The USA: Where Folks Like Massive Bills, Not Univeral Healthcare

Last August I was a good mommy and I made appointments for my two kids to go get their yearly physicals. They were both healthy and growing just fine. They got the 90th percentile for height, 10th percentile in weight, vision good enough to be airline pilots... they had the stamp of approval from their pediatrician. It was a happy day.

A couple weeks later, I got a bill for almost $1000. Let me tell you, not an effing happy day.

I'm not so good at reading those complicated claim forms and bills, and I just knew something had to be wrong. So I called up the billing department at the medical group and politely asked if someone had forgotten to submit something to our insurance. The person I spoke with sympathetically told me that our insurance had already paid their portion.

I called the insurance company who happily informed me that we had a $500 deductible, they only paid 80% of the cost, and they no longer covered one of the standard shots my five year-old had gotten. Too bad, so sad, but yes, we owed the medical group almost $1000.

No, it wasn't an out of network doctor. No, we hadn't gone to any specialists or anything like that.

$1000 for FREAKING routine physicals for my kids.

We worked out a payment plan with the medical group, thank goodness. But let me tell you, it sucked the big one to have to fork over that money. I wondered what the heck I was paying the insurance company for. And all last Fall I pictured that bill every single time I thought about going to the doctor myself.

Never mind that I have not been to a doctor since my six-week checkup after the five year-old's birth. The thought of getting another $1000 bill kept my fingers from dialing to make an appointment. Finally in early November, I decided to make one but nothing was available till after the new year.

A new year meant I'd have to pay that $500 deductible all over again. I said thanks, but no thanks. Terrible, I know, especially because we ended up paying it since my husband had to go to the ER in April, and do follow-up visits to his doctor... more $1000 bills.

Given this, I'm really trying to see just what in our private health insurance system is so fabulous that we need to keep things the way they are. As far as I'm concerned, private healthcare isn't the bombdizzle AT ALL if I'm paying big bucks like that for care.

But what do I know? Maybe private insurance is working super well for other people? Other people are asking that, too.

Everyone I talk to has stories similar to mine, or else they have zero health insurance because Los Angeles is a town of a gazillion freelancer artists and do freelancers get insurance? That would be a no. The only way freelancers get healthcare is if they are married to a spouse who works that 9-5 or 8-6 grind. I wish some of these folks who are against universal healthcare would wake the heck up and recognize that no, illegal Mexican immigrants aren't the ones trying to get healthcare, or whatever other insanity it is that they believe in.

Nope, it's people born in the USA.

Fine, they are racist and don't want my half black behind to be able to go to the doctor. But do these folks not know that there are WHITE PEOPLE who can not afford to go to the doctor? Folks with college degrees, people born into nice, middle-class, pull yourself up by your bootstraps families?

Really, I'm supposed to give a flying feather boa about whether or not a corporation might not be able to compete with universal healthcare? Whatever.

But maybe the people who are against universal healthcare are just ballin' so out of control that they don't MIND getting unexpected $1000 bills?

If you have it like that, kindly rain some of your stacks down on me. You can email me and I'll give you my address so you can send a check and I can go to the doctor.

Actually, send enough so my kids can go, too. Thanks.