I've had a lot on my mind lately. I had an outpatient procedure done a few weeks ago. A simple procedure where they took a camera and looked at some of my insides. Pretty simple. It was something we felt had to be done with the kidney infections I've been getting. Well, we received the bills this last week. They total to over $1,700. This just blows my mind because we have decent health insurance and it was a simple procedure and there were no complications. In fact, the idea was to go in and see what was going on in the plumbing and possibly put a stint in. Well, they got in and found everything to be in tip-top shape.
Let me back track and explain some things. I know this may seem incoherent but I'm just so upset and stressed about it that I can't even think straight. To preface, I should explain that we have decent health coverage through Joe's work that we pay over $700 a month for. For major operations, we have a deductible ($1,000) plus a 20% copay. When I had 4 major surgeries last summer that included 2 surgeons and a 3 day hospital stay, we ended up paying $3000 out of pocket for. That was tough to swallow but we felt it was pretty legit. Not great, but I had major stuff taken care of. So, when I went in and with the outpatient status, the procedure itself took under an hour and all they ended up doing was sticking a camera up my who-ha (no cuts and stitches!) and now I have to cough up $1700. I just feel outraged. It's not just the fact that it seems like so much compared to what my surgeries were last summer, but we are just hit really hard right now. The few weeks leading up to my surgery I had been out of work, on a 2 week hiatus. Well, after my surgery, I was supposed to be working again. However, at the same time I received the bills, I found out I lost my job. I should mention the loss wasn't through a fault of my own. Anyhow, so now we have this huge bill staring down at us and: 1) I lost my job, 2) we are just making ends meet now by stretching our budget 3) it's the worst time of the year for bills due to Christmas and 4) the extra normal expenses of winter like heating. I've just been racking my brain trying to figure out how we can do this. I'm glad that I've shopped at the thrift stores and clearance racks throughout the year to already have a semblance of Christmas and I can home-make the rest. I've already broken it to my kids that while every Christmas is focused on love and family, this year that's pretty much what it's going to encompass. What I have saved so far up to this point is going to be Santa's gifts. My kids, bless their little hearts, said they were okay with that and seemed to keep in good spirit.
To get back on track, I'm not writing this to try to get pity. I'm writing about my situation to express that it's frustrating that us "middle-class" Americans that work hard to pay for our health care are still getting a short end of the stick to get mediocre healthcare. And no, I didn't vote for Obama. I'm frustrated that people are free loading while my family suffers because we choose to work hard. I'm feeling enormous guilt that my family is now going to struggle for x-amount of months because I had health problems, which by the way, is still not straightened out. I feel like maybe I made the wrong decision to seek healthcare because it may cost my family heat for our house or food.
I can only wonder what has happened in the last year to make the hospital bill skyrocket. Obamacare. I've had people tell me that should have only affected our premiums (which it did). However, my hypothesis lies within this thought: hospitals have been know to charge people without insurance less because of "cash payment" versus the "insurance rate list prices" that are negotiated between the hospital and insurance company. However, the amount of people that are going to be insured because of Obamacare could make hospital bills go up because there will be more insurance companies required, by contract, to cover those expenses.
Right now I'm doing what I can do get through this time. I'm pinching my pennies and praying that there is an opportunity for us to come up with that money.
No comments:
Post a Comment