How do you do it? (Cost of healthcare)

[Guest guest]

When I got sick first with PF, I was in San Diego, 2 days away from a Mexican

Cruise. I'm a type 1 diabetic and my blood sugars were off the monitor so I

went into the hospital. Instead of fixing my sugars, they put me in the

hospital in intensive care. They knew there was something wrong with my lungs

and while trying to do the broncoscopy, I coded. Guess I was pretty sick.

I live in Canada and as you all know, we have universal health care. I admit it

has a lot of flaws, like long waiting time for tests, etc and just not enough

beds to get all those who need to be admitted, admitted to the hospital.

My bill for 25 days at UCSD was $468,000, and that was just hospital charges.

The doctors billed separately and I haven't added up the amount on those bills.

What do people do if they don't have insurance of some type? Do they get poorer

health care? Are they sent home sick? In my province (Alberta), we don't even

have health care premiums. But when we did, my husband and I paid $88.00 a

month for full coverage. We still needed an additional plan for prescriptions,

glasses and dental but all of our doctor visits and hospital stays are covered

at 100% with no deductible.

I thought it was kinda funny when someone from finance came and talked to my

husband about making a deposit to cover my expences until the authorization went

thru from my travel insurance. He gave $2,000 which probably didn't even cover

the x-rays and blood work i had had done.

I marvel at the cost of getting/staying healthy in the States. I do hope

something happens very soon to ease some of the stress off those who don't have

health insurance. Trying to stay healthy is hard when you are stressed right

out.

Pat