My family has contributed a whopping $1000 to the economy this week, $750 in medical fees and another $250 for a college textbook. I’ll get back to that outrage in a bit.
First a bit of perspective, I think the whole country is pretty sensitive to the whole recession and down economy that America
I am a conservative capitalist and I oppose more government intervention in my life but at the same time I recognize that some of the institutions and services in this country are really screwed up. Even though I do not believe more taxes on the rich are any sort of solution to our problems I fear that a percieved widening gap between rich and poor is going to cause some real trouble if we can not address the anger that is simmering.
I do not resent Mitt Romney making a lot of money and I think other Republican candidates attacking him for being successful is harmful to the conservative argument but I cringe when I hear him make references to $350 K being, “not vey much”. Perhaps when you have $250 million it does seem minor but $350K is huge to most citizens, me included. I am really tired of the fact that in order to be able to run for president you have to be not just wealthy but super wealthy. I am tired of our politicians exempting themselves from the same conditions the rest of us must settle for.
In a Republic, we should have representation that essentially is like us. Congress is not royalty and yet they have benefits that far exceed anything the general population can ever expect. If they had to live with the same rules they pass for the citizens they would quickly reform their positions and undo the damage. Just the swamp of Obama Care
My wife and I are healthy. We eat carefully, exercise, take our vitamins and watch our weight. We minimize our sugar and fat intake, rarely eat out and maintain high hygiene standards for ourselves and home. We are very seldom sick and usually only see a doctor for regular checkups. When I was a cop I took a total of two sick days in 15 years, and one of those was for a sick child (and I was a government employee). So we are not really in the high medical consumer category. 5% of the US
Because we are not high maintenance we save on our health premiums and we have a rather high deductible which also means we pay a lot before the insurance kicks in. A couple of weeks ago my wife went in for the annual routine mammogram which is covered by our insurance and last week she got a call saying that they wanted her to come back in, there was an area of concern and they wanted another look. Well that news can sure let the air out of your sails. We really did not talk much about it but Tuesday she went back in for the second test and was presented with a bill prior to the test for $750. Wow! Are you kidding me? $750… out of pocket, right now, before you get the test. Hmmn, what to do… Well who is going to say No, I’ll pass, I’m sure it is not necessary?
Not in this day and age of hyper sensitivity to Breast Cancer and pink everything. Are you kidding? So Nan charged the $750 and had the re-screening and waited for the results while I was at the store waiting to hear form Nan . If positive then everything changes, the whole focus of what we’re doing changes doesn’t it. It turns out that it was nothing unusual, just a misreading of the first results, In fact, the pictures matched the ones from previous screenings, ooops. Our Bad. But hey, it’s worth it to be sure right? Except it is a whopping $750 that we, just like most Americans, other than a politician can hardly afford to waste. I mean why is a screening, a mammogram $750 and yet every single passenger and bag at the airport gets x-rayed for free? Why does our annual eye exams, where they use pretty sophisticated equipment these days, only cost the two of us $250. Why does the dentist not even come close to $750?
This is where the health and medical costs get so crazy. The screening is ok regardless of cost as long as someone else is paying for it. The first one was covered as routine prevention, the second is not but the facility charges for both. Why ? When I mis-diagnose or have a re-do or what in my field we refer to as a comeback, it is on me not the customer. My time and machinery is valuable too, but your motorcycle does not get the dreaded C word. In this case they misread the first exam. I understand that it could be very easy to do and hell, I want them to be sure. I do not want any mistakes, Nan ’s life is at stake. I mean are we not literally scared to death by all of the messages to get the tests to prevent and to diagnose?
This summer I went to see a doctor that specializes in the other end of the anatomy. I had a little family of democrats hanging around causing problems and the doctor performed a quick and simple procedure, ( that reinforced my conviction that I am definitely heterosexual ) and removed Nancy and Harry leaving me with a less troublesome Debbie and Chuck. He advised me to schedule a colorectoral exam to ensure there were no other contributing factors. I met with the nice lady whose job it is to schedule such nightmares and she explained that the nuclear fluid you drink today is now flavored and tastes much less awful. However, I did not get the second roto-rooter exam because I had within sufficiently recent time already passed that experience with a clean bill of health and as I was certain that my affliction was purely the cause of my life’s experience of carrying the burden of working for those that will not… besides I was unwilling to waste $400 just to have an examination of my sewer system when I will undoubtedly be required to under go it again in a few years. Anyway, I had just gone through TSA check ups twice in September. The difference was I was not under immediate stress nor concerned about the “C” word and was able to make that decision not to spend my own money. The situation was in my favor but I’m sure for many individuals it would not be and thus this cost of being sure, just in case would have to be born by either the patient or the insurance company.
The frustration with having to pay so much for this mammogram is just what it is, frustration. Is it necessary for it to cost so much? Much more than the cost of the machine and the skilled labor to operate it is involved. There is the liability insurance and the regulations and everything associated with it that makes this health care so expensive. I understand all of that. But will Obama Care make this better or worse? Will the costs be so high that an overseer watching the costs could say no to a re-screening? Would someone have the job of deciding no in this case and yes in that one? What if there had been a problem?
The evening after this eventful and expensive day, Nan and I went to Sam’s Club for some things. While there we saw a whole family of 7 definitely in the 5%. They were all obese, and gaining weight while I watched. They hit the snack counter and were downing giant mega cups of soft drinks and likely waiting for Pizza or something similar. Their cart was overflowing with food and few if any vegetables or fruit. It was depressing. They might be nice people but Hey ! They were a health care nightmare that are going to drive my costs up even more.
We are in a situation where we are going to have to make some very important choices. Our country is bankrupt and unless we bring back a sense of personal responsibility for our own condition and behavior we will see the government start doing it for us. I do not want an employee for a bureaucratic agency to decide weather or not I or my wife are allowed to have a needed procedure. I prefer to have that be my responsibility and to confer with my doctor(s) to discuss my needs. I also really resent watching another segment of our society suck up so much of our healthcare resources while taking no responsibility for their health condition thus driving up my costs penalizing me for being healthy.
My healthcare insurance needs to be more like my home and car insurance. No claims, lower premiums and once in a while when I really need them, no questions and come through the way it was agreed upon. For the other 5% ers, they need to have a different policy that I do not have to pay for.
If you are going to continue peeing in my pool, then you are going to have to leave and get your own pool. Good luck.
Now for that text book….Really? $250 for an economics text book? It better have some really new information and those solutions had better be a whole lot better than the ones presently being used by Congress and the Whitehouse. How did we as grownups, who went to college ourselves, ever allow our children to pay $250 for a stupid book? Folks we have been asleep, playing Rip Van Winkle while the institutions of higher learning have been in bed with the textbook companies stealing our savings. As we all know, the text book is pretty much obsolete. This is all about keeping a decaying industry on life support and about lining someone’s pockets for as long as possible till we remember the famous words of Nancy Reagan, “JUST SAY NO”. Every student in college today is computer literate and has a smart phone at hand and can likely access every tidbit of information needed in moments. Most of them hate books and prefer to do all their reading on a screen of some sort. The text book should be an E-book that is down loadable and something they could have with them all the time for any opportunity to read whatever it is they need to read. I mean in the age of the Kindle, what student would want to lug around a $250 stupid econ book. If I had had this technology at my disposal back in College I would have been a lot happier and likely have done a lot better.
Let me pose this simple question…. Do you still use a phone book? When was the last time you used the yellow pages? We don’t even advertise in them any more, they’re useless. How about if I was to offer you a fine set of Funk And Wagnels encyclopedias? Only $500 for the set and you get another volume every year for the next umpteen years to keep your set up to date. Not likely because they are out of date before they go to print.
I have several whole books right on my phone that I can either listen to while I travel or read at my leisure. I even have a copy of the US Constitution on there. I wish Obama had a copy…
Final thoughts…. It is said “You Can’t fix Stupid !”. That’s funny when Ron White says it but we had better start trying to or we may just find out we are the stupid ones.
