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guineapig · 11-25-2007, 10:54 PM

A $5000 deductible!! YIKES!!! We would long since be bankrupt. Who can afford $5000 cash in case of an accident, bad illness, or heck, even a bad month of bleeding? I know socialized medicine has often a long wait, but the insurance here is sad, lacking, and raising the prices for us all in spite of what the public thinks. And capitalized medicine often has a wait, even with insurance. There is often a 6-12 month wait for my dentist, dermatologist, and ex-RE. Worst story I have, I used to have an HMO when I was a teenager, and after a campus doc missed a UTI (MORON), I suffered through idiot GPs for a YEAR painfully for the insurance to send me to a specialist--urologist. After that year, the bacteria had grown in the bladder so deep it took surgery (another 6 month approval) to get it out. If I had been older or immunocompromised it would have gotten into the kidneys and bloodstream by then--bad, bad thing. So capitalized medicine, even with insurance, isn't always "go and get fixed" the same day/week/month/decade. Many people wait. And if you don't have insurance, you often don't get treated at all.

My trainer still remembers before the pregnancy-hospital thing was passed and they kicked her out 12 hours after her delivery, which was in...1989?. She had no insurance. Her blood count was half the minimum of normal--she was incredibly anemic from loss of blood but she didn't get blood either.

Even more recently, a friend of mine who works full time in food service w/o employer insurance and w/o money to pay for private got bit by a poisonous spider. She got "stabilized" in the hospital but was sent home before she could even walk or stay awake hardly. The doctor wrote for her to stay but the hospital still kicked her out w/o insurance.

I'm just saying, the system stinks as is and something has got to change. Insurance just seems to skip right over the ill, children, and the working poor, and that's a problem.