A little over a month ago, my 1 year old was throwing up at a scary rate. In a span of a few hours, he got sick about a dozen times. He was unable to keep anything down, even water. Fearing dehydration, we decided to head to the emergency room. They took his vitals, and eventually we went into an exam room. After awhile, the doctor came in, asked us a few questions, and decided to give my son a half of a Zofran, which was supposed to help settle his stomach. They left the room, and asked us to give him a drink. We gave him some water, and after about 15 minutes, he puked again. They told us to take him home, and if he didn’t get better, bring him back. They also wrote us a prescription for 4 Zofran. We picked up the 4 Zofran the next day, which cost about $3. Not too shabby, right? Well, taking my son’s vitals and asking us a few questions apparently costs about $700. That half of a Zofran given to us by the ER cost us $92. If only I had insurance. Oh wait, I do! And I still had to pay that, thanks to the $850 deductible per person, in addition to the $390 I pay every 2 weeks for my insurance. That is NOT OK!
There are a lot of problems with this situation.
- Someone NOT WORKING and receiving medicaid or medicare could have received the same service for $0, while I work, pay almost $800 per month for family health insurance, and still have to pay a bill for this service.
- If my deductible for my son was already met, and the hospital billed my insurance company, they would not have paid the same amount that I am having to pay. They would pay a reduced (very reduced) rate.
It is no secret that our health care system in this country is messed up. Republicans and Democrats both claim that they have the answer, but they only add to the problem. I am not a politician (at least not yet), but I like to think that I have common sense. So, based purely on common sense, here are 3 steps that I believe would completely chance the health care system for the better.
- Allow US citizens to purchase medication from outside the US!
Canada offers medication at far cheaper prices that they are available. We are not talking about a 3rd world country where there are no regulations. We are talking about Canada. They are selling the same medicine that we have here, just at a far cheaper rate. However, the pharmaceutical companies have too many politicians in their pockets, and they keep voting not to allow us to get out medication at an affordable price. - The price for 1 is the price for all! If I go into the grocery store and buy an apple, I am paying the price on the sign. If you walk in, you are paying the same price. Why is it that if I am paying cash for medical treatment, I pay one amount, while the insurance company will pay a much smaller amount for the exact same service. If people were able to get away with paying the same amount as the insurance companies, most of them wouldn’t need insurance.
- Get the government out of health care! It is no secret that the government, to put it nicely, sucks at handling money. It is not easy to find examples of the government handling money well. Why would healthcare be any different? Right now the government runs the VA, and how is that working out? But….but……medicaid is so great! FALSE! Medicaid is known for not paying the money they owe, which is why so many people don’t accept it. Still, for some strange reason, people want the government in charge of health care.
I know that these suggestions are just scratching the surface of the healthcare crisis in this country, but they would be a great start! The truth is that it is NOT the governments job to fix healthcare. Health insurance is a product that we should be free to purchase or not, from the provider that we want. For some delusional reason, Obama felt it was his job to violate our rights by forcing us to purchase a product under threat of fines and/or jail time if we refused. He did not have the right, and the people that pushed his joke of a program through do not respect our rights. I sincerely hope that that Trump will do a better job handling the healthcare crisis (getting the government out of the way).
