Well, the hits keep coming. I wrote about losing a doctor to Obamacare, now we had another run-in.
My husband bought a scooter (only something like 125cc's) because gas has gotten so expensive. He's well trained on a motorcycle/scooter. We had one in Bermuda. I had a 50cc scooter and he had a 100cc motorcycle. He was coming home from work Friday, when the lady in front of him braked suddenly and hard. He braked hard, too, but his hand slipped off the back break and he went down. The first responders didn't even have surgical scissors to cut his pant leg and boot off of him. The guy had to use a buck knife.
Then, the couldn't transport him to the NEAREST hospital, because it didn't have a trauma center. Baylor of Garland is more for "old people's diseases," as a doctor friend of mine put it; heart attacks, etc. They had to transport to Baylor of Dallas. After we thought about it, Medical Center of Dallas would have been closer. He broke his leg really badly. It was a spiral fracture of the tibia and fibula, just above the ankle. We spent over 6 hours in the ER.
Finally, the came up and said we had 2 choices. They could admit us, but the only surgeon they had was up for the trauma duty and probably wouldn't get to him until Monday. Baylor doesn't take our insurance (except for the emergency room). We told the nurse this, so she sent in the financial advisor. She said she had no idea if they took our insurance or not (wasn't she the FINANCIAL advisor?) but they would work with us to pay it off. I can't even imagine what 3 days in the hospital would cost. So, my husband called his own orthopedic surgeon, and he said he would see him Monday and do surgery probably Tuesday, as long as we got the referral in. That was the other option she gave us, since the surgeon couldn't do anything until today (Monday). They would send him home splinted and with pain pills. So we took that route.
The stupid (and yes, I meant to use that word) guys in the hospital did a pi$$ poor job of splinting his leg. It flopped every time he moved it. Then they sent us home. We got home at midnight. They gave him a prescription of Hydrocodone (10/325), which I had to wait until Saturday morning to fill. Luckily, I have neck pain from degeneration, and had some 7.5/325 hydrocodone. So, instead of getting immediate surgery, for a really bad fracture, the hospital was short staffed and didn't take our insurance anyway.
And we have military insurance, which is government insurance. I suppose when Obama care actually kicks in, they'll just make the hospitals and doctors accept it. I know why they are dropping out like flies falling off a carcass.....the government reimburses MRI's at about 19%. If all insurance is forced into this, or all facilities are forced to take insurance like government single payer they'll all go out of business. The government will have to bail out the hospitals. If they can tell GM to make an electric car, when no one wants to buy one, don't you think they'll tell hospitals who to treat and how much to charge? They've already said in the health care bill that all doctors will be paid the same, no matter whether they have a specialty or are a general practitioner. Let's face it, specializing takes more education. They should be able to charge a bit higher, they have more knowledge. Now, do I think they charge TOO much? Maybe, but we'll never know because the government won't let natural selection work. If no one had insurance, and every one had to pay their own bills, the doctor's would be in competition with each other. The prices would lower.
I have one doctor (my cardiologist) who currently charges what my primary (general practitioner, who is by the way, a Physician's assistant) charges. It's less than the pediatrician my kids go to. But, he's from Canada and believes in socialized medicine.
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