Me too! Unfortunately my son did'nt have any about a month ago when he broke out with a horrible case of hives. He couldn't breathe and was having slight chest pains. Also joint pains and couldn't walk, so I called 911 and he was taken by ambulance to the nearest hospital....2.58 miles, a 5 minute ride. He got a bill for $1,002.00 for just the ride! He hasn't been billed yet for the hospital. Someone told him he can apply for emergency medicare/medical? to help with the bills. He now has insurance through his job, but it just now kicked in....too late :O(

It's just crazy what they charge!

It's crazy the cost of medical care these days. Thank goodness for insurance, but the cost of that is even so high for some people. It's sad.

Vikki, the cost of an ambulance ride is crazy. I got a bill for a $75 co-pay for the ambulance ride I went on a couple months ago for my asthma attack. The original bill was $1900.

Hubs and I are a two-person family. The monthly health insurance premium that is deducted from hubs' paycheck is (are ya sitting down?) -- $1,523.76. The total monthly premium is $2,219.76. The state pays $696 of it.

For two people.

Every month.

My cousin Pam has breast cancer. Blue cross/Blue Shield paid for all her treatments and surgeries when she was first diagnosed. Within 30 days of finishing her treatments they raised her premiums to $1200 a month.
They have continually gone up since then. They are now up to $1900 a month!! She has no choice but to pay it. She cannot be without medical insurance and no one else will insure her with breast cancer!
They know they can do whatever they want because she has no options.
It is just wrong!

Don't even get me started on insurance companies and their "practices" .......

As most of you know, Jammer had just started a new job when he had his heart attack. He had the attack on the 12th and his insurance came into effect on the 13th. Of course the bulk of his hospital bill was incurred on the 12th. I've been very pleasantly surprised that the ins co paid more than I expected, leaving not nearly as much as I had anticipated.

When I found out I had cancer I had insurance through my job. When my company went out of business I had to transfer to Jammer's insurance. I was really worried, but the move-over went smoothly, and so far I haven't had any problems.

Thank goodness we have insurance through work or else I'm sure we couldn't afford it! But then we couldn't afford to be without it either.

I have no doubts that I would not be getting the great medical care I'm getting if I had no insurance.

You should watch SICKO. I am a hard-core conservative but that movie changed my views on America's health care system.

My daughter donated a kidney to her friend (Kaycee). Due to medical expenses (and dialysis), her young friend was $150,000 in debt by her 24th birthday.

I'm not sure what we're gonna do but it is NOT right that the elderly get (almost) free medical care while everyone else is scrambling to stay alive. More than 80% of Medicare dollars are spent in the last 12 months of a patient's life. That is very screwed up.

Rose

A year ago I broke my arm, had surgery and lots of therapy. It ended up costing $63,000. Grateful for good insurance.. Susie

Holy moly!!!! I am happy I live in Canada and after hospital stays there are NO bills! No need for insurance for that either.

When my first child was born in 1988, I had insurance that paid the bill of $5,000. I was friendly with another woman patient, who had no insurance, and he charged her only $1000 and let her pay it off by installments. He was a kind man, now retired. I am currently getting dialysis for failed kidneys. At three times a week, $900 a treatment. That would be around $10,00 a month! Once again, I luckily have Medicare plus private insurance, so I personally pay only $18 per day. .

Don't even get me started. No insurance here. Well, I have a "catastrophic" policy that doesn't kick in unless I have a terminal illness. I'm 47, alone and looking at having to get a second job to pay medical and dental bills. Makes me want to cry.

You know....recently I heard a radio report that some
people are marrying for the sake of the partner's
health insurance. It used to be for LOVE or MONEY!

DH's chemo treatments cost over 11,000.00 and he gets one every other month. We are so glad that insurance and mecicare pays most of it. I think one reason insurance is so high is there are many illegals getting free medical, especially in the western states, also because the medical staff and medical centers have to pay very very high insurance because of so many lawsuits. DH's strips to check his blood went from 69.00 a precription to over 111.00 per month in less than a years time. And who do you think is paying for all those colorfull long ads both on TV and in magazines.
Seniors really don't get as much coverage as people think. Many have medicare only and each year it covers less and less and many get medicade/medicare who are not US citizens and have never paid into the system.
YEP, I am upset because too many get too much that should not get anything.

My 84 year old Mom has emphysema, so bad she needs oxygen 24/7. Her oxygen tanks used to cost her $50 a month, that company closed and the new one charges her $450. That's hard when her only income is her Social Security of around $700 a month.

I don't really blame "illegal" people for rising medical costs. Watch "Sicko" and you'll see modern, progressive countries that are able to give their people good, low cost medical care. George Bush and cronies have given so much to insurance and drug companies. "Medicare D" is a crock of shite. Medicare D is not government insurance at all, it's a bunch of insurance companies that are selling us drugs at the highest price.

I had a treadmill stress test, which included a heart scan, about 2 months ago as an outpatient in the hospital. I had had the same test 3 yrs. ago with different insurance & had no payment. This time I have BC/BS, which I always thought was pretty good insurance. The test has 2 parts - on 2 successive days - but only took about 15 minutes each. The bill came a few weeks ago. It was almost $1600. I had to pay about $260 of that. I could not believe the amount for a test that took hardly any time, but I guess they don't measure the bill by the time the test takes. :-(

I have BC/BS Personal Choice, and all I pay is a $20 co-pay for Doctor's visits and some prescriptions.
Nothing for hospitalization or tests done in a medical facility.

BC/BS has various insurance plans...the Personal Choice is the most extensive coverage, but most expensive,too.
But in my case...still way under what my bills would be without insurance.

My Remicade infusion costs me $20...I know of other patients who have co-pays of $500 or more for the same treatment, which "retails" for $3200.

medicaid and medicare will be going down the tubes w/in 10 yrs according to warren buffett unless we tax the hell out of everyone to save it. i'm betting on the side that working americans will veto that and those programs will never ever be like they are currently. we can not afford them and basically even w/ the new tax plan (tripling the 2% rate to 6%) to cover them they will cut services 30%. fine w/ me as i'll never see a dime of the last 25 yrs i've paid in.

whenever i see people complain about healthcare i want to say, 'where were these people when the last democrat president tried to get you healthcare help?' no one wanted it then and just look where you are now. people will be saying the very same things about social security, medicare and medicaid. but by then it will be too late because of the masses needing it (boomers) and the workers paying for it will be overtaxed to limit already...

dh and i are always adding to our college degrees and moving upward in our employers to keep ahead of better benefits...i was also raised to believe that SS and medicare would never be there for me and i've planned accordingly. my mom died of breast cancer in 2000 after a 7 yr battle. she had private insurance that went thru the roof, limited treatments etc...she paid more than $10K a month out of pocket for the last 12 months to get treatments recomended by her docs that insurance would not cover. it was truely the first time that i had to learn that money can't buy everything

after seeing posts from canadians about waiting for a test or doc appt and knowing a bit about docs leaving canada for the U.S. $$ you could not give me or pay me to have their system. i'll pay thru the nose just to keep my wonderful private work insurance plan ~ liz

We have Blue cross Blue Shield full family provided with DH's job, but with an ammount of 800 dollars before they cover anything and then another 2,000 for the co pays before they cover 100% but after reading the other posts I feel a lot better. Since We are expecting another baby an just paid off the the last two we looked into kids connection and luckily we qualified for it, it covers everything that our insurance doesn't cover including all co-pays and adds prescriptions, vision, and dental for the kids. I am covered with this until the baby is born, but my meds, Dr's visits and c-section and hospital stay will be paid in full between the two insurances. I felt bad about applying for this, but after just paying off 8,000 dollars to the doctors and hospital for the last two babies, I am so relieved that we won't have any costs this time. Also with Hayden I had contractions for 6 weeks, 3-5 minutes apart, so I had to be continually monitored going in daily to be hooked up to monitors and it cost over a thousand dollars for each session.

Stacie

This whole healthcare nonsense is just that - no-sense!!

I'm going through you-know-what with my dad and stepmom. They are half a coutry away and very suddenly needed immediate medical and skilled aftercare. I can't believe that people are treated so poorly - and not just in my case.

My DD was in a car accident and was taken to the ER in VERY critical condition. She passed 4 days later. When the ER bills came, the insurance company wouldn't pay most of it because the ER maximum was "normally" only $75!!! I almost ripped the phone out of the wall when they told me that. The silver lining was that she was transferred to another hospital by medi-copter and that hospital "forgave" the bill, as well as most of the Drs. I say to that though, we still paid for most of it because of all the insurance premiums we had paid before then.

I'm 54 and truly not prepared -ashamed, yeah, but I know people that CAN'T prepare. They are barely making it while they are healthy!!!

Healthcare is essential. We may not live the way we should and take every precaution we should. But even the experts can't agree on the best way to live to preserve our health. I think we should ALL stand up on this one - it should not be classified as an entitlement when we have NO control over the premiums and medical charges.

Soapbox just broke, I think - I'm off...

I have made only minimal use of the health-care system.

Paid $40.00 last year (I think) for PSA test - my family has history of prostate problems.

One doc visit in the past three years or so, no fee to me.

Visit on referral to optometrist, need lenses replaced in eyes due to cataracts. No fee to me.

Visit on referral to eye surgeon, to evaluate eyes for cataract surgey. No fee to me.

Operation could be scheduled in about three months, but I'm to be a couple of thousand miles away, so delayed for a month.

They can use an innovative evaluation system then, at a modest charge to me, but usual adequate evaluation carries no fee.

I believe that there will be no fee to me for either of the two operations, about a month apart and after-care, as required.

Paid $600.00 with income tax as Ontario Health Care Levy (not a tax, you understand), as our Premier had promised no new taxes prior to a recent election. We used to have modest Ontario Hospital Insurance premiums, then stopped it for a few years, then restarted it. Some provinces have no citizen-pay insurance premiums now.

During my children's mother's medical and hospital, including palliative, care while she fought a losing battle with colon cancer, over 9 months or so, about three years ago, they had no complaint whatever about their mother's care.

Running for U.S. elections costs buckets of money ... only a small portion of it paid for by ordinary citizens' political contributions.

Many corporations live by the golden rule ... them wot has the gold ... makes the rules.

ole joyful

I don't think anyone, anywhere has the perfect health care system. Whether you live here in the US or in Canada, Japan or Germany there are serious issues with implementation.

I have a close relative who practices medicine in PA and he has patients who come from Canada, stay in hotels and pay cash in order to receive treatment. Yes it would have been free at home, but in many cases they do not fit the 'profile' of the patient who is eligible under the Canadian medical system to receive the needed treatment or the waiting period is so long their health could be seiously comprised if they waited.

Please don't think I'm bashing the CA system, because we certainly are overdue for an overhaul here in the US to improve ours. I'm just pointing out that health care is a serious problem everywhere.

Our newspaper wrote a story about a physician in Japan who may only charge $99 for an MRI. However he's having trouble keeping his practice going because he's losing money. So he has installed vending machines in his waiting room and makes patients pay if they want to park in his lot.

My neighbor is from Holland and she and her family have been trying to save enough money to bring her mother over to the US for heart surgery. She cannot receive the surgery in Holland because she is deemed to old.

I certainly don't have to write about the problems we have here - just read all the above posts. But the problems we have now are only going to get worse. Applications to medical school have dropped. Many who are interested in becoming physicans cannot afford to do so - it's not unheard of to graduate with $300,000 in loans on top of whatever it cost to go to college.

I could go on and on. I certainly don't have the answer and unfortunately the situation is tremendously complex.