I am a 26 year old white male.
And I am uninsured.
There is plenty of debate going on right now on the issue of Universal Health coverage, and expect me to be citing articles and arguments here in the future as I provide continuous blogging on this topic. But let me just start with a simple story.
Last April I woke up one day, and I had a funny taste in my mouth. It was like half my tongue tasted like I had slept with a copper penny or a battery in my mouth. I went to look in the mirror, and discovered half my face was asleep. Hmm. . . this isn't exactly normal.
I start to freak out. I head immediately to my primary care physician, a certain Dr. Web, M.D. After careful review of my symptoms, Web M.D. concluded that I had developed Bell's Palsy, a condition likely brought about by stress.
I concurred.
The condition causes paralysis of one side of the face, and usually goes away in time. I compare my findings with everyone I know in the medical field: nurses, Physicians Assistants, and my barber (trust me, back before HMO's, they used to do EVERYTHING, didn't even need to refer you to a specialist.)
They all came back with the same diagnosis: "Go see a doctor you idiot, you may have had a stroke, it could be cancer, and 'How about a nice leaching? No? Maybe just a shave a face massage?'"
I do not concur.
Besides, Doctors cost money, and in case you haven't heard, we're in a bit of a recession. I can barely afford my daily shave and facial massage, let alone an emergency room visit. So I wait a week.
Finally, my sister intervenes, she works at a hospital and convinces me to go. She tells me that they have programs for people who can't afford to pay, so just go and get it done. So I take her advice, and after the sedatives wear off, I find myself in a hospital bed surrounded by friends and family. So after a cat scan, an ekg, full blood work, and about 6 hours of waiting around, it turned out that I had, wait for it . . . Bells Palsy. Whew!
So with a skip in my step and a slant in my smile, I head on out of the hospital. My only instructions were to wear an eye-patch at night to prevent my paralyzed eye from crusting over. The news that all I had was Bells Palsy was such a relief, it felt as if the entire weight of the world had been lifted off my shoulders.
Until the bill came.
Until the NINE THOUSAND DOLLAR bill came.
My God, I could spend another month vacationing around Europe for that kind of money. Let's look at the breakdown:
Triage Treatment: $500 (They took my name and my temperature.)
Hospital Room Admittance: $2000 (They took my name again and told me to go wait for an hour)
Emergency Room Bed: $2000 (It was quite comfortable and had a TV, unfortunately it was stuck on the Islander Game.)
EKG: $1500 (And I didn't even get to run on a treadmill with my shirt off.)
Cat Scan: $3,000 (That thing was the real deal, no jokes here.)
Protective Eye-Patch: $95 (This was in actuality a cotton ball and a piece of medical tape.)
Instructions on application of said Protective Eye-Patch: $25 ("What you want to do is tape this to your eye."
More to follow. . .
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