-----Original Message----- From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org] On Behalf Of Michael Pollak Sent: Friday, February 27, 2009 8:20 AM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: [lbo-talk] Modern medical "coverage"
Last month I got a complete physical in honor of my 50th birthday. As
always (so far) nothing was wrong (although I'm still awaiting my inaugural visit to the proctologist). The doctor charged me 20 bucks for a co-pay, just like 10 years ago. And then they billed me 4 dollars, by email, via PayPal. That didn't seem so bad. But today I just got a separate bill from the lab -- something I've never seen before -- telling me that the total bill for the routine bloodwork was over 400 bucks, and my share of that is $156. So now it's up to $180 dollars for a routine checkup when nothing is wrong for a guy who's got what's considered good coverage? How can that even be called coverage? 20 years ago, it would have cost me half that with no coverage at all.
I'm flabbergasted. I think the real problem with health care consciousness is that if you don't go to the doctor, you can't possibly imagine how fast the system is evaporating and how high the price is soaring. And once you experience the shock, you go even less! These guys say now that I'm 50 I should go every year. I laughed, that seemed like such an odd idea; I've had 2 physicals since I was 20 and both times I was asked why. But I realized I probably should, and if it only cost 20 bucks and took 15 minutes, I'd be be stupid not to. But if the price of prudence is two hundred bucks -- and probably twice that once they stick a Fantastic Voyage cam up my ass -- just to find out nothing's wrong, I have a strong suspicion that with the best of intentions this is going to end up slipping my mind year after year. And the next time I go will be when I get a pain that scares me.
And like I said, I've always thought -- and always been told -- that my coverage was the high end of standard, the kind of coverage people really miss when they lose their jobs. I think that's still probably true. So if I'm not covered, is anybody covered in this country?
Michael
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