Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Lucky Canadians
This diary at Daily Kos by nyceve deserves a shout:
My doctor is really starting to scare me
She’s writing about her doctor, a surgical oncologist. Snip:
He said this woman needed a digital mammogram. A digital mammogram is a state-of-the-art screening procedure. Â It is also somewhat more expensive than the more routine old-fashioned mammogram. This woman was unable to secure the digital mammogram. Then the doctor said, she has a terrible history, she needs a breast MRI–but the insurance company will not pay. They won’t pay for a digital mammogram and they certainly won’t pay for an MRI.
So what will happen to her I asked? “We’ll fight, we’ll appeal” he said. Â “Then she should file a criminal complaint, insurance companies are practicing medicine without a license.”
Read the whole thing, please, especially if you’re living here in the US.
I’ve said it many times (although perhaps not here): most medical insurance corporations are EVIL. From their point of view, the best patient is one who pays his premium, then steps in front of a truck and is killed instantly.
I can think of many examples in which insurance companies don’t put up roadblocks, pay promptly, and don’t deny care as their SOP, but the big operators don’t do business this way.
D.
That, is one of the reasons I love Canada!
For all the crap that waiting times, and specialists being hard to find, has created. The bottom line is that I can find the care if I need it. I can fight for a shorter wait time (friend just did that). But I will get help.
Rella
I worry about nationalized health care in America, however. What if the religious right is given power over its administration? What if it is administered as well as the war in Iraq?
If I could feel assured the program wouldn’t be politicized and corrupted, I’d be behind it 100% — even if it reduced my income.
I wonder Doug.. what isn’t politicized. Even here, there are political commentary and “fix-ups” on a daily basis. The community in which I live in has a HELL of a time luring in specialists, or keeping them, because of the heavy work load. But, if it’s not one thing, then it’s another…. and that’s the way life is.
It’s funny, we flip flop on issues here as to which are province (state)-run, and which are done at a federal level. There isn’t even equality that way when it comes to health care. I wonder if the good ol’ USofA is just too big of a country to do all that?… at all.
My 2 cents… it may not be worth much, but at least it’s 2cents!
Rella
I seem to be incredibly lucky in my health insurance. They haven’t refused to pay for anything. They did question me about my broken arm to make sure it wasn’t another’s fault, but it terms of my kidney transplant, they will pay for pretty much everything. Even my caregiver has an allowance. When a potential donor stepped forward, they paid her expenses to come down to Texas and be tested.
But yes – between the insurance and pharmaceutical companies, thee are some serious problems in the medical industry.
We have lots that needs fixing in our healthcare system, BUT… when I broke my leg, I worried about missing work, not being able to help with the new puppy, pain and inconvenience, but whether we could afford the medical expense never once crossed my mind.
Ambulance, x-rays, surgery, plaster cast, air cast, follow-up appointments, more x-rays… IN total, I paid $50 for the ambulance and $100 for the air cast. And I expect to get those amounts back from my extended benefits through work.
What if the religious right is given power over its administration?
Faith healing for all!
It’s an odd sort of situation, in which conditions on both sides of the border are used to scare people on the other, but by different groups and for different reasons.
It’s all very political, but I’m glad I live in Canada, all in all. Our wait-list problem isn’t as bad as it is made out to be. People in the news talk about the heart-transplant wait list, for example, evidently not understanding that that particular wait list has nothing whatever to do with funding. It’s entirely donor-driven.
Or people point to the US and say that there’s no wait list for hip replacements (as if that actually means anything in a system as large and complex as that in the US) while in Canada it’s X weeks. Or months. However, they ignore the fact that in a large part of the US, you can’t compare the two systems, because people whose insurance will pay will get a hip, probably pretty quickly, and those whose insurance won’t, or who don’t have insurance (40 million people) will never get one.
The best studies I’ve seen say that Canadians enjoy better health care (overall) at lower cost (overall).
I don’t doubt that the Canadian system is better. noxcat, I’m afraid yours is the minority case — I’ve heard so many similar stories in which the insurer drops the patient midway through the transplant process or shortly after.
Like I’ve said, my worries are due to the fact that our government seems to botch everything, and I worry that more people will suffer under a nationalized system.
I have no idea what the deal is with Steve’s insurance. For counseling, it was a $15 co-pay with no limit on the number of visits, but I had an ultrasound on my kidneys a couple of months ago and the co-pay was 40%, which ended up being about $240. But then other stuff is a 90-10% plan, and I can’t tell what’s what with it.
His drug plan is a 40% co-pay too [for most of the meds], and what sucks about that is we are a low enough income [and a big enough family] that we could qualify for patient assistance programs and get the drugs for free through the drug company, if we had no insurance.
Because we do have a drug plan, we’re left to pay the 40% or go without the meds, which is what we have to do ’cause we don’t have the freaking money to pay $80 for a month’s supply of drugs.
So I have stress and anxiety every time a new health problem comes up [and they seem to be snowballing lately] because I have no idea what the co-pay is gonna be, how much anything is gonna cost, or whether we’re gonna have to go without necessary medicine because we can’t afford the damn co-pay.
Oy.