More Cardiac Adventures- Paying the Bills

Most everyone who reads my verbal offal knows that back in August I spent several days in the hospital because of a heart issue. Of the four days I was being treated, three of them were in cardiac ICU and as anyone can guess that meant I had numerous medical tests, several procedures, and was under constant care by highly trained medical personnel. None of the medical care I got was cheap and as expected the bills started rolling in last week. The good news in all this is that I have above average health insurance coverage so, unlike a lot of other folks, my family and I are not looking at bankruptcy because of my heart issues.

After receiving these bills, I spent about an hour on the phone with the billing department trying to arrange a payment plan which satisfied my creditors without reducing my family to living off bread and water until we fully bought back my soul. Don't freak out, this is not some half-assed attempt at establishing a crowdsource fund to pay off my bills. My purpose here is to describe my conversation with the nice lady in the billing department and how, when you consider the alternatives, I'm one of the lucky ones when it comes to surviving the American healthcare system.

As with nearly all business conversations that occur over the phone, initially it was a ballet of cordiality between the billing lady and myself. She voiced the correct amount of concern over my resent troubles and offered her sympathies and hopes that my situation was corrected. Where things went sideways was when I told her the purpose of my call was to arrange a payment plan on this bill that didn't totally disrupt my family's life as we paid it back.

With the niceties over, the billing lady's initial response was to offer me a discount rate if I immediately paid off the entire bill. As I said earlier, my health insurance is above average and paid off the majority of the costs incurred during my hospital stay. But that still left a nice chunk of out of pocket charges I would have to pay. Without divulging way too much information this discount for immediate payment was a bit of a joke. Long story short, it would still cause a major disruption in the normal monthly financial patterns of family life.

So, the billing lady and I wheeled and dealed until we both came to a payment plan that didn't cripple my household but paid off my bills. As our discussion drew to a close, this is where the thin veneer of the billing lady's civility and concern was rubbed away showing her true nature, which was nothing more than a glorified loan shark. Her final statement to me essentially said, “We're here to serve you but don't for a minute screw with us and miss a payment.” After hanging up, I literally breathed a sigh of relief because my family and I could make those payments. My thoughts quickly went to other folks who can't pay and who will ultimately lose most, if not everything they have worked a lifetime to save or build.

One of the most pathetic things you can see in the United States is a donation jar setup in a store or some other place of business to help some unfortunate person pay their medical bills. You've probably seen these type of appeals for charity, there will be a note attached to the jar which shows a picture of the person in need along with and explanation of the illness they suffering from. Such donation jars are sad when the person in need is an adult, but it gets seriously tragic when they are setup for a child. All other advanced Western countries have healthcare systems that look after their less advantaged citizens. Are these socialized medical systems perfect and without abuse? Hell no, but they are lightyears better than leaving huge segments of the population to go bankrupt or to go without any medical care.

Only here in the glorious United States will elected leaders, and a good part of the population, cheer for the establishment of some bullshit “Space Force” that will cost billions while millions of people do not have adequate healthcare. Of course, the huge irony in all this is the population that cheers on the establishment of another branch of the Armed Forces overwhelmingly turns away in disgust at the idea of government run healthcare. Like I wrote, my family and are good in the long run. We'll have to skip a few trips to Olive Garden and stay off the Amazon website for a couple of months but we'll be okay.

Its just that you do not have to look hard to find examples of people who will not be okay because of medical bills. The most tragic thing in all this is how when you look at the situation on the most basic level a lot of folks simply do not give a damn that fellow Americans suffer greatly at the hands of a callous and inefficient healthcare system. That is until something goes wrong and it is them who face the options of losing everything or letting a loved one die.