I rather preferred the semi-tongue-in-cheek suggestion someone made at the beginning of the Clinton's presidency when Hilary (sp?) was trying to do this health care thing -- the solution to the health care crisis in this country is to abolish every shred of medical insurance altogether, and let the free market bring prices to where they are affordable.
Personally, I am not happy paying for procedures that I would never do
-- and I am not talking about abortions but really expensive things like organ transplants that from what I read only prolong a person's live
8-10 years. I am not interested in having an organ transplant, and I just wish there was a "low-tech health care plan" where you agreed not to have any high-tech medicine (or maybe only if you were in a clinical trial or something) and you could just get the basics covered.
With ticks, you can blow out a match, then use the still-hot matchhead to just touch the tick's nether quarters. He'll withdraw. For leeches, an ex-husband of mine used his pipe lighter - he was in Sri Lanka and every body of water was full of leeches.
Sounds like the corpsman didn't know what to do, and probably had nobody handy to ask, so he did what seemed to him to be reasonable, without taking into account the tender regions. What were the parents thinking? They didn't check on the dressing for a week? People go off to the doctor (or the med center) for the oddest things -- if you live around ticks, you learn how to deal with them.
Ticks drop off when they're full. He just made the tick a captive to the cafeteria table, so when he got hungry again, he had a handy lunch waiting.
Those days are gone forever. Even simple things end up with catscans and MRIs and ultrasound, so there isn't any basic medical care anymore. I had a kidney stone a couple of years ago, and was sent for a catscan, which showed some other potential problem which lead to an ultrasound and some lab work, the upshot of all of it was that there was nothing wrong after all. Many thousands of dollars, and useless worrying later...
On the plus side, it may not be terribly long before diabetics can get a lab-grown pancreas, and people with kidney failure won't have to take a relative's spare kidney. Stem cell research could launch us into the
21st century, and the end of otherwise healthy people becoming invalids.
Already, my grandson got a new lease on life with the bone marrow of some nice person in the U.K. Without it, he would not have survived a year.
Melinda Meahan - take out TRASH to reply wrote in news:46df51e0$0$27196$ snipped-for-privacy@news.sonic.net:
in that case, just don't have health insurance. i don't & i haven't had any on my kid since he was 2 & i fell off COBRA. i don't work outside the farm, so i don't get employer co-pay insurance. in order to cover myself & my son on private insurance it would cost me US$950/month (i'm 53 & still considered in 'childbearing years' by insurance, despite having passed menopause 5 years ago) & another US$400/month to cover my SO. annual check-ups & immunizations for Boo cost me US$75-150/year. *if* i or Tom need to go to a doctor about something the office call is US$75. even when Boo fell & had to get 8 stitches in his eyebrow the total bill was US$4000. all that is tax deductable & far less than buying insurance. plus i get a discount from the clinic i use because they don't have to mess with insurance forms or paperwork, *and* i can schedule the kid's exams whenever *i* want, none of that "you have to wait one year & one day from the last exam" nonsense. if one is reasonably healthy, no insurance is still an option. if i don't age as gracefully as my grandma, who just passed away at the age of 102 & was still dancing at parties, well, i might consider buying some insurance later. lee
"FarmI" wrote in news:46dfe786$0$28545$ snipped-for-privacy@per-qv1-newsreader-01.iinet.net .au:
no, it's not a typo. there were 2 sets of bills: the emergency room at the hospital & the doctor that did the stitching. the doctor was $125 & was worth every penny. there is absolutely no visible scar & she was amazing dealing with a very frightened 5 year old. the emergency room was the big bill, although it could have been worse. they apparently missed billing me for the glass of orange juice they gave me... but just getting through triage in the ER costs, then there's a bed charge, the anesthesia, the suture kit, the billing paperwork charge, blah, blah, blah... so it was over $3500. the really hilarious part was i was told to take him to his regular pediatrician in 3 days to get the sutures out. my first thought was "3 days? are they *nuts*?!", so after a week i called the ped's office & asked for an appointment. they told me they don't do suture removal, take him back to the ER. when i asked why, i was told that insurance didn't pay for suture removal. i said i didn't *have* insurance so i was willing to pay for the office visit, but she repeated they didn't do that, take him to the ER. so, after 10 days i did.
*that* visit was also included in the whole ER bill anyway, so i got a nice set of tweezers & suture sissors out of the deal (they cost $65 & just get tossed after one use) & i didn't have to shell out $75 to the pediatrician. i did ask the pediatrician about it later & he said he certainly *did* remove sutures & he was going to talk to the receptionists. lee
Poor wee man. I hope he's recovered and wasn't too traumatised by the experience.
But those charges are simply outrageous! I was talking to a Canadian friend today and she said that the cost of medical care in the US is "obscene". Her Mum (who lived in Florida for a while) had to go to hospital for 2 days and apparently got a bill for $20,000!!!!!!!!!
I've spent a lot of time in hospital in the last 2 years and after doing the currency conversion to US dollars, for the same price as you had to pay for just the ER component of Boo's adventure, I could have had 3 and a half days in a top flight hospital in a private room with private bath! But I only have to pay $A400 up front (about $450 US if my conversion is correct) once a year and then I can go into hospital as many times in a year as I want to, for as long as I need to, for nix.
On top of that, I recently had to go to the ER dept when I realised late at night that I'd developed a very nasty case of cellulitus after being spiked with a rose thorn and it cost me nothing (and didn't the previous time when I ran my finger through a router). Not that they did a lot this time, just gave me an intravenous antibiotic and 20 Panadeine Forte and a script for antibiotics to get from my local pharmacy the next day. But the Doctor was lovely. I thought I was a wimp and being a time waster to go with a sore finger but he said I'd done the right thing. Surprisingly, I was the only person there.
Oh the power of those receptionists! I hope he gave them a stern talking to.
"FarmI" wrote in news:46e1142d$0$28557$ snipped-for-privacy@per-qv1-newsreader-01.iinet.net .au:
he's fine, and i'm extremely pleased that there is no visible scar. he started a trend in preschool, as 2 other kids cut their eyebrows in the following 2 weeks (same eyebrow, same place. really weird!) both those kids went to the Concord ER because they had insurance that dictated where they could go, whereas i took Boo to Manchester. both had 3-5 sutures, where Boo had eight. they have scars. so i paid more out of pocket, but i think i received better results.
they are obscene. medicine should NOT be a for profit endeavour. hospitals charge $100 for one Tylenol (acetemenophin ) tablet... even when i was working & my company copayed the insurance, there was over $250/month coming out of my paycheck. that is not tax deductable. it's like giving your money away... the insurance really doesn't cover catastrophic illness. you always have a top limit per year/lifetime that they will cover. if your illness costs more than one million, for example, you're on your own to pay. if 3 days in hospital costs $20,000, you can see it won't take much to get to that point. lee
As a teenager I belonged to a group called Medical Explorers. We volunteered a local hospital's ER and were sometimes allowed to ride along on ambulance calls (but not the time a classmate of ours was hit by a train).
Little kids are always busting their eyebrows, which is actually a good thing. The brow bone protects the eye. Most of them are none too happy about the lidocaine injections to numb the area so the surgeon can do a careful job of matching up hair and skin that is, in some cases, mashed more than cut.
The ER nurses had this amazing trick they used for immobilizing enraged toddlers. They'd take a pillow case and drape it over the edge of the table, holding the open end up so that what you end up with looks sort of like a chair in profile. Have a collegue seat the toddler on the pillow case chair and tuck his arms into the open end of the pillow case. Then tip the child over onto her back. This traps the kid's arms at his/her sides. You still have to deal with the kicking but it's easy enough to just lay on the kid to subdue the feet.
I always felt bad that you got the choice of your galbladder surgery a few days before Christmas or you were going to have to wait. That just seemed wrong to me. I'm glad they fixed you up but you sure loose options when you are being given few or poor choices.
I remember one gal from this or the quilting newsgroup years ago that had to wait something like 6 months for an angiogram while having to walk up stairs to get to her flat/home in pain. That is wrong. I guess there are storied on both sides of the issue
WHen DH was in the hospital with his heart attack alongside was a mexican national getting the same treatment as DH. He might get billed but you know he didn't pay. If he needed angio he got it that day as a gift from the taxpayers of CA. (and he was up in the angio recovery room later) There are lots of problems in the health care system. Not being tied to employment would make a huge difference. We have made employment choices to make sure we have coverage. Maybe everyone can't do that but a lot of folks choose not to be insured in this county while they live otherwise beyond their means.
John Edwards has made a pretty fair living on malpractice suits. His work surely has made that bill at the ER higher than it would otherwise be.
Probably not a fun discussion for us to have on a sewing group. I think many of us will agree to disagree. Taria
Actually, that was perfect timing for me! I had cleared all commissions and Alan was at home. James was too, so no school runs and stuff to deal with. The two of them ran round like angels, seeing to my every whim for a week, which was just what I needed. Then we went to Yorkshire for New Year, and all my friends ran round me the same way! Pampered, or what! As it had taken several years to get to the point of an op (at least 95% of which was MY fault!), and they needed me to lose weight anyway, the wait from June to January would have been fine. As it was, the January appointment would have been less use than the Christmas one!
Just this summer I wanted my IUD changed - another NHS special! :) I put it off TWICE after they gave me appointments: once for pressure of work, and again for family reasons, and they made no complaint at all. As it's non urgent, I'm happy to wait for the next available slot.
Indeed there are.
It works more or less this way for us here: free at the time and point of need, especially with emergency stuff. NO-ONE is presented with a bill or a credit card payment slip before they get treatment. Crash cases where some of the cost is borne by the vehicle insurance is argued out between the insurers, not in front of the patient.
We have reciprocal agreements within the EU too: we treat their crash/accident/illness patients and they treat ours, and the cost arguments are argued over later. So long as you are covered by the EHic and/or your holiday medical insurance, you are usually OK in most of the EU and other states where we have the agreement. There are, of course, some things NOT covered, like being air-ambulanced home with a broken leg after a skiing holiday accident. On the other hand, the very sad case of a dear friend's 22 YO daughter's body being flown home after she died in the night of a hitherto undetected aneurysm in Greece was covered, and everyone made her homecoming and the subsequent autopsy and inquest as easy as possible, in no small way thanks to their police Family Liaison Officer
This is, of course, a different issue. Here we can take out private medical insurance if we like, pay directly for private treatment, and sometimes you get medical insurance as part of a work-related bonus package.
We have some of that here, but not so much.
I'm sure we will. But we can all agree that there are faults in every system, and nothing is perfect...
Perhaps closer to our hobby: stitches, tape, glue, or staples? ;)
When I needed an appendectomy for a "hot" appendix, I had to wait two weeks for an operating theater to be available. My doctor told me that if it got bad enough to go to the E.R., they would find a way to fit me in, but it seems I have a high pain tolerance, and waited until the appointed day. My first stop upon checking into the hospital was providing proof of insurance and signing a stack of waivers.
Kathleen wrote in news:audEi.8$ snipped-for-privacy@newsfe06.lga:
this was a very neat, but deep cut. i was just going to wash it out & butterfly it, but when i washed the surface i could see it was really deep. a butterfly wasn't going to do the trick. he fell on ice, so it was pretty close to a glass cut. no jaggies. the ER used a pre-numbing antiseptic scrub so the lidocaine injections were basicly painless (plus he has my abnormally high pain tolerance). the last stitch ended up being in an area that hadn't been numbed though. he just gritted his teeth & dealt with it. he adored the ER doctor, so he was willing to put up with the pain.
Not to denigrate your ability, but removing sutures isn't rocket science. ;-) It's not even rocket surgery. Lots of people remove their own -- to save on an office visit fee.
In 1964, on the eve of taking a cross-country trip by car, I was washing dishes and a glass broke, cut a neat circle around the first joint of my little finger on my right hand. Our doctor stitched me up, and told DH to remove the stitches "along about Chicago". DH was a little hesitant, but after the first one, he did fine. Never had any problem with infection thank goodness.
After that, I never returned to have sutures removed, either DH did the deed, or I did them myself.
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