Re: OT Compare the candidates

On Sep 11, 9:07�pm, Larisa > > � � Ah, you misunderstood me.

� � �I'd get the treatment FIRST, then bargain when the bill came.

Assuming the illness is acute rather than chronic - sure.


No, even with chronic conditions.

You really can do this, Larisa. And some cancers are chronic
conditions that we don't cure but do make livable. It happens all the
time.

I'm astonished to think that I'm the only person on RAM,
apparently, who has ever thought of this.

If I had an ongoing problem--and one of my sons had such a
problem, with eczema, during the time we were uninsured--I set up
meetings with the doctors, laid out the situation and came up with a
plan.

Again, possibly the situation is different regionally, but where
I live, I NEVER found a doctor unwilling to negotiate all this so that
we could make it happen.

I did find one hospital that was impossible, but once I knew
that, I never dealt with them again. Later, I found out that they had
a rep in the state for abusive billing practices, and at one point
they were investigated by the state AG's office for same.

One of the things I wish there was was more information about
that kind of thing available publicly.

But in spite of this hospital's behavior, I didn't lose the,
house, I didn't go bankrupt, my husband and son BOTH got all the
medical care they needed when they needed it, we got all the
prescription drugs any doctor prescribed.

And it wasn't because we were rich, because we had virtually no
income coming into the house those last three years. Bill wasn't
working because of the cancer and I was working a lot less because I
was handling Bill's cancer.

The year after Bill died, I slipped under my car, dislocated my
right ankle, broke my right ankle socket bone in half, and broke the
leg above it (below the knee) in two places.

The boys had health insurance, but I had dropped mine, because
that year after Bill died I didn't write, I didn't do much of
anything. I went through this period of sort of shell shock that took
me a while to get out of.

I was operated on immediately, no questions asked. I spent two
days in the hospital, and not only were they not trying to shove me
out the door because I had no insurance, I practically had to threaten
to sue them to let me go when I wanted to leave. I had six months of
follow up visits with the orthopedic surgeon, a second cast, x rays
out the wazoo...

I negotiated it all with everybody involved, got monthly
payments, all small. for what was left, and again, no ruin, no
bankruptcy, no living on the street. The hospital had a fund to help
uninsured patients pay their bills. I applied for that. They turned
around and came close to wiping out the hospital bill entirely.

And when things got better, I contributed to that fund to a
degree that I'm pretty sure has paid it back for the help it gave me
and then some.

In my experience, there are ALWAYS ways to negotiate these
things, and some doctors and hospitals have staff whose job is to find
where the money is if you don't have it.

It literally never occured to me to forego necessary medical
care because I didn't have insurance and didn't have money.

Of course, I've used both as an excuse not to get medical care I
don't want--even now, fully insured, I avoid annual check-ups like the
plague--but that's something else.

(Okay, here's one--in a national medical system, could I be
REQUIRED to get those check ups, whether I want them or not? And if I
could be, why? And if I could be, what happens to my "right to
privacy" and my "right to do what I want with my body"?)

And something else--under a national, single payer system, what
happens when I think the advice the doctor is giving me is full of
shit? Do I get to go to another doctor? Do I get to go to a
specialist even those my PCP won't give me a referral?

Under the system as we have it now, I can do both. If my
insurance company refuses to pay for the specialist visit without the
referral, I can go on my own dime and if I find out what I want to
know, I can pressure the PCP to provide a referral for further
visits.

These issues are not minor.

Jane Haddam
http://www.janehaddam.com

.

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