Heart Episodes and Health Care

So Bill Gates kind of stumbles around talking about health care, death boards and some other bullshit but the facts don’t change. When does the cost of maintaining a life exceed the reasonable ? As much as a shitload of people will say you can’t place a dollar value on human life , it’s already been done. Now who should make that decision? In my world it boils down to who is paying the bill. Now that is not as clear as it seems unless you’re filthy rich. Some people will claim, I have insurance and they need to pay as much as I want or need to maintain grannys life. Well ok, you have insurance and what exactly is insurance, it a big pool of money which we all pay into and odds makers crunch some numbers to figure out what we pay based on a number of factors. It’s just Vegas on steroids and as we all know you can’t beat the odds in Vegas. So if I pay insurance to a company I have a vested interest on how long granny is kept on life support, it cost me dollars in my premiums. Is that cold and calculated, non feeling? Well sooner or later someone one has to be an asshole and call them as they are and not as we want them to be. Right now insurance companies are trying to call the shots, hell you can find some sob story about the evil insurance company fucking over little Marvin’ s terminal health care damn near any time you turn on the tube. Well if you pay insurance that evil insurance company is just trying to save you some bucks and stay in business.
The other part of this boils down to why is health care so expensive? That boils down once again to insurance companies, driven by bottom dwelling lawyers and stupid fucking juries. I live in South Carolina , not far from Charleston, I can be in a first class hospital in ten minutes filled with all the latest gadgets , doctors, nurses and bad food. Hell if your downtown Charleston you have a dozen hospitals or clinics within a short cab ride if you so much as sneeze.
Now to my own experience in the last six years or so. I have had two heart episodes , they don’t call them attacks anymore, in the last six years. The first one had me in the hospital on Monday at 2pm and out the next day by noon, with a stint and rotor rooter job. The bill was a tad over $40,000.00 to the insurance companies. They paid when it was all over a bit less than $16,000.00, splain that shit to me. If I had not had insurance they would have come after me for the full bill. Oh yeah, I do have my retired military insurance and I also had my private insurance, my private company by law got the first hit. Well jump forward 4 years and once again I am in the hospital, this time on a Friday, and out on the following Tuesday, same process but two stints this time and when I asked the doctor why , he said the insurance would not authorize the other two stints the first time and it was just a matter of time till I was back or dead. I asked him why I was in the hospital so long this time, the answer was simple, they don’t do the operation on Friday afternoons or on weekends. The bill this time was a tad over $100,000. , insurance is still fighting it out but it looks like the final pay out will be in the $ 32,000 range with about $500.00 out of pocket. The time in the operating room was almost exactly the same , the Doctor was the same, the only real difference was one more stint and more days in a crappy hospital room with some really cute nurses and more bad food. Now think about all that and now you start to see why health care cost’s are out of control. If I had my choice I would have gone home Friday afternoon with some meds to get me through the weekend, and gone in Monday for the operation. Better yet, bring the fucking crew in Friday afternoon, get the job done, get my ass out of the hospital.
I don’t see Obama care fixing this , in fact it will get worse, hell if they could have they would have kept me for a week and billed the shit out of everyone to include me.