Fainting in This Country Can Carry a $10,000 Price Tag

[marmar]

via AlterNet:



Fainting in This Country Can Carry a $10,000 Price Tag

By Kirk Nielsen, Miller-McCune.com. Posted April 1, 2009.

After passing out, Kirk Nielsen got gouged by exorbitant health care fees.



There's really no good time or place for a blackout, though some are significantly worse than others. Mine, one subzero evening in downtown St. Paul, Minn., last December, fell solidly on the inauspicious side of the spectrum.

The Level 2 lobby of the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts was teeming with people waiting for the second half of a fine production of Irving Berlin's White Christmas to begin. I was standing with my mom, sister and her three young-adult kids. Through the windows of a dazzling curtain-wall that spans the front of the trapezoidal building, I was admiring the golden lights on the canopy of trees in the park across the street. On the warm side of the glass, a professional trio of carolers had just finished a short intermission set. I was in a good mood; a fantastic woman in Duluth was expecting my call after the show to finalize plans for our first date the next night.

Suddenly, I felt weirdly lightheaded, so I turned to hasten to my seat. I took three steps, got the spins and took a nosedive, just missing the edge of a wine and coffee bar. Upon impact, I regained some consciousness and sat half-sprawled with my elbows on the carpet. A short-haired middle-age woman was crouching next to me, asking me if I knew my name, what day of the week it was, where I was. I did, which eliminated the possibility of stroke. "You blacked out ... I'm not a doctor ... That happens to me ... You should lay down," I recall her saying.

Assuming the dead man's pose in the Ordway lobby sounded fairly embarrassing, so I resolved to head for one of the lobby's posh benches several paces away. With someone's help, I got to my feet, and within two steps, a heavy wave of dizziness nearly sent me back down. I made it to the bench and sat, feeling exhausted and nauseated, and exchanging glances with the horrified faces of my mom and sister. I hoped my nieces and nephew were inside watching the rest of White Christmas, not their uncle's freak show. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/134353/fainting_in_this_country_can_carry_a_%2410%2C000_price_tag

[myrna minx]

1. That's unbelievable. Wow. n/t

[Warpy]

2. Getting checked out is preferable

but being uninsured, I refused it the last time I kissed the floor.

I had a hunch it had to do with the fact that I was sick of taking Percodan and was trying to tough severe pain out on Tylenol. Getting shocky and going splat in a grocery store is no joke.

I only tried to tough it out after that in the comfort of my own home, preferably lying down.

The hospital bill above is no surprise since it included labs, a cardiac workup, and quite possibly a CT scan to rule out a head injury from the fall. They look for all sorts of possibilities in the labs from anemia to hypoglycemia to wacky electrolytes.

Unfortunately, he's blaming health care givers, and those aren't the problem. The problems are outfits like BC/BS who pay a discounted rate for services and hospitals that bill patients for 20% of the RETAIL rate.

The problem is insurance companies, not health care providers. The problem is a corrupt government in thrall to these giants and terrified to eliminate them from a system they should never have been in, in the first place. The problem is a wacky price structure driven by insurance giants and not by actual costs. The problem is focusing on cost instead of delivering actual care.

Until we address all these problems, we won't get anything but a patchwork system cruelly rationed by economic class. We deserve much better. We have to insist on it.

[XemaSab]

3. My friend passed out in Hawaii from the heat

split her forehead, and had to have stitches.

That was a cool thou that, as a student making $7 an hour, she could not begin to afford. x(

[stellanoir]

4. that does it !

I'm going to become a smelling salt tycoon.

[eridani]

5. So, are all of you going to write your senators about this incident ASAP--

--while asking them to co-sponsor S 703 (Bernie Sanders' universal health care bill)?

[barbtries]

6. the guy tells a good story

and his point is well taken. single payer for everybody, now.