Money and Medicine

As most of you know, my politics tend to be a bit right of center. That is on most things, on others I may be more like Che Guevara. Some parts of the damned system are fatally broke, and like Che, I am ready to blow parts of it up. My health insurance is Blue Cross/Blue Shield Federal. It is as good as medical insurance gets and contrary to all the BS in the newspapers, it is not free for federal retirees. It costs me over four hundred dollars each month. I also have Medicare so one would think, that insurance wise at least, I am in good shape.

On August 17, 2009, I started having chest pains. Nine years ago I had a six way bypass, so any chest pain gets my undivided attention. I was driven to the North Florida Medical Center. I was there for less than sixteen hours. Thankfully, the medical staff determined that my pain was not cardiac related. I was not admitted to the hospital, had no invasive testing, no catherization lab, not even an MRI. Yet, my total hospital bill came to just over twenty two thousand dollars, ($22,000.00).
Thus far my out of pocket expenses have exceeded two thousand dollars.

Before going to the emergency room, I checked to see which hospital was covered by my insurance carrier. North Florida Medical Center was where I was directed to go. However, purely by chance, the emergency Room Physician on duty, was not a participating doctor. The guy on duty was Vietnamese, his English was heavily accented but from the part I understood, he seemed to be a pleasant man and a competent medical professional. He was with me for about ten minutes. Yesterday, I received a separate bill for his ten minutes of attention. In very clear English, the bill asked that I remit an additional $567.00. He had billed Blue Cross and they refused to pay. When I asked Blue Cross why they did not pay the bill they said, "Sorry but that particular doctor is not in our plan." I asked how in hell can a person know who might be on duty at any hospital on any given shift? Their response amounted to this, "Too bad chump, not a participant, payment responsibility is yours and yours alone." Damn, Damn, Damn! and double damn!

Listen, I do not want the government running our country's health care system. I have been in the military and I have also been to a V.A. facility, I know first hand what government ran medical care is, and trust me, it is not good. But, how in hell can any company of conscience charge more than twenty four thousand dollars for a hospital visit of sixteen hours? Think about it, I could have flown by private jet to the Mayo Clinic, stayed at the Four Seasons Hotel and saw a world renown cardiac specialist for less than half what I was charged.

In my opinion, the medical profession in general, and the insurance industry in particular, is driving this country to the edge of socialized medicine. Their current practices and charges are not just wrong, they are obscene.