a new perspective

Close to a week ago I was forced into a new experience; health care for the uninsured. This may not sound like that big of a deal to most, but for those who have been in a similar situation you can relate. I was terrified. I had been sick for a couple of months and just kept sweeping the issue under the rug. I tried a few homeopathic remedies and some goofy, natural "antibiotics" that were pushed on me at the health food stores. None made a difference and when it came down to the core issue I really needed a prescription.

As a college graduate without a full time position offering benefits, I am completely uninsured. I have been for about a year and a half now and have made it this whole time without a visit to the doctor. So without much knowledge of what I was getting into I stopped by the local Promptcare one afternoon. When called back into the office area to be registered I was asked for my insurance information. I calmly replied, "I do not have any." The woman stopped at gave me a look that is burned into my brain. It was not a judgmental look or a look of disgust it was a look of pity and of embarrassment. I was about to find out why.

Apparently you can not ask a doctor's office how much a visit will be if you are not insured, because they do not know. I was told that I could put a deposit down for a hundred dollars and they would bill me the rest but that the price would depend on which doctor, what tests were done, time of day, day of week, what color my hair was, what the weather was like, which direction the wind was blowing... and so on. I was also given a nice little informational packet and told to go down to public aide and fill out some forms, if they approved me I could get help there.

At this point I wanted to say, very nicely of course, that I really was not a charity case, that I worked hard and made good money I just didn't have an insurance plan. I wanted to defend myself. After that emotional confrontation I was allowed to see the doctor. I sat in a room while a nurse took my blood pressure and my temperature, five minuted later the doctor came in and looked me over. I was careful to not let him touch me for fear of getting charged for it. He was in the room for a max of ten minutes, made a guess at what was wrong with me, wrote me a prescription and told me to come back in three days if I wasn't better.

Needless to say I was not going to go back whether the medicine worked or not. Speaking of which, I had to go through the entire embarrassing insurance conversation all over again when I went to pick up my prescription and I will not even go in to how much that cost. I received the finalized bill for my little trip to the doctor's office just yesterday. Apparently it costs $250.00 in this country to have a doctor not know what is wrong with you, guess and then write you a prescription that may or may not work.

As I try to figure out how I am going to pay for that, I invite you to reconsider how you feel about health care and insurance reform. There is a problem here that needs to be addressed and I am happy that we have a leader willing to make the tough decisions and take the unpopular steps toward a solution.