To the Hospital

Last Saturday, after a sleepless night due to leg pain, I asked my lovely wife to take me to the hospital. While I thought my leg was slowly healing, it was taking longer than it should. Going the the hospital is a big deal for me. First of all, I hate to go there. Sometimes once you get into the system they never want to let you go. There's some bad history between the medical profession and myself.

The second major consideration is the fact that I don't have medical insurance. When I told the emergency room receptionist she didn't even blink an eye. She just made a note of it and handed me a large booklet explaining their assistance programs.

Fortunately, the ER doctor on duty was one of the few I respected. Long story short, after an exam, some x-rays and new bandage, they let me go. The doctor wrote a script for antibiotics. It cost $19 for the antibiotics and a new bottle of acetaminophen. The antibiotics are really speeding up the healing process. Seems like it's worth it.

Now all I have to do is wait for the bills to come in. Of course, when I had medical insurance there was a $6000 deductible, so that wouldn't have helped me. Add to that the couple of thousand of dollars I didn't spend on insurance and I'll be ahead of the game. Anybody in other civilized countries would have gone to the hospital a month ago. Only in the United States do we put off medial treatments.

My insurance would not cover me outside of my state. That means for up to half the year my insurance would do me no good at all. We really have the worse of all systems -if you aren't rich, that is.

My parents had what was considered good medical insurance. In spite of that, when my mother came down with cancer, uncovered expenses bankrupted them. Years later when my dad passed away from cancer, he died broke. In fact, it cost me some money to give him a proper burial.

Personally, I'm not afraid of bankruptcy. Yeah, my credit rating would be shredded, but credit is only necessary if you need to buy stuff. I'm pretty good at living a minimalist life.

I'm glad I'm getting better as we've are finally getting some decent weather. It's actually hit 70 degrees the last couple of days. The snow pack is finally melting. In a few days I should be able to get my van out of the ice.

-Sixbears