executive healthcare for artfags below the poverty line

Nothing says Christmas like paying a medical bill.

Although I've had two friends who both had their apartment buildings burn down, with all their very uninsured belongings.  So it's not like, a competition.  Shit's paid.  We can all move on.  Maybe I'll try to get insurance next year, after they've ironed out what healthcare insurance costs with revised monthly premiums.  Because what's the fucking point of trying to get insured THIS week, when everybody's costs are going the fuck up come February?  Let me know what the real bill is, and I'll pay it.

I know what the cost of two pairs of surgical grade non-latex gloves are.  I think I know what the cost of two pairs of disposable n95s are.  The swabs that were used to clean the wound in my scalp.  The cost of the antibiotic salve.  The alcohol used for flushing the wound.  The cost of the butcher paper under my ass on the examination table.  One nurse, five to ten minutes, including paperwork.  One doctor, ten to fifteen minutes, cumulatively, including paperwork.  One admissions clerk, ten to fifteen minutes, who failed to record my correct billing address because she was more concerned with the man with the bloody towel on his face trying to leave the building and get back into his boss's car because my insurance wasn't "in the marketplace".

Oh!  And the superglue.  I know what medical grade epoxy costs.

What I don't know is, is that one thousand and ninety four dollars worth of trouble?

Because I bled in my scrambled eggs, later that morning.  Quality work.  Quality all round.

Northwestern Medicine sent all my bills to nowheresville, GA, and then they passed my case to collections, and my boss never gave me worker's comp, so here I am, at christmas, writing a big fat cheque, licking the envelope and putting a cute little Keith Haring stamp on it and walking it down to Thorndale Beach, where the nearest pockfaced blue maildrop waits.  I will walk up the street and buy a copy of 'Shortbus' on DVD because my husband's never seen it, and Janet Jackson's 'Rhythm Nation 1814' on CD, and thank the guy at the closing storefront for selling me a used Sony turntable last week, telling him the gift cleaned up great, and exchange a genuine smile, and walk on.  And walk on.  And walk on, admiring the mellow stripe of the settling horizon as chalky throws of cloud rift in the wake of passing commercial flights, listening to friends speak through my headphones, one-hitter loaded, looking through eyes of forty-nine years at the accomplishments of forty-eight-- mine included --thinking At Least I Paid The Fucking Bill.

That's my seasonal sentiment for the day.

executive healthcare for artfags in poverty (not a series)

Contemplating healthcare is one of my favourite things.  Like my nagging cough, or the chronic aches in my right ankle & knee, or my pronounced & worrisome memory gaps, or the tinnitus, or the migratory transitory "spikey-stabby" pains that pray on my hands.  It's fun, thinking about deducting wages from my not-considerable paycheque so as to pay for a Service that doesn't really Serve.

I haven't had insurance in a year.  Since gaining a new scar on my scalp, actually.  I went to the emergency room and they told me Aetna wasn't in their network.  Since the insurance wasn't any good, apparently, I allowed it to lapse.  It didn't make any difference to my bill, which would have been slightly exorbitant whether I had insurance or not, and clearly that worked in my favour since the hospital decided to not directly bill me and pass it off to a debt collection agency instead.

Look, I just don't care.  Tell me why I should care.  Because it's my health?  It's a system of scams.

I avoided having health insurance for over two decades because I was a teenage runaway, hiding from people who did me harm.  I handled my own medicine.  And then at some point the Obama admin decided to do everyone a solid negative and force an entire society to engage with an industry built around subtracting net income from our meagre accounts.  I didn't have insurance for most of the existence of Obamacare, and I paid an annual penalty for not engaging in the bullshit.  I only gave in and got insurance because, curiously, after the skull fracture, someone had to pay for my MRI scans.

I had just gotten done paying my not-inconsiderable emergency room visit, and hospital room, and weird Cronenberg bed that wouldn't let me sleep, when the radiology department decided to hit me up for ten grand I didn't have handy.  As we were negotiating that we found out the hospital was being declared bankrupt, and they decided, reasonably enough, to call it a wash.  "You're in poverty, and someone else is buying our debts, so we'll just say none of it ever happened."

Which, hey, great.  I have no complaints there.

But it does underline the greater incoherence of the thing itself.  The economy of it all.  Like, what is the paying of insurance?  I still don't understand the principle.  I just want to pay for stitches, sometimes, and maybe someone with training & accreditation to do the sewing.  It doesn't have to be professional, cosmetic-grade work.  Just keep it from getting infected.  Try not to leave any equipment in the incisions before sealing them up.  The bare minimum.

I know, I complain a lot.  But the complaints are valid enough, methinks.  The systems don't make any practical sense and are prohibitively difficult for an artfag with cognitive issues and a pronounced allergy to dumb paperwork.  I don't know what a "co-pay" is.  I don't understand deductibles.  None of these things directly relate to the experience of pain, nor to the cessation of it.  If I get a bad cut and want a band-aid, the response should not be "Please don't gout on the form?"

But it always has been.  I have a lot of scars.  Some of them healed okay.  I don't believe insurance was a crucial factor in treating any of it.  To my backwards ass, insurance is this thing everyone talks about like a minor deity which must be placated with virgin sacrifices and also rubies.

My husband tried to explain it to me again, tonight, and the only thing I really understood was the part where he said if my employer garnished my cheque to pay insurance it would be put my income on the other side of the poverty line.  That maybe Medicaid would cover me.  We don't know yet because Medicaid has to review my "case" to determine if I'm eligible to ask for assistance, or something.

No, I don't want insurance.  But I guess I'm getting some?  Because what's the alternative.  Waiting for all this shit to magically resolve itself into a single-payer system?  Where's Doctor Pill?  Are they consulting with Doctor Tarr and Professor Feather about whether Doctor Manhattan can clean Schrodinger's catbox before their waveform collapses my marketplace?

Listen, just give me the epoxy and I'll glue the skin myself.