Affordable Healthcare—-Really?

I still remember the whooping and hollering that went on after the signing of the “Affordable Care Act”, the crown jewel in the Obama presidency.  It was the plan that was going to save us all—remember?  Truth is, it did make it impossible to be denied medical health coverage to people with pre-existing issues.  What they didn’t tell you, however, is that you can get coverage no matter what, but if you have a pre-existing condition, hold on to your ass, because they are going to take a big chunk out of it with the cost.

A good friend’s father recently had to have surgery on his back due to chronic pain.  After a few consults with his surgeon and physician, the surgery was scheduled, and everything was set.  However, due to the advanced age of this gentleman (82), he was warned of the “tricky nature” of his surgery and there were no guarantees.  The man was confident that the surgery would work and was ready to end his chronic back pain.

My friend’s father was a retired military man who had also worked for military contractors once he became a civilian again.  He had also invested his money wisely and had a good retirement pension and stock earnings to live on.  He also has a great medical insurance plan that covers 90% of all costs.  Unfortunately, few of us out here have that great medical coverage that this man has.

So, everything got underway with the patient having his surgery and the surgeon is very confident that all had gone well.  Unfortunately, all did not go according to plan and there were some complications which turned an over-night hospital stay into another surgery and a week-long ordeal.  The second surgery ended up being much more complicated and extended the patient’s hospital stay to two weeks.

The news did not get better by week 3 of the hospital stay as a third surgery became necessary and the stay would include 2 more weeks of hospital stay that included some intense and painful therapy and of course—the drugs.  By now the patient’s mental state was beginning to deteriorate and tension was building for the whole family.  Finally, after 5 weeks of living hell, my friend’s father finally got to go home-sweet-home!

Why do I tell you this story and what does this have to do with a grumpy customer?  Well, my friends, we get down to the part of the story that at some point could affect many of us one day—the bill!  I knew that the total cost of this ordeal would be incredible, I was wrong, it was freakin staggering!  The final total sum of all charges involved in this ordeal went over a half a million bucks.  That’s right, the bills exceeded $500,000! (hope a tube of Vaseline and bend over exercises were included in those charges)

Now, remember that I stated earlier that this man had good health insurance that paid for most of the charges.  So, my question is; how in the sam hill would someone with lesser quality insurance find the cash to pay for these charges?  If you have a retirement fund, chances are that a bill of that amount would probably wipe most people completely.  Of course, and according to the brain trusts that are our politicians, “you can just get a loan” —for piss sakes!

And hell, the cost of insurance under that affordable act I referred to earlier is expensive, especially if you have an existing condition.  In some cases, it cost as much as $2,500 or more per month for an individual to be covered.  So, let’s do the math here, someone would have to pay $30,000 per year in coverage to help avoid a $500,000 or more healthcare bill.  Also, keep in mind the “affordable” plan leaves a lot of higher out-of-pocket costs to be picked up by the patient.

So, when did it become necessary to own a treasure chest in order to save a human life?  How did our health and our lives become mortgageable by the same corporate criminals that I often refer to here?  The answer is simple: the entire system is corroded with staggering costs created by the greed of people such as insurance and pharmaceutical executives.  The pharma world has been jacking us around for decades, there are many documented cases where life-saving drugs are simply not affordable to those who most need them.  The US has the highest healthcare costs in the world and is ranked very low in quality.

Many baby boomers will soon be at the phase of life that my friend’s father is, and many will need similar care or procedures just to have some quality of life.  At the current rate of inflation of costs in the healthcare industry (it is the fastest growing pace of any business sector), imagine the cost of a similar situation for me in twenty years.  Christ, it will cost over a million dollars!  How the hell am I going to afford that?  I must begin buying physical gold and hold it to help give myself some quality of.

I tell you one damn thing for sure, I totally support these young progressive kids who want “Medicare for all” and will give my vote to the progressive candidates who support it as well.  I know there is no such thing as a perfect world or solution and there are several things that need to be fixed in our healthcare system, but there must be something better than this.  And the next time I hear one of these blowhard politicians (republican or democrat) or talking heads tell me that we cannot afford a better system, I will print this blog off, roll it up and shove up their ignorant arses.

Talk to Ya Later

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