On the 4th of July my mother was in the back yard limbing a tree with my father before our family barbecue. Something went wrong and the limb caught the scaffolding she was standing on. It brought the whole thing toppling down throwing my mother 30 feet to the ground.
She was rushed to the hospital, flown to Redding Mercy for her surgeries and spent the next month there. All told the bills came to more that 300,000 dollars. My parents have signed up for emergency medical, but the process is long and the bills are beginning to pile up. Collectors are already calling. The state is going into my parents finances and determining what resources they will seize to help pay the costs of my mother's injuries.
This blog is to chronicle what happens, vent my own frustrations with our medical system, and post any information i find that may help others in similar circumstances.
Thanks for the sympathy. It actually helps a lot. Throughout this process I've been doing a lot of staring in disbelief, thinking I'm not understanding things, because no system created to help those in need could be this convoluted, abusive and callous toward the suffering of others. It's nice to know that I'm not the only one staring. Makes me feel like I'm less crazy.
ReplyDelete"No system created to help those in need could be this convoluted, abusive and callous toward the suffering of others." Sounds like the far right-wing claiming free healthcare to be "socialist", "hand-outs", and whatever other slurs they come up with. $300,000 is an incredibly overwhelming amount of debt... can only say hope you get through this.
ReplyDeleteThanks man. It amazes me that with public education, fire department, police, emergency response, road repair, and many other government run public welfare systems in place in our country that so many people could look at socialized healthcare as something undesirable.
ReplyDeleteMy dad's dad lives in Canada. he said if this had happened there it wouldn't have cost us a dime. This whole situation has made me rethink my notion that the United States is the greatest nation on the planet. How can it be when it strangles the citizens who are in the greatest need of help?
You are absolutely correct. People who are spouting slurs against socialism are very hypocritical since they benefit so much from it themselves.
ReplyDeletehttp://a.imageshack.us/img34/3108/articlesocialismchart.jpg
That might give you a chuckle.
That's awesome! Thanks.
ReplyDelete