the slow recovery

[ilanarama]

I hate being not 100%. I hate it. I think of myself as skinny athletic active-girl and my stomach is still distended from the surgery and I went grocery shopping today and it nearly killed me. I was leaning on the cart and breathing hard, and I had to get the bagger to come load my groceries in the truck (in the truck! Usually I hike down with a backpack and fill it with 50 pounds of food) and then came home and told Britt to unload it all, I was heading for bed. Waah.

I got the emergency-room bill and that almost killed me too. Waiting to see if the insurance company plays nice. Scared to think of what the actual surgery bill is going to be. Universal Health Care NOW, dammit.

Comments

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I'm glad the bagger would load it up for you! Around here it's not a service that's always available, which makes me feel bad for the many old folks we have.

Feel better soon! And I totally agree on the need for universal health care.

Re:

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

Ooh pretty icon. Seeing it always makes me feel better.

It was easy enough to get the bagger to come help - I just mentioned that I had had surgery and she was happy to tell me all about how laid up she was after her hysterectomy, etc. etc. while she wheeled my cart out and loaded up the bags. The sympathy ploy!

Re:

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I'm glad!

And good plan... even if you had to listen to her in exchange. :)

[alembicresearch.livejournal.com]

Yikes, emergency-room? Now there's a story you've not told.

Since I'm once again close to the point there I think
I can "retire", I'd love to have Universal Health Care too!

Especially since I've noticed my body doesn't seem to behave
like it did when I was 20 ... or 30 ... or 40 ... (hmmm ...
is there a trend here?).

OTOH, I'm something of a skeptic WRT it ... and wonder if it
could work?

OTOH, I've been wondering, when the over-all inflation rate
in the country is around 1-2%, why the heck has health care
been going up 14% for the last few years?

If it keeps going up at that rate, nobodies is going to be
able to afford health soon ... at least it is making
me think twice about "retiring" anytime soon.

Re:

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

Well, it works in lots of other countries. I don't see any reason it shouldn't work here.

Re:

[alembicresearch.livejournal.com]

Is there a list?

Maybe one of those countries would be a
good place to "retire" to?

Or do these UHC countries say non-citizens
have to pay?

JW

Heavy lifting

[(Anonymous)]

Hey, Ilana! When did your surgeon say you could lift heavy objects?

Re: Heavy lifting

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

Another week. I've been good.

[(Anonymous)]

If you think health care is expensive now, wait till it's free.

-- P.J. O'Rourke

It's not easy to demarcate the transition from anecdote to data. That said, a friend in Canada damaged his finger - cable over a drum. He asked repeatedly to have it reattached. Refused. He asked to have it put back on ice so he could go to a hand surgeon 3 hours away. They told him he was obstreperous, sedated him, threw it away, and sewed up the stump. He had formerly been in a professional blue-grass band.

We have a preview of universal health care in HMOs, which are almost universally despised. They are despised, of course, for doing their job, which is not to keep people healthy. That, generally, has been accomplished by public health advances rather than medicine; and by personal choices (we in developed nations switched in the last century from epidemic disease to mortality by life-style choices and senescence, where anyone over 35 is a genetic superfluity). The job of HMOs is to control costs by minimizing, delaying and refusing treatment: selecting (in a genteel way) who will die. Or live maimed.

I watched an instance of this at a small company (60 people) where I was working as a contractor, back in the late 80s. At a company meeting they announced with ostensible pleasure that many of us would remember John X, the 27-year-old who been stricken by that rare bladder cancer last year? Well, after fighting and fighting for it, he was given the new, experimental treatment. Though it cost a million dollars, the insurace company had finally agreed to pay for it. AND, he was still alive. However, the company was now on 'the insurance list' and could not now obtain health insurance without substantial contributions from the employees. Effective immediately, each employee would be contributing $500 per month more than previously. It could not be stated for certain, but they _hoped_ that the elevated contribution level would only continue for 5 years or so. The vice president conducting the meeting said smoothly, "I'm sure we are all SO PLEASED at his progress. Now, moving on...."

You could see the room gradually silence as the mental math clicked. "Right. John X is still alive. But he'll be dead within a year. (True. He was.) I get to pay $30,000 extra to keep him going 18 months total. So does everyone else here." Now most people in the room gave lip service, at least, to the 'every life infinitely precious' shibboleth. Nobody much wanted to do the calculus of death, but people were. How much was it worth to keep that life going a few extra months? Ought my family to be straitened for 5 years for that? The idea of universal health care is that the million for John X will be spread over everyone, and thus hardly be perceptible. But of course the John Xes hold their proportion to the total populace. And there will be a larger bureaucracy than Kaiser attempting either to let him die, or what is worse, funding the attempt to keep him living.