Some months ago I'd come to know this older guy, Art. Our paths crossed regularly. That is, until this past January when Art suddenly disappeared. In the past few months I would think of Art occasionally and wonder whatever became of him.
Well, yesterday I found out when I encountered a somewhat diminished looking Art. After the start of the new year, Art had unexpected health problems. Things like open heart surgery, a reamed out carotid artery, new fuel pump and oil change followed. Things like that. As a result, he had spent over a month in the hospital.
Now, I don't know how you put a value on human life. I'm positive it's a good thing we don't. Why? Well Art, who's getting along in years, might not be here now if we did. That's because I learned as he spoke, the total bill for his doctors and hospitalization was in excess of $375,000! Yep, $375,000.
Thankfully, Art has better medical insurance than many of us I suspect. From what he said, it took care of most all of it leaving me to say to Art - after firmly securing my tongue in my cheek - "Thank god we Americans live in the country with the world's best health care."
2 comments:
I don't have medical insurance. So when I had to go to the hospital...I had to wait 10 hours in the ER. The doc stuck his head in for less than 30 secs. The bill came in at $2700.00 but it only took 30 mins to do what they had to do. so if you add it up, I was told to pay $270.00 per hour to sit(butt in was unable to sit if you get my meaning)in the ER.
pm--Ouch! What a pain in the ass! (Ugh--sorry.)
But are you sure maybe you shouldn't look into buying some health insurance? I mean, for the $2700 it cost you w/o insurance, you could have bought 3 or 4 mos. worth of coverage.
(Oh wait, I just remembered...if it's insurance like we have, there's a $4,000 deductible before in kicks in which means in your case, you would have been out the cost of your insurance + the 2,700 hospital costs incurred.)
((We have the newest kind of insurance I am sure will spread to all eventually, i.e., you pay in, but it never actually PAYS YOU which is a pain in the ass which is where we came in, isn't it?))
(((Anything else to prevent bankrupting Americans because of a bad case of the flu would be socialized medicine and we all know what that is -- some perverted form of *Communism*, right?)))
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