My unintended experiance with being "uninsured" [View all]
My wife and I both came down with what her doctor diagnosed as bronchitis. No problem: her Cadillac health care plan after 28 years with the CIA covered everything for her. I'm on VA health care and because I used to get bronchitis almost every year and because neither of us could take the 50 mile drive to my primary care physician in Austin or 80 miles to Temple Medical center I decided to hunker down: rest, push fluids and shelter in place.
That was Monday.
Thursday, neither of us were any better and were decidedly worse, in fact.
I called VA to get authorization to use the local hospital emergency room.
At Scott and White I got incredibly good and quick service. Second only to the care I get at VA.
What I had was type B influenza. You know, the one not covered by this flu season's inoculation.
What I also got was $250+ in prescriptions and a bill I haven't seen yet that I am confident will be more than a $1000.
This is the sort of thing that will make some people miss rent, a car payment, a weeks work, lose a job, become homeless. We've all heard that the average American is four or so paychecks from the streets.
The biggest thing I learned? We need single-payer now more than ever. ACA was a good start, lets get to the next logical and better step. Oh, and regulating the vampire pharmaceutical industry is a necessity, also. For the price of the codeine cough syrup alone I could have bought a good bindle of smack on the street. Something is very wrong.
Meanwhile: back to my sick bed.
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