Monday, September 03, 2007

The Cost of Cancer

So half of my mail these days is bills from the hospital or claim receipts from the insurance company. And I haven't even had the surgery yet or started any of the meds that I'll need to take. But to date, it looks like the cost is almost $3000. Not a lot of money in reality, but then I'm also in pretty good health and so there hasn't been anything too strange to tackle. One of the really great things about my company is our health benefits, so the only thing I've had to pay is my $10 co-pay for each of the visits.

When I was in the Navy I really didn't think about health care. Sure we all joked about Navy medicine and then just sucked it up. It wasn't a bad system. You got a problem? Come in and see a nurse, or a doctor, and they fixed you up and you never saw a bill. When I got out of the Navy I had to negotiate the health care world. It's not the easiest with the different plans, different options, and different costs.

I was watching a video clip of Mitt Romney where he got asked about health care from a waitress in a diner in New Hampshire. She had three children and a $50 co-pay. And some of the kids had chronic health care issues. No I don't think much of my $10 co-pay. That's one less drink at the Ultra-Hip Lounge, no big deal. But $50 bucks is different. Especially when you are talking about a women who's a waitress and has three children. Kind of sad really.

Health Insurance Coverage for Children. Universal Health Care. We talk a lot about these things, the pros, the cons, the costs. It kills me that people bicker about the cost of implementing health care for all Americans while we continue to throw good money after bad into that black hole that is Iraq. We can't pay for health care for America's children, but we can continue to pay for a useless war. That's really sad.

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