deadly enough allergies that I have to be admitted to the ER on occasion for things that I could not fucking control. I don't wantonly eat shrimp products and then show up at the fucking ER; I go there because someone was shitty in the kitchen and touched my food with their dirty, nasty hands. Can I sue those motherfuckers for my insurance fees? Good fucking luck. Instead, I have expensive drugs that I have to shlep with me from here to there and I have to deal with $2000 ER visits. And how is that fair? It's bad enough that we don't have a single-payer plan so I have to pay that much money to begin with (don't even get me started on the fact that the $2000 is the price I got quoted just for having this shiny membership card into their Costco of hospitals and that if I had no insurance I'd be bankrupt) but it INFURIATES me that ER's take advantage of you in this way.
You only go to the ER if you're dying or too poor to afford healthcare. They know they've got you by the balls. Honestly, you tell me, what would you do lying on a table with needles out your fucking arms when presented with a doctor? You don't think, "Shit, is this guy going to charge me separately from the hospital?" you think, "Save me, I'm dying, I'm terrified, I don't want to die at 24 years old." And they know it. And they rip you off.
IT IS NOT MORAL TO PUT PEOPLE IN THIS SITUATION WITH THEIR HEALTH. END OF FUCKING STORY. There is no excuse. I don't care if it would cost our country the entire Iraq war to solve this problem (though that is the price tag on solving our student loan problem, but that's another issue entirely), it is not moral to do anything else. NEVERMIND the fact that it would SAVE us money by cutting the bills in ERs of the people who don't have insurance but obviously can't pay those fees (if they could afford that, they'd have INSURANCE, you fuckwads. People don't turn down insurance because they don't want it, but because they can't AFFORD it). And seriously, do you see Canada suffering? Do you see England suffering? FUCK NO.
And here's the thing, here's the deep down, honest truth. You hear that having a single-payer plan will take your freedoms from you. Because you'll be slotted to some shit doctor that doesn't know his crap, that you'll have long waits, or that you'll not get the services you need because of the long lines ahead of you. Tell me, friends, how is that different from now? If I have an allergic reaction, I can't go to my normal doctor: I HAVE to go to the ER. If I want an appointment, I have to book it two weeks in advance. And seriously, how many of us have had shitty doctors because they were the only ones in our plan NOW!? I know what the medical system looks like in England, I'm English. And yes, it's not flawless, but it's sure as fuck a whole lot less flawed than ours.
And "Freedom?" KISS MY FUCKING ASS. You are NOT FREE when you are shackled to a job you hate so that you can pay your medical bills because God decided that you're going to be allergic to every fucking thing on this Earth. You are not free if you get sick, I mean really sick, and are stuck with the towering bills for the rest of your natural life which the insurance companies will do nothing but hasten the end of. You ARE NOT FUCKING FREE in a situation where you have NO CONTROL. You are an indentured servant.
And as I sign away yet another portion of my life with private student loans because I'm not eligible for anything else, I am just that much more terrified of my next inevitable allergy attack. Because what do I do when I'm over $100k in debt, in school, eating next to nothing to save money, and that food that I took because I had nothing fucking else offered to me tries to kill me? I sit there and weigh the options of my fucking LIFE. I get to say, "Is this bad enough to spend thousands on? Will I live if I just take some over the counter drugs? Do I waste my epi-pen on this time and then not only have to pay the ER fees but the fee for a new epi-pen?"
And if I make the wrong choice?
Then I die a horrible fucking death.
Fuck you, America. Fuck you in your stupid fucking ass. I am SO close to done.
If I ever have a serious illness, I'm moving to England. This country is too fucking dumb to see the fall of Rome.
All right. Now that I got that out of the way.
Today I got my SECOND bill from the Austin Medical Center across the street from me for my last ER visit. The first bill I had no complaints about: for one thing, the insurance company was the one to tell me to go so they covered almost all of it, and all I had to pay was a $50 co-pay. Honestly, I don't have much to bitch about there, so I paid it straight away about a week ago. But then I got this SECOND bill, not from the HOSPITAL, but from the DOCTOR himself who saw me for all of 30 seconds, took one cursory glance at me, said I was good to go, and discharged me. At the time, we noticed a sign on the hospital wall saying that we'd be notified of all costs before anything was performed. But not only did I not get notified that my lab test would be billed to me (though honestly, I could have assumed that) but apparently the doctor that saw me for all of 30 seconds is not affiliated with the hospital itself and so can charge me a separate $350 FUCKING DOLLARS for those "highly valuable" 30 seconds of his time. Had I been told at the time that seeing this guy would have cost me another $300, I would have declined: I already knew that the vomiting had stopped, the nurse had just seen me and checked all my vitals and said I was good to go, so all the doctor did was confirm this fact. Thank the Lord Almighty I declined have intravenous liquids! Or God knows what else I would have been charged.
And here's the thing: why in the bloody fuck are doctors allowed to charge SEPARATE from the hospital? What did I pay the hospital for? I should NOT be billed twice. This poses two issues: First, I got charged two co-pays because as far as my insurance is concerned, I went to two separate doctors, the hospital and this other guy. Second, even though I have a 250 deductible, so I still have to pay the $300 (because yes, he actually charged around $900 but the rest was covered by insurance) this asshole doctor actually charged the insurance company a DIFFERENT price than I was charged, a lower one. Which is illegal. We called the insurance company and they proceeded to bitch at the doctor for this telling him it goes in direct violation of their policy (because apparently there is a cap of $300 that you're allowed to charge and they're charging me $323 at this point) and we're calling up some local officials to deal with it, too. When you compare the fees for the hospital bill and the separate doctor's bill, they're the same. He is literally charging us twice for the same services. What a mother fucker.
And here's the catch, kiddos. This is a common practice. It's completely legit for a doctor to charge you separately at an ER from the hospital, apparently even without telling you. We're still going to have to pay that $300, but we're determined to cost them far more than that in the bureaucracy to prove it.
Our medical system in this country is down-right immoral. My parents have to pay over $3000 a month in medical fees because my mother had a pre-existing condition that has nothing to do with lifestyle: she's had breast cysts that were never cancerous that had to be removed, but they fear her getting cancer, so charge her out the ass for it. Although I'm still covered, I have plenty of medical issues that have NOTHING to do with my lifestyle. I'm healthy, have amazing cholesterol, exercise enough, eat right, weigh 112 lbs for fucking sake's, and yet I am victim of deadly enough allergies that I have to be admitted to the ER on occasion for things that I could not fucking control. I don't wantonly eat shrimp products and then show up at the fucking ER; I go there because someone was shitty in the kitchen and touched my food with their dirty, nasty hands. Can I sue those motherfuckers for my insurance fees? Good fucking luck. Instead, I have expensive drugs that I have to shlep with me from here to there and I have to deal with $2000 ER visits. And how is that fair? It's bad enough that we don't have a single-payer plan so I have to pay that much money to begin with (don't even get me started on the fact that the $2000 is the price I got quoted just for having this shiny membership card into their Costco of hospitals and that if I had no insurance I'd be bankrupt) but it INFURIATES me that ER's take advantage of you in this way.
You only go to the ER if you're dying or too poor to afford healthcare. They know they've got you by the balls. Honestly, you tell me, what would you do lying on a table with needles out your fucking arms when presented with a doctor? You don't think, "Shit, is this guy going to charge me separately from the hospital?" you think, "Save me, I'm dying, I'm terrified, I don't want to die at 24 years old." And they know it. And they rip you off.
IT IS NOT MORAL TO PUT PEOPLE IN THIS SITUATION WITH THEIR HEALTH. END OF FUCKING STORY. There is no excuse. I don't care if it would cost our country the entire Iraq war to solve this problem (though that is the price tag on solving our student loan problem, but that's another issue entirely), it is not moral to do anything else. NEVERMIND the fact that it would SAVE us money by cutting the bills in ERs of the people who don't have insurance but obviously can't pay those fees (if they could afford that, they'd have INSURANCE, you fuckwads. People don't turn down insurance because they don't want it, but because they can't AFFORD it). And seriously, do you see Canada suffering? Do you see England suffering? FUCK NO.
And here's the thing, here's the deep down, honest truth. You hear that having a single-payer plan will take your freedoms from you. Because you'll be slotted to some shit doctor that doesn't know his crap, that you'll have long waits, or that you'll not get the services you need because of the long lines ahead of you. Tell me, friends, how is that different from now? If I have an allergic reaction, I can't go to my normal doctor: I HAVE to go to the ER. If I want an appointment, I have to book it two weeks in advance. And seriously, how many of us have had shitty doctors because they were the only ones in our plan NOW!? I know what the medical system looks like in England, I'm English. And yes, it's not flawless, but it's sure as fuck a whole lot less flawed than ours.
And "Freedom?" KISS MY FUCKING ASS. You are NOT FREE when you are shackled to a job you hate so that you can pay your medical bills because God decided that you're going to be allergic to every fucking thing on this Earth. You are not free if you get sick, I mean really sick, and are stuck with the towering bills for the rest of your natural life which the insurance companies will do nothing but hasten the end of. You ARE NOT FUCKING FREE in a situation where you have NO CONTROL. You are an indentured servant.
And as I sign away yet another portion of my life with private student loans because I'm not eligible for anything else, I am just that much more terrified of my next inevitable allergy attack. Because what do I do when I'm over $100k in debt, in school, eating next to nothing to save money, and that food that I took because I had nothing fucking else offered to me tries to kill me? I sit there and weigh the options of my fucking LIFE. I get to say, "Is this bad enough to spend thousands on? Will I live if I just take some over the counter drugs? Do I waste my epi-pen on this time and then not only have to pay the ER fees but the fee for a new epi-pen?"
And if I make the wrong choice?
Then I die a horrible fucking death.
Fuck you, America. Fuck you in your stupid fucking ass. I am SO close to done.
If I ever have a serious illness, I'm moving to England. This country is too fucking dumb to see the fall of Rome.