Prognosticator is a government employee who specializes in wild a$$ guessing with a bit of prevaricating thrown in. I have a tendency to doubt most of what I hear when it sounds like chicken little came up with the idea.
But, lately I can see how expensive it is to be unhealthy.
One of my neighbors just died from pancreatic cancer, took her 5 months from diagnosis to death, and the bills were astronomical, but medicare took care of it. She was pushing 80 years of age. Another neighbor, only 65, was diagnosed with prostate cancer 3.5 years ago, and it had already spread to his bones, but he had good insurance as part of his retirement that was better than the medicare he is on now. He won't last much longer. His wife is not as able as she thinks in taking care of him so I run errands a lot for them, including driving her to the stores when she hasn't had enough sleep to be safe on the road. The bills are starting to roll in, now that his retirement insurance is replaced by medicare.
And then a grandchild, just 3 weeks ago, got diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. Luckily, it is a low grade tumor, not high grade or worse, a mass of blood vessels (which they can't do anything about) that would have killed her by now. She has a long road ahead of her but she doesn't know that. She went in for a 3rd ventriculoscopy (sp?) which did not work so she had to go back in for a shunt. She was in 12 days total, 9 of which were in ICU.
They have good insurance, though, a $1500 deductible and then Golden Rule Insurance pays 100%, and their church is paying the deductible. We would have if they hadn't. What is really sad to me is seeing all the children in ICU who had only one parent, and that parent had other kids at home, and no nearby family, friends, or church, or insurance to help them out.
Altho I am a moderate Republican, I am now even more in favor now of some kind of government paid insurance for the big ticket items with a decent deductible paid by the patient. Insurance companies are not doing right by us when they try to decide for the doctors what is or what is not worth doing to save a life.
But the conservative leaning part of me asks why so many of us have money for totally unnecessary and frivolous things and none for insurance? It isn't THAT expensive. Our daughter-in-law and 3 grandkids are covered for $280 per month, $1500 per person deductible, and 100% covered after that. (His teaching job covers him but it is over $800 monthly thru the school district to cover his family thru Cigna, way too much for him to afford)
I know people without insurance who spend more than that every week for dining out, or for high $$ car payments/insurance/registration/etc. for a 4x4 SUV or truck that never leaves the asphalt.
Where the hell are our priorities????
