I just went through $27k of hospital bills. Insurance is NOTHING but organized crime

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

Posted by A horse with no name over here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5687782&mesg_id=5687782

I was shocked. This is scary that someone can pay that much for insurance but
end up so screwed.

Read the post to see what I mean.

Oh boy we are in trouble and private insurance is the problem, not the answer.

[leftofthedial]

1. and "health care" is about 95% a scam.

[lapfog_1]

2. I had a corrective heart surgery

to fix a dangerous, and expensive (to treat), birth defect ( I have something called Wolf-Parkinson-White Syndrome, and it had reached a stage where when my heart went into arrhythmia, I needed to have either the "shock paddles" or a very hard to administer drug which also stopped my heart, to "reboot" things back to normal... all of which had to happen in an ER).

Anyway, there was a surgery that could correct it. My insurance, not wanting to pay for more ER visits, agreed to pay for the surgery (minus my deductible and co-pay). My cardiologist negotiated everything directly with the insurance company. At the last minute, he felt he needed another doctor to help with the surgery... resulting in a $47K operation rather than the $36K as negoiated... and I got stuck with the extra. Not only that, but the insurance company basically put me into bankruptcy rather than work out a deal for payments (I could do maybe $500 a month, but that wasn't good enough for them).

On top of all that, they dropped me like a hot potato(e - for Dan Quayle).

That was 12 years ago. Since then, I've never been able to afford insurance of any kind... and if I *could*, whatever I get won't cover another surgery or anything else related to WPW... or even my heart. Bypass surgery later in life? Forget it... heart attack? I'm on my own. Blue Cross of CA offered me coverage at $1200/month WITH a $10K deductible. Thanks a lot... :sarcasm:

Single payer is my only hope... or live without much of any medical checkups or problems until Medicare.

Somehow, I don't have a lot of hope for people in my situation.


Good luck to you.

[Systematic Chaos]

3. I've been hospitalized four times in the past 2 1/2 years for the same shit.

I have severe venous insufficiency in both of my legs in addition to late stage 2 lymphedema, because of three factors. First of all I'm very tall and heavy (though only for the past couple years have I been as morbidly obese as I am now... BECAUSE of these other problems!), I was born with incredibly tiny and deep veins, and I chose to be a casino table game dealer for 10 years, standing rooted to one spot for 6 hours or more per day.

On top of that, over this past couple of years I have developed severe stiffness and range of motion problems in both of my arms and shoulders (also from dealing) and the pain associated with this is so bad that I can no longer reach for things on shelves above chest level, or in the back of the refrigerator, or even right on my table at arm's length because of crippling pain.

So yes, I was hospitalized FOUR TIMES at a cost of over $30,000 each time, and also spent a great deal of time in a couple of long-term nursing facilities while they pumped me full of IV antibiotics over and over again at the cost of my stomach and kidneys. But, when I've expressed the need for anything at all away from the hospital, like a large, comfortable chair to support both my weight and height (6'3", high 400s presently and was higher a couple years ago), or extra supplies like bandages or gauze, or really good diabetic shoes... you name it, they fucking turned me down EVERY TIME or just hemmed and hawed about it and then let it drop. The ONLY thing they did bother to send me at my house was - get this! - a $600 bathroom scale with a 550 lb. capacity, and this was even after I told them that I could get one even better through several medical supply places with an even larger capacity (not that I intend to ever need it) and a larger platform to stand on (which would actually help me) for 1/3 the cost.

Where I'm going with this long rant, I suppose, is that for the cost of all this time in the hospital and then just tossing me out on my ear with literally no support once I was kinda sorta healed up, but referrals to all kinds of specialists and for all kinds of medications each with another co-pay which before we knew it could total into the hundreds every month... they COULD have paid for a lot of physical therapy and other stuff to help me get better on my own. Instead, I've been in almost too much pain to move more than just a little bit for going on three years now, losing at most a pound a month just on diet and feeling like shit warmed over. My wife is wonderful and tries as hard as she can to help me, but if I were in more qualified hands I'd be in an entirely better situation.

[elleng]

4. Medicare provided my diabetic mother with shoes, regularly.

(for our info.) Our single payer.

[old mark]

5. My wife and I both have various chronic illnesses. We have been

through bankruptcy 2 times in the last 18 years due solely to medical bills and the fact that we were fired from various jobs for being sick often.

My wife is now on disability - (for over 10 years), has Medicare and a State (PA) supported private insurer. They have worked very well for her,
including paying for having both knees replaced - paid the complete bill!

I had a quad bypass plus extra arteries replaced in my chest in '03, and I have another State-backed private insurance that has been great so far.

NO PRIVATE HEALTH INSURER will cover anyone who has had open chest/heart surgery except Blue Cross, and they don't cover many of us. They wanted $800 a month last year just for me - I don't get that much from my retirement pension.

I will be on the State insurance plan till I am old enough for Medicare.

Medicare works fine - the private insurers want only the healthy people, and the rest of us can go to hell.

mark

[YewNork]

6. Medicare does work fine

"Medicare works fine - the private insurers want only the healthy people, and the rest of us can go to hell"

And yet Republicans are insisting that anything that the government runs will work well.

I guess they're referring only to the government programs that they don't like.

[old mark]

8. Well, they have built their entire party on lies, and have no plans to

change now.....


mark

[Psychic Consortium]

7. Some become billionaires by denying health care to the sick.

This is wrong, very wrong, and will end.

[backtoblue]

9. You are completely right

Insurance companies are outrageous.

First, they make you pay a premium - should take care of it, right?

Nope. Then they say "you have to make a co-pay" when you go to the doc. Ok, sucks, but we'll deal with it.

Then they send you a letter saying "By the way, you have a $2,000 deductible before we'll pay for anything" WTF???

"Oh, yeah and that liver problem? It was there before we came along so that's coming out of your pocket for the next year."