recently, (like thursday) a friend of ours went to an urgent care clinic (covered by his admittedly sparse insurance for a mere $25) complaining about chest pains.
they ran an "indeterminate" EKG, which could mean "anything" and decided he should go to ER. At ER they said "well, there's a lot it could be" (i paraphrase), and decided to admit him to the hospital for stress testing. this would take all day friday, round figures.
Our friend is a fit 40something who exercises regularly and eats fairly well, and he drinks here and there, mostly because I do, and we're over there an awful lot. (let's just sayhe drinks one glass of wine, i have four.)
He performed really too well on his stress tests for them to suspect that it was much more than heartburn, and eventually sent him home with an rx for Protonix, but said he could just use double-doses of prilosec if he wanted, either would work.
Because the Hefriend is in good shape, he & his wife (the Shefriend) opted for pretty minimal insurance, and figured they'd just pay for it a lot if he ever had to get admitted to the hospital/er/that kind of thing. Not everyone is experiencing a plague upon them as i am, it seems. I have tonnes of coverage, and i use it. He has nearly none and he doesn't. except this week.
But because The HeFriend *did* get admitted, he will probably pay upwards of Two Thousand Dollars for the privilege of that Protonix rx. SheFriend complained "It's 2007! Why can't they just tell me what's going on with him?!" I understood. They joked about the bill, but it was obvious it still smarted.
In Toronto, I had reason to be rushed to hospital and spend a night in a crisis-care unit. Details not important. The whole thing was no charge because I was under OHIP at the time. (which was soon to expire with my work visa.) No charge. and there _was_ something rather wrong with me, requiring copious amounts of IV things and oxygen, etc.
What I want to know, really, is these people who believe we have salient health care in this country--what in the hell is going so well in your life that you don't have to worry about bills? Are you, all of you, so well-off that you're in cloverfields of insurance and/or gold?
It occurs to me that even with insurance, your ass is not entirely covered. Neither is your heartburn.
I just have come to terms with the fact that being debt free will forever ellude us all.
Posted by: just a bloak | Tuesday, 13 February 2007 at 10:33 PM