Foolish socialist citizen.
Please stop referring to "healthcare," by referring to "healthcare" you do a great disservice to our glorious HEALTH INDUSTRY.
INDUSTRY. Got that?
The INDUSTRY is HEALTHY and that is all we need to CARE about.
F***ing sick people, always f***ing whining about something.

;-)

I just had orthoscopic knee surgery. The surgery lasted 45 minutes and I was in the hospital a total of ... FIVE hours. The hospital and various doctors billed my insurer, my state's "risk" pool, which is the only insurance I can get apparently because I have asthma, a total of over $10,000. The insurer paid about $3500, says I owe $2500, which doesn't include the costs of extensive physical therapy that I haven't been billed for yet.

These astronomical amounts don't include the fact that because I can't take non-steroidals, the knee surgeon didn't know how to manage my osteoarthritis they found during surgery and wasn't willing to take the time to find out. I had to myself go searching for a specialist to help me with this, at significant additional expense for the doctor and the medication. The providers are both connected with a local teaching university but I had to make separate arrangements for payment with the doctors and the hospitals, thus doubling my monthly payments.

I am paying over $10,000 year or more for insurance premiums, the $2000 deductible, co-pays and necessary but uncovered procedures, in effect, another mortgage. I am self-employed and not working much at the moment and living on a small inheritance as I care for an elderly parent. My medical expenses are over 25% of my income. I am not eligible to apply for discounted insurance until a year after the year that I earned a reduced amount qualifying for the discount.

And I'm lucky to have the "insurance." Everyone tells me so. For one thing, I was in so much pain before the surgery and was unable to walk. Frankly, I would have given just about everything I had to make the pain stop stop. Another reason I'm lucky to have and barely be able to afford this insurance which is slowly bankrupting me is that one of the nurses that state hires to follow up with patients with this insurance told me yesterday that, though she works for this "insurance" company, as an employee, her premiums are going up to over $1000 month for her family and as of next month, she will be forced to decline coverage. Our state legislature took a look late last year at the possibility of finding a way to reduce premiums with it's "risk" pool coverage and concluded, nope, it couldn't do a darn thing to help. Us poor suckers who have no other choices are just so lucky to have insurance at all.

This is insurance? Hah! This is highway robbery. If I recall correctly, we were sold managed care a few decades ago because the system was supposed to prevent doctors and other providers from adding undue costs. Keeping costs down and setting up a larger pool to spread the risks meant we would all have access to health care for less money. Now we have a system, one of the most, if not the most, expensive in the world and nowhere near the highest quality or accessibility, that benefits few but those rich enough to afford it and those who draw the substantial profits from it.

I've been threatening for a while now to start a snarky website attacking the insurance industry called sendkathymoney.com. If you send Kathy money, she won't give you much of anything of value for your dollars but so? How's that any different than the so-called insurance industry? At least if you're generous enough to send Kathy your hard earned cash, she won't hassle you and make your life an accounting and negotiating hell.

This situation is beyond outrageous and any politician or right wing enabler who refuses to see it and who refuses to take any responsibility for fixing it should be shamed and shunned by the people they pretend to represent. Now, let's see, what's more important to Congress right now that making sure every American has affordable access to medical care? Oh, yeah, that's right, apparently the top priorities are figuring out how to give immunity to the arrogant criminals in this administration and their corporate co-conspirator for their wholesale violations of our constitutional rights and how to continue paying for a misbegotten war that if not illegal was a very, very bad idea in both conception and execution, along with the billions being siphoned off by greedy contractors. And the priority of the media? Apparently to keep us all barefoot and stupid with non-stop stories about celebrities and candidate haircuts and BBQs and the insulted but not bitter working class and Obama's intemperate pastor, all the while that their corporate sponsors and the politicians they depend on rob us all blind.

Am I bitter? Me? What in the hell is there to be better about?

How on earth would a sick person work through this mess?

Good question. Would it be better or worse if you were dealing with civil servants, like at the VA?

This is why all of the politicians who think it's a good idea to subsidize people to buy insurance policies deserve to go through the mill themselves.

What would be funny in another world is that the hospital has almost certainly spent that $438 in the cost of having people on the phone for hour after hour figuring out what's wrong with the billing. If not, your friend certainly has. (I've often thought that there would be a salutary change in US business practice if customers could charge an appropriate hourly rate for time spent straightening out billing and other errors.)

I do wish that, in every article on the "joys" of individual, private insurance of whatever kind, it would be noted in big type that the vast majority of people who are above the age of 30 could not get a policy. Not a high-cost, high-deductible policy. Not a hospital only policy. None. Nada.

And you needn't have a chronic condition. If you had childhood asthma, you're denied. If you had a benign mole removed, you're denied. If you had a concussion, you're denied. If you've ever had a broken bone, denied. And if, like John McCain, you've had cancer, you're denied. Further if one insurer denies you, all of the others will ask whether or not you've been denied elsewhere. If you answer honestly, denied.