With all the health care “reform” being rammed down our throats, I’d like to share a pretty typical health care experience – mine. Like many families, mine has a very large deductible. In practice, this means that we enjoy low premiums, which allows us to keep more money in our pockets, but that health insurance coverage doesn’t “kick in” until our expenditures reach about $5,000 – in other words, something pretty serious has to happen in order for us to need to make a claim. This makes us careful consumers. We wait to go to the doctor until we have given our immune systems a fair chance at beating the illness or to learn if it’s self-limiting, like a cold. We use Zycam and other over the counter remedies. (Previously paid for with our tax-free health savings account – you know, the one President Obama and his Democratic Congress are helpfully eliminating in an effort to, ahem, reduce health care spending.) We ask for generics, and we are also not too shy to ask for samples. Although my husband is a cancer survivor, and although I have a chronic illness, our health care expenditures are typically pretty low.
I’m sick right now. Day three of a chest cold, or maybe bronchitis. Low grade fever, tired, achy. My body has transformed itself into a highly efficient snot factory. So I’m staying home, taking acetaminophen and Mucinex, and drinking plenty of tea and other fluids. If I get sicker, OR if I’m still sick at the end of a week, I’ll go to the doctor then. Because I’m going to have to pay for it myself, I’m cautious about my spending. The alternative is to go to the health clinic which is free/sliding scale, but is inconvenient, will take the better part of a day, and probably expose me to even more germs.
Every time I’ve been to the emergency room in the last decade – for myself or accompanying someone else – I have seen one or more of the following:
- Someone who has a cold or the flu, but is well enough to eat fast food or snacks from the vending machine, drink soda, and play a hand-held video game.
- Someone who took an ambulance to the ER for a minor injury. My personal favorite was the woman suffering from a “sprained toe.”
- A chronic drug seeker who knows the staff by name, and while waiting, explains to me and anyone else who will listen about the back injury or other illness he suffers from so greatly… yet evidences none of the signs of pain any parent or person with common sense would expect to see.
This is anecdotal, of course, but think back to your own ER visits and you’ll recall the same. This is how people act when it’s “free” – when they can reasonably expect to skip out on the bill, if they receive one at all, or when their insurance or Medicaid pays. Of all the health care “reform” speeches we’ve been subjected to, how many have focused on personal responsibility? Of the need for people to act like adults and make good decisions on whether and when to access health care? I can’t think of one, not even from a Republican. And that’s a disgrace. There are always horror stories about people slipping through the cracks, just like there are always miracle stories about people saved with the latest technology or new drug. But I can’t help but wonder how many millions – billions? – would be saved with a healthy dose of common sense.
ADDED: And THIS is more of what I’m talking about – somebody with a seriously decayed tooth went to the urgent care center for treatment for pain, and when they were asked to make a co-payment, they left and went to the ER where it’s presumably “free.” And then had the nerve to complain about how hard it is to make a co-pay after Christmas. First of all, have these people never heard of Anbesol or Orajel, which would help them deal with the pain until they can get to the dentist? Second, why the rest of us should subsidize your medical treatment so you can buy Christmas presents is quite beyond me. Life’s all about choices. They made an unwise one, and they expect everyone but them to pay top dollar for it. Third, that whole dentistry-under-socialized medicine isn’t working out too well for the Brits, is it? So why again are we rushing headlong off that cliff?
