Reply #32: True

[OwnedByCats]

I remember 30 years ago my parents having good insurance that had affordable premiums and the cost of copays and prescriptions were low. They even paid for me to have experimental surgery for my left eye even though the accident which caused me to be partially blind in that eye happened 6 years before I was insured by them. Getting insurance like that now is almost unheard of. Many people are in a position where they either can't afford the premium or can afford the premium but not the copays and therefore can't afford to use their insurance. My husband had insurance when he went to the hospital on 3 seperate occasions for kidney stones but now owes the hospital $15,000 anyway for those visits which we can't afford to pay at present, all because the crappy insurance didn't cover very much of the bill and the premiums eat so much of your income. I am seeing this more and more. It's very hard for me to justify paying the insurance company a premium of $900 a month for both of us just to end up owing thousands and thousands for medical bills anyway!

I lived in England for 10 years and between my ex-husband having Hodgkin's disease twice and medical issues of my own, it was so nice not to have to worry about medical bills. The care is not "free" persay - but it's affordable. It's like paying a very low premium every month, no copays for doctor or hospital visits (regardless of the type of doctor you're seeing, brief or long hospital stays and nothing for surgery or any other treatments you need). We did have copays for medications, but it was very cheap. People who had low enough income could even get their meds for free. They even paid to store my ex-husband's sperm sample at a private facility for a period of 10 years in case the chemotherapy left him sterile. You can go private in the UK, either you can pay out of pocket or enroll in a private insurance plan - but it's entirely by choice. I know some people have said the health care in the UK isn't good, but that wasn't my experience. The first time my ex had cancer, he was stage 4. The reason it wasn't discovered early was because he wasn't very good about going to the doctor over little things that bothered him. When the symptoms became too much to bear, that was when he finally let me make him an appointment. Hodkgin's is one of the easiest cancers to cure, but with him being in the advanced stage he was in, we weren't sure how well it would turn out. His hematologist was awesome. To make a long story short, after his treatments he was in remission but it returned a year and a half later. After those treatments, it never came back. He's been in remission now for 11 years. The government NEVER interferred with my care, I was never told I couldn't have something done. If my doctor said I needed it, it got done. Women are advised in the UK to have their woman's checkup (PAP smear) every three years unless they are prone to abnormalties. I wasn't comfortable with that and when I told my doctor, he said I could have one every year if I wanted. I was never refused a yearly exam even though they were found to be normal every time. I had heard women say they had been refused yearly exams, but I never was. All in all, I really no compaints about their system and I didn't see my friends and family there have problems with the NHS. I've heard the horror stories, but they can happen in any system. It's not like our system is ever free of mistakes.

When I moved back home to the US 4 years ago, I was SHOCKED by how bad things had gotten here. I remember before I left the US for the UK in the late 90's, I didn't have too much trouble paying for check ups even though I had no insurance at the time as I had been kicked off my parent's policy when I was 22. Back in 1997 I paid about $150 for my yearly gynocologist visit which included the PAP smear, breast exam, tests for diseases and blood and urine tests. 4 years ago I went to see my PCP for the first time just for a checkup and she wanted to do a blood test. The bill from that visit was about $80 which is bad enough since I only saw her for about 10 minutes - THEN I found out I was to be billed seperately by the lab that conducted my blood test. This was a standard blood test, nothing special about it. I got a bill for $800!! I ended up in the emergency room later that year because I had a seizure from medication I was taking. Between the ambulance ride, head CT, the ER visit and bill from the doctor I saw, I owed $5,000. I was only there 4 hours. A few months ago I went to the ER because I had a tooth abcess which was infected and on the pain scale was a 12 - a 14 if I laid down. Normally I would not go to the ER for something like that, but I was desperate for relief. It was a Saturday night and I had a dental appointment that Monday morning to have the tooth removed and I knew the ER wouldn't be able to pull it so really I was just there to get some pain meds to keep me comfortable until Monday. It wasn't busy there thank goodness and I was in and out within 20 minutes. They took my blood pressure, gave me a Vicoden to take immediately and a script for Tylenol #3 to get filled. Between the hospital bill and the bill from the prescribing doctor who I saw for a whopping 2 minutes, I was charged $600. What was the most insulting was the doctor tried to send me away with just Motrin. MOTRIN?? For an infected tooth abcess? If that worked, I wouldn't have been there! Why would anyone go to the emergency room for pain if ibuprofen would be good enough when they could just go to the store, buy the ibuprofen (or have some lying around the house) and save themselves $600? I realize some people drug seek, but you could clearly see the abcess poking out of my gums and my blood pressure was through the roof because of the pain. I told her I had taken a ton of ibuprofen already and that changed her tune awfully quick as she feared I would burn a hole in my stomach. Oh and dentists, I can't believe how much they charge now also! They charged me $150 to remove the tooth and another $150 because it was an "emergency" visit that they had to squeeze in. It took the dentist less than a minute to pull the tooth - plus he was stingy with the novacain and it still hurt like hell. He didn't even offer to give me another injection. Needless to say he won't be getting my business again if he can't be bothered to keep me comfortable during an extraction.

Sorry for the rant, but I'm really worried. If health care costs keep going up in the rate it has been, in a few years the only people who will be able to afford medical care are the wealthy. Makes me wish I had stayed in the UK.