Why is health insurance important?
Right now I’m am laying in a hospital bed at Beth Israel deaconess hospital in Boston. Yesterday I had emergency surgery for a major infection that sprung up from cancer surgery I had last week. So not only do I have a host of laparoscopic scars and a few less internal organs, I also now have a huge incision under my jaw, a few less teeth and running pus and blood from my mouth through the incision under my jaw.
Medical Cost Realities
What a keeper, huh, ladies? The cancer surgery had been planned with precision for more than a year. The infection hadn’t. To suddenly have multiple major operations in a week will cost a fortune. Without the insurance I might as well move into my car right now. Even with the insurance I don’t know where I stand. I look at every tube, every cardio sticker, every glass of water brought by a cheerful nurse who is also the worlds most highly paid waitress and wonder what the price will be. A nurse shrugged when I asked about some “jump rope” which is what they laconically call that flexible tube used for medicine and fluids. It costs the hospital $7.50 she said.
Healthcare Cost Realities
They would charge me 100 dollars. Then they used package after package of that shit. I don’t begrudge it at all. They saved my life. But every single time they pull open a blister pack with gauze or whatever, I see 100 bucks every time. And they seem to have an infinite number of blister packs for me they are happy to open and discard because even sometimes they pull the wrong one. But I’m the one paying for those mistakes. And that doesn’t even take into account the enormous surgical teams in their colorful hair caps and shiny machines that they like to use over and over. As I said, I don’t begrudge them. But anywhere else in the world I wouldn’t see dollar signs on the surgeon’s scrubs.
