We all pay, in some way.

So, my wife sprained her ankle. Not badly, she can still walk, but badly enough that it hurts to do so. She went to a doctor, who confirmed that she probably did, indeed, sprain her ankle. But he wanted her to go have some x-rays just to make sure. The diagnostic clinic he wanted her to go to was closed, and she didn’t want to wait until Monday and have to take yet more time off work. So the doctor told her she could go to an emergency room to have the x-rays taken. Just to be sure, she called her insurance company (named after a volcano in Sicily). She was informed that if she went to a free-standing diagnostic clinic, they would cover 100% of the cost of the pictures. If she, however, went to a hospital emergency room, they would only cover 80% of the $940.00 charge. Nine hundred and forty dollars? For pictures? Admittedly, they are fancy, see-through-your-flesh pictures, but they are, nonetheless, pictures. It seems to me that perhaps the insurance company is not the problem in this particular instance. If it truly costs that much to take a few pictures of an ankle, how can anyone say that we don’t have a health care problem in this country?Nine hundred and forty dollars. And that is with insurance. It is my understanding that insurance companies negotiate prices so that they get a good deal. Uninsured persons get charged even more. So if I, without insurance, were to need x-rays, I wonder how much it would cost. Far more than I will pay, I can assure you.So here is a good one to consider, especially if you think that there is no health care problem. I have no insurance. So if I get sick, I will not seek medical help unless and until I become incapacitated or close to it. Which means that if I get something communicable, I will pass it around before I am forced to see a doctor. I really feel sorry for folks if I get something not only communicable, but deadly. And I can assure you that I am not the only person in such circumstances. Make no mistake, this has nothing to do with a desire to cause harm to others. This is simply out of a desire not to spend a lot of money to find out that I have a cold. It seems to me, however, that health care coverage reform is not all of what is needed. Perhaps putting the brakes on what gets charged might also be in order.
Interestingly enough, I heard some woman call into a radio program to say that she didn’t want some government bureaucrat deciding what doctor she could see or what procedures she could have done. I have to assume that she is OK with some insurance company flunky deciding these things. Which is what she has, if she is even lucky enough to have insurance at all.