OMG, bubatis, every time I hear a story like that I want to shove it under the nose of all those Americans who think socialized medicine is the way to go.
Yikes.
Yes, because the current system is ever so much better for people without insurance or underinsured.
I have no insurance and no job right now. Where does the money come for cancer screening when you’re in that situation? And if they find something…? I can’t afford treatment. The money just doesn’t exist. But hey, I’m saved from the evils of socialized medicine, so I can die in peace! (If I can find a way to afford painkillers…)
I had a friend die recently from bowel cancer. Peritonitis got him but the background was bowel cancer. He hated doctors and would never visit one. He died, alone, in agony. I am glad your sister took the time to check- and you made her.
Broomstick, I know you’re scared bitter, because you posted in my mammogram thread. Have you tried contacting any of the free clinics that offer testing to low income women? There are always options…hell, if they do find something, I’ll start an SDMB fundraiser for ya!
As it happens, I had a colonoscopy last year, back when I had insurance, and it was all clear. I guess I got pissy about someone holding up one example of a bad outcome as a condemnation of any form of socialized medicine. I could just as easily hold up scary stories as condemnation of private health care. The problem as I see it - and I felt this way even when I had insurance, and there are posts on the SD that would prove it if anyone looked - is that the best medical in the world is useless if you don’t have access to it. (And there is mounting evidence we don’t have the best care in the US, certainly not across the board) If we have trouble getting insured people to go for screenings how eager do you think the un/underinsured would be?
As it happens right now I seem quite healthy, however, my husband is disabled and on daily medications which we now pay for out of pocket. It really comes down to whether he gets the daily medication we know he must have to stay healthy (and with him that’s very much a relative term) or I get screening for something I might have… and if I get the screening paid for but they find something, what then? Who will pay for follow up biopsies and/or lengthy and expensive treatment? Why borrow trouble? Especially since I keep hoping I’ll be employed again shortly… at something… somewhere… doing something… for some money… and maybe health coverage. Had one temp agency that offered health insurance, oh great - but the max yearly pay out is $7500! So… just enough for screening test but if they find anything you’re screwed because having any insurance at all can disqualify you from a lot of programs for the uninsured. I haven’t sat down and run the numbers (honestly, I’m a little afraid to) but I almost might be better off unemployed and completely destitute rather than “working poor” if I do get a major illness.
My husband needs surgery - he had nearly lost all use of his left hand. Surgery might give it back to him… but until we have insurance we will never know, because until he has insurance he will remain one-handed. It’s not life-threatening, so no one will help us out with it. He just lives in pain and crippled every day, no big deal, right? he’s not dying after all. This is the reality I live with, every day, waking up and the one I love is in pain and because we don’t have insurance and we don’t have money I have to see him in pain, every day. Knowing that there might be something that could be done but we can’t get access to it due solely to lack of insurance, my lack of a job, our lack of money is salt in the wounds.
Yes, socialized medicine has its problems. So does private. One of the problems of the latter is that there are tens of millions of people in the US who, like myself, fear that if they get cancer or some other major disease or injury they will die NOT because it was discovered late but because they can’t access care due to lack of money. That is a very, very serious flaw.
So, to the OP, whose thread I have hijacked, I wish your sister well, and you well, and if you have health coverage I hope it adequately covers any required treatment. Six months ago I feared getting ill, but at least if I did I know that my share of expenses would limited to something I could manage. Now… if I wound up in an ER I would be bankrupt in something like 3-4 hours. If had to be hospitalized like I was last January - when I had insurance - my family’s entire financial assets would be obliterated in a day, two at most. I don’t mean it would pinch, I mean even if we handed over every penny and dime it still wouldn’t have covered that bill.
I really feel that, now that I have been laid off, society does not value me enough to even keep me alive. As I said, tens of millions of Americans are in the exact same position.
I also meant to say that’s very generous of you, and thank you…
… but if you take care of me and mine, what of the rest of the 49 million uninsured Americans? Who will help them? THAT’s what we have to fix, that huge number, and not in ones and twos here and there.
:: sigh ::
And my buddy just a couple months ago, got a colostomy and they discovered a tumor that they think was growing in his colon for 9 years. He had surgery the following Wednesday, they removed 1/3 of his colon. He was on his feet for very short walks the following day, and went home on Saturday.
No infection, no chemo… No medical bill.
Thank you socialized medicine.
I know it’s really scary Mint Julip. My buddy’s frightening colonoscopy results are teh very reason my fiancee finally got hers done. His cancer had gone beyond the first layer, because his had very few symptoms. It was his iron levels that eventually made his doctors wonder what the hell was going on.
He had that tumor growing for almost a decade and now, just a few months after his surgery, you’d never know he was ever sick. Except he also doesn’t have a belly button anymore.