Health Care, insurance workers comp

I have had health issues through the passage of my 50 plus years on this planet.

Many years ago, I hurt my back, and went to a health care provider.  I was examined briefly and diagnosed with strained back muscles, and told that I could work 4 hours per day despite my protestations.

So I worked a couple of four hour shifts-I will add here that my injury was not work related-

After three hours I was barely able to stand, and my boss/owner took one look at me, asked what the doctor said, and told me to get myself down to the ER because something was not right.

Luckily for me, the ER doc was sympathetic and suggested a MRI in a few days from a travelling unit that would be coming to the ER.

So I signed up , and lo and behold I had not one but TWO herniated discs in my spine.

Well, I was pretty mad at the first doc, and of course it became a situation where the docs all scrambled to cover him because they are all terrified of malpractice suits...although I was just venting and not planning on legal recourse.

I was referred to an orthopedic surgeon, and he examined me with a series of pinpricks, asking me if it hurt here, or there? and in my ignorance, I agreed hesistantly at one point and the doctor announced I was lying and not a candidate for surgery and basically tossed me out of his office.

I was officially diagnosed with degenerative disc disease at that point.

So I spent a couple of miserable years raising toddlers, with a cranky back, babying the kids as well as myself, learning to get by on next to nothing.

Learning  to sleep with a pillow between my knees, rolling a tennis ball while lying flat on the floor on my butt cheek to lessen the excrutiating pain of sciatica.

I also fell down a flight of stairs with the Firebird in my arms and fractured my sacrum during this time...

All the medical community fought me-I had to go to physical therapy which left me in tears on the floor of my living room, one of the few times I had to resort to prescription painkillers, and I had to get off the floor and drive a forty mile trip to pick the script up from the doctor and then have it filled at the pharmacy.

I credit the tennis ball deep tissue massage-which I picked up off the internet-with finally curing the last of my back issues

Fast forward another decade to my current employment.

About ten employees not counting the owners including myself.  The last month all the building equipment chores have fallen on my shoulders, and pain started to occur in my elbow.  Still I was pressured through the grapevine of command to achieve a certain goal, and being a proud person, I kept wailing away at the project.

My arm started falling asleep at night, waking me throughout the night, pins and needles, being so bad in the morning I could't move my hand.

The owner was due back in a few days, and I bent to task.  Then he reappeared and decided to  convert the project into an assembly line, and asked me to pre drill 500 holes by hand with a cordless drill.

I drilled 20 holes, put down the drill, gathered my things, and told him I could not possibly do that because my entire arm was seized up.  He stopped me, and said I could work on another part of the project, which involved more drilling an screwing, and then left.  My pride injured, I applied myself to the task for the remainder of the shift and went home in agony.

The following day I called in and went to the local health care center, where I was seen by a new staff member, not a doctor, not sure what his title was because he was so new his picture was not up in the waiting room.

I explained to the receptionist, and then the nurse, my symptoms.  The nurse initially found the pulse in the affected arm was 10 beats per minute slower than my other arm, then convinced herself they were the same, although it came it at 62, when my normal resting heart rate is 80.

I was subjected to a barrage of questions about smoking and quitting smoking options, and I note that although I reported smoking less than a pack a day, in my discharge papers it said I was a heavy smoker.

Then the not-a-doctor came in, and turned out to be touch phobic.  I explained I had pain radiating from my shoulder to my hand, loss of strength and feeling in that hand.  He performed a few cursory taps checking for carpal tunnel, which I subconsicously wondered if that was the issue, but the pain radiated down the center of my forearm.

He asked a couple more questions, I pointed to the tip of my elbow as being particulary painful, and then he declared tennis elbow, prescribed the RICE treatment-rest, ice, compression, elevation.

I asked if I should take off work, and he said, well, most people have to work, wear an elbow support, ice afterwards, anti-inflammatories before.

I went home and started doing some internet research.  Yes, I had tennis elbow.   But the most painful point was indicative of golfer's elbow, another tendon.  The pins and needles, loss of feeling and strength, pain in the shoulder?  Radial nerve tunnel syndrome-a potentially crippling condition.

I knew there was no way I could hold a drill another day, so I called in.  I took the following week off at my own expense. I rested.  After a week my arm was no longer falling asleep at night.

Another half a week and I decided to return for "light" duty. I worked yesterday merely weighing out 14 pounds of chamomile blossoms into half ounce portions and bottling them.

Last night my arm kept me up half the night.  My forearm was burning and swollen.

I called in again today.

I am on agricultural pay, so I am not covered by worker's comp.  Even if I was, the doc said to go back to work, and if I was not better in 2 weeks to have physical therapy.  After that, surgery is the only option, scraping the involved tendons with limited success.

Well, if you are still with me, here's the beef:

Instead of paying me to take three weeks off, and stopping these small businesses from abusing their help as slave labor, the system decides that I should continue working, suffer, pay for physical therapy, and then expensive tendon surgery=more than the job would pay me in three years-all in the name of productivity.

That is one messed up system.  Instead of paying me to rest, an insurance company would pay the therapist, the doctors, the surgeons....(well their pay is taxable income, after all) follow the money baby.

USPS and Affordable Health Care

These are two separate topics that I would like to discuss.  I will try and stick to the facts and not insert too much personal opinion.

First, the United States Postal Service, or USPS and some changes that have been implemented that have recently been brought to my attention.

I have had a PO Box for over a decade.  I have found it to be a secure location to receive my mail, and later as I entered the world wide web, a way to maintain some anonymity. I have come across some pretty scary individuals both in real life and on the internet.  Some of the latter have shown they had every ability to get into my computer systems and I really didn't want them finding out my physical address.

Having a POBox means I have to show up at the Post Office periodically to collect my mail and drop outgoing mail in the slot on the wall.  There have always been two slots, one for Local Mail, and one for Out of Town mail.  The local mail is for stuff sharing that zip code, and the postmistress could just take that box and give it to the driver to sort for deliveries.  In recent years, the Out of Town Box has had various hubs that it goes to and then is directed from there.  Now I think there is only one hub, in the state, at least to the best of my knowledge.

Then a couple of months ago I noticed a change.  The slot wall had been rebuilt.  There was one slot, reading, "ALL MAIL".

I stopped in my tracks.  I craned my head around the corner and commented on the change to the postmistress.  To me, this meant one thing, loopholes were being closed.

The postmistress just shrugged and said if someone had something going local they could just give it to her and she would give it to the driver, because it really didn't make any sense to have the mail delayed several days to make the trip to the hub and back when it was going to someone down the road.

So, a few weeks went by.  Sometimes when I am expecting something in the mail, instead of making the trip I would call and ask her if the specific item was in my box yet.  She was quite cheery about this request, and oftentimes would keep an eye out for something so she wouldn't even have to go peep in the box if I called.

I made a call, and got a different person.  He was quite offical sounding and took a few minutes riffling through all my junk mail to come back with a negative reply.  The next day I called again, and received the same person and response.  Hmmm.  I hoped that my regular postmistress was just on vacation because, although this new individual was not unfriendly, I was starting to dread calling to check if something was in my box.

Finally the expected mail arrived (I gave up calling and just waiting a few more days and drove over to check).

That was a month or so ago, and I haven't made the trip since.  But then I started worrying because I pay the fee for the box twice a year, and if you don't pay in two weeks from the due date the notice says they will start returning your mail, so I called to see if the notice was in my box.  Same new person.  I was all set for now, but the notice was coming out this month and would be due the end of the month.

Now, when I first rented the box, the fee was something like $10 a year.  That wasn't too bad.  After all, I was saving them a lot of work driving my mail around town and stopping to put it in my box- rain, snowbanks or shine. Then the cost started going up. And up. And up.  I now have to pay $28 twice a year, or $56 annually for the smallest box.

Usually I just grit my teeth and cough up the money.  But everything else is going up too-taxes are due, car needs work, gasoline prices are through the roof; heating costs have been exorbitant this winter.

So I decided that was that, I will close the box and have the mail forwarded to my tin can at the end of the road.

I stopped at a Post Office yesterday to pick up a change of address form.  I have filled a lot of these out over the years.  You put your name, current address, your name, new address, and mail it to your old post office so they can forward your mail.  It's good for a year, but in the old days postmasters would continue to forward the mail if there were any stragglers. 

Once I got a piece of mail that had gone to four different post offices and was still delivered.  I thought that was amazing!

Instead of a little postcard in the postoffice, there was a bulky glossy envelope, encouraging me in big letters to change my address online.  Inside was chock full of coupons for homeowners insurance, and satellite Tv among others.  Hidden in between was the card I was looking for.  I looked it over, and on the back, where you used to fill in the post office you wanted your mail forwarded from, was Postmaster, USA.

Wow Uncle Sam is getting a pretty long arm!

Moving on, (pardon the pun), next topic, Affordable Health Care.

Basically I just want to discuss health insurance.

One woman I know told me she had been sick before Thanksgiving with an upper respiratory infection.  She pays, for herself, $400, yes four hundred dollars, a month for health insurance. Her deductible is $2500 a year.  Yes, two thousand, five hundred dollars a year.  Meaning, she has to spend that much before her insurance will pay a dime.

She couldn't afford to go to the doctor.  She suffered for months, finally spending several days in bed.  A neighbor brought her some soup.  Finally she went to the local clinic, and got a script for an inexpensive antibiotic. ($40 for the meds plus probably $100 to get the script).  She felt better and after the script ran out she was sick again.  And last I heard she was still sick.

I read that our president was holding a meeting promoting affordable health care, and read an email from a young couple.  The husband earned about 30,000 a year, and the lowest premium they could find was $300 a month for husband wife, and one child.  They wanted to know how they were supposed to afford $300 a month on that income.

Supposedly (I heard this second hand) the president's response was that he was sure if they cut back on their cell phones and TV packages they could come up with enough for the premium. What would they do if husband got sick? The comments I read from folks regarding this were mostly (over 90%) aghast at the response.

Most of them argued that in this day and age a cell phone was mandatory to find and keep a job.  And most of them had already cancelled their cable TV packages.

My personal opinion is that, in this struggling economy, if folks are forced to pay 8% or more of their income for insurance, they are not going to have that money to spend bailing out the economy. And if they do get sick, they won't be able to afford to pay out of pocket until they meet the deductible.

One woman said (I just read this on the wire today) she couldn't afford to buy glasses for her daughter, because either it was not covered or she had to meet the deductible first. The answer was some long winded response about minimum income and percentages and subsidations and medicare expansions.

 By the way, medicare is not free, they WILL make a claim on your estate after you die for both premiums and recovering costs of any healthcare you receive.

So let's see, so far, from what I understand, people can't afford to go to the doctor if they have insurance. What will this do to doctor's incomes? If they are salaried with a group, like a hospital, then logic dictates that at some points positions will be cut due to lack of demand, meaning less doctors available.

And that brings me to my last point.  Health insurance companies can dictate what doctor or hospital you can go to.  There are a number of cancer centers that insurance providers are not including in their list of places you can go. 

So, you get that expensive insurance with the high deductible figuring if something major happens, like cancer or heart trouble, you'll be covered (as long as you can pay that deductible first).  Well, that's nice.  Now it turns out that your insurance can tells you which doctor you can go see. 

I don't think you have to be genius to see where that could lead.  Doctors who are proactive, prescribe expensive surgeries and top of the line medications could be quickly earmarked and shut out.  Doctors that shrug their shoulders, do nothing, and tell you to make your final arrangements will be a gold mine.

Pray it's not so.

Health Care Beware

This past week women's health care has taken a big blow. A panel of Dr's and healthcare professionals are changing the recommendations for mammograms and pap smears. The findings discovered that for women over 40, one life was saved for every 1800 mammograms. For over 50, it was one life for every 1300 mammograms.

CBS news is trying to spin this as not being related to cost, yet these findings come at a time when the government is trying to overhaul healthcare and the rising cost of health insurance.

A comment was made by the Dr. being interviewed regarding reducing the frequency change from one to every two years for both mammograms and pap smears including pap smears... the easier- to- cure breast and cervical cancers are slow growing, so waiting two years won't affect the treatment and survival rate. The opinion continued with the statement that if you have an aggressive cancer you will die from it anyway.

This type of thinking really bothers me. So do we just give up on treating aggressive cancer because it is costly? Because we really don't want to find a cure?

One senior I knew had a stroke, from which he recovered(mostly). Although he never regained his former abilities, he still had quality of life. He then had open heart surgery. He was discovered to have prostrate cancer, but it was decided not to treat him because the docs felt his heart would do him in first. Guess what he died from? Cancer that spread from his prostrate.

(Yes, he was on medicare.)

CBS is still on a health care propaganda roll. Last night on 60 minutes they did a segment about ICU's and prolonging the inevitable. (death) They had one person showing medical bills for her mother which had 24 specialists billing her insurance in her last two months of life- despite the fact that her mother wanted no extraordinary intervention at her life's end. They must have looked long and hard for that case.

They also interviewed a man in his 60's that needed and wanted a liver and lung transplant. The doc was trying to get him to face reality, that he was not going to get the transplants or get better, and asked him if he wanted CPR if he should need it? The man was adamant in replying yes. He said that was better than second place.

At the end of the segment, the interviewer commented that the man's condition had worsened and the family had decided to institute a DNR order=do not resuscitate-and he died.

I know we all end life with death. I understand end of life care can be expensive. But who should decide when we have lived long enough? Or when we need a health screening that could save our life? Why not just say that no one needs a physical until they are 40 because if it picks up anything serious by then it would cost too much to save your life?

If you can't stay healthy until 40 you might as well die because you're just dragging down the gene pool..Is that where health care in a capitalistic society is heading?