In today's mail, a bill from the hospital for $1,178 for my nothing kidney stone. That's what they say I owe out of 9,551.
I'm going to wait until I also hear from Blue Cross to confirm that I owe anything.
A month and a half later, it would be on my new high deductible plan. I'd have to pay the first 2,600 of that 9,551 and then nothing for any medical expense for the whole rest of the year. And my employer will give me the first 1,000 of that first 2,600.
I'm too tired to be funny, or even think anything is funny. zzzzzzzzzzzzz........
David
Miserable old git
Patiently waiting for the asteroid with my name on it.
Wow !! Around $9.5K USD for a maybe kidney stone ? Cripes! How much if there was one ? That's outta control .... seriously, your premiums over there would pay for entire treatments over here! :-(:-(
DownUnda you could get a new hip, or half a brain tumor removed, or two new breasts for that. Or be buried thrice over. :-)
Cheers, Mike.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
One thing about being poor and on SSDI; I qualify for Medicare. Half my income goes to Medicare and Supplement expenses; however, I have NO medical co-pays, NO medical deductibles whatsoever with the policies that I'm on. (Medicare, Anthem Blue Cross Plan F - Medicare Supplement, and Anthem Blue Cross Dental.)
Medicare: No premium for Part A, $109/month premium for Part B - paid by Medi-Cal. (Medicaid in the rest of the US.) ($147 Part B Deductible per year. Paid by Anthem Blue Cross Plan F.)
Anthem Blue Cross Plan F - Pre 65: $313.77/Month for 2014.
Anthem Blue Cross Dental: $49/Month
United American Part D - (Prescription Drug Plan for Medicare): $42.80/Month for 2014
Plan F increases $50 for 2015 to: $363.77/Month
Part D increases in 2015 to: $48.70/Month
Dental: $49
SSDI Income for 2014: $1038/Month
SSDI Income for 2015: $1056/Month
NOT much to live on after car insurance, gas, maintenance, DMV fees, Vonage, and misc. expenses... However; medically I'm covered!!!
Part D drug co-pays: $2.20 Generic, $6.60 Brand Name. (2015)
We get top cover for private care access ie. very little co-payment and that's the dental stuff mainly, for Mum & Dad and three children ( all under 25 y.o. ) for $1600 AUD per year. The only exclusions are 'aesthetic' surgery items, fingernail painting, crystal healing weekends and that sort of stuff. You will still get plastic surgery though for causes like trauma, burns, tumors etc.
But I would add though that road trauma care comes via a levy on one's car registration ( say $300 per year per car roughly ), worker's comp via business levies ( premium varies with industry risk levels ). Whereas a 1.5% Medicare levy on personal earnings forms the base support for the public network and the only source of rebate for attendances to local doctors.
Cheers, Mike.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
Students are awarded full marks for hitting the ten ring on some trendy agenda in current favor ( that endlessly morphs ). But that is in generality only and they commonly fail utterly miserably in any specific instance. One can emit a cutely written essay brimming with catch phrases and banner titles, while averting real life responsibility, the ephemeral substituting for the practical. Poor Joe Public thinks a modern medical degree still resembles a traditional one, differing only in the updating to new knowledge. So we have excellent social functionaries that might ( you can't rule it out ) attend to the easing/abatement of illness in others. Go figure.
Time was when the medical profession was a "calling" for both doctors and nurses, witness Nightingale F and Cavell E. These days it is just seen as a job to pay bills, which is why the UK NHS is in such a state.
Waiting for Godot & salvation :-)
Why do doctors have to practice?
You'd think they'd have got it right by now
Students are awarded full marks for hitting the ten ring on some trendy agenda in current favor ( that endlessly morphs ). But that is in generality only and they commonly fail utterly miserably in any specific instance. One can emit a cutely written essay brimming with catch phrases and banner titles, while averting real life responsibility, the ephemeral substituting for the practical. Poor Joe Public thinks a modern medical degree still resembles a traditional one, differing only in the updating to new knowledge. So we have excellent social functionaries that might ( you can't rule it out ) attend to the easing/abatement of illness in others. Go figure.
Time was when the medical profession was a "calling" for both doctors and nurses, witness Nightingale F and Cavell E. These days it is just seen as a job to pay bills, which is why the UK NHS is in such a state.
I agree, I'm not in the UK so can't say about that but I went thru 3 Doctors at my HMO before I found one I now like and can TALK too! The last one, a lady, spent 18 minutes of our 20 allotted minutes talking about my BP being a bit high AFTER I told her I had not taken my pills because I had to do blood work that morning! I even SHOWED her the pills still in the baggie! When she said I needed to make another appt I told her I would NOT be back to see her as I never got to talk to her about WHY I made the appt in the first place!! The Lab is in the same building, but you don't need to see the Doctor to get Lab work done. I pay $10 US copay to see her and all she does is yell at me over something she SHOULD have understood was out of my control! I went thru several others before I found this new guy who TALKS to me like I have a brain in my head and he explains the whys and why nots of why certain meds may be good or bad for me and my own health issues.
I LOVED one female Doctor, but she quit and retired back to her old home town to private practice, she was WONDERFUL!! If it took an hour to go thru what we needed to do, she took an hour, if she could do it in 10 minutes I was out of there in 10 minutes. I LOVED that, no BSing around, just get thru the business at hand and stop wasting each others time! BUT she also LISTENED TO ME when I talked about things, she often had solutions I had never thought of or steered me away from things I thought I was doing right, but in fact weren't helping at all.
Both the lady I loved and my new Doctor studied OUTSIDE the US for a period of MORE than 5 years, I think that helped them be better Doctors. They are not stuck in the US knowledge bank, or institutional way, as they have tried other ways of getting to the same point, a healthier me. We can even talk supplements to a point, they are NOT homeopathic Doctors, but they do know about studies on some things and can explain things in laymans terms when needed, such as this may be a placebo effect and this may be bunk, or that one has shown promise for example.
After my 3rd appt with my new Doctor I told him I would be sticking with him IF he thought we could work together, he agreed and we are both working towards a healthier me. I wanted to give him the opportunity to say 'no' if he thought we weren't compatible, it's GOT to be a two way street for me, I MUST trust him and he MUST trust me to do what he says!
Well... sticking to the lamp theme a moment... I've had to pack away our plasma discharge lamp for reasons of SERIOUS derangement to the sanity of an already bonkers cat :) And... deftly onwards to Chris's mention of the lady of one... :)
Quote:
Time was when the medical profession was a "calling" for both doctors and nurses, witness Nightingale F and Cavell E.
Florence's calling was from God I believe. But while we're on the subject (not God - but callings to care :)) may I insert Mary Seacole into that? :) I know Mr "Oh-look-HE-has-no-brain! Let's-make-him-education-minister" tried to write her out of the history books... and certain sectors tried to keep her out of the history books entirely right from the very beginning, but she recognised the value of quality convalescent care including for mental health issues related to trauma, which does seem to get a little rare everytime budgets come up I've found *wrinkle nose manically in order to qualify for care in the community in a cardbox under Waterloo bridge at some point in the future* :)
Quote:
These days it is just seen as a job to pay bills, which is why the UK NHS is in such a state.
There is an element of truth in what you say unfortunately :/ but the caring is still there Chris - it's just being flogged to death by the politics :( and as a result is being forced into taking a back seat... even amongst those who were "called" for the right reasons.
Wow !! Around $9.5K USD for a maybe kidney stone ? Cripes! How much if there was one ? That's outta control .... seriously, your premiums over there would pay for entire treatments over here! :-(:-(
DownUnda you could get a new hip, or half a brain tumor removed, or two new breasts for that. Or be buried thrice over. :-)
Cheers, Mike.
The premise behind Obamacare (The Affordable Care Act) is that people who are able to pay (in most cases, their insurance) pay hugely inflated prices to subsidize those who can't pay, and that forcing everyone to have insurance will (mostly) eliminate the latter, removing the need for the extra revenue from the former. Some claim that it is already starting to work. I hope so (but I know that even if it works more spectacularly than even its architects expect, the likes of Rash Limburger will never admit it).
Scott: Not to be insulting, but that sounded rather like a Vic post. (That said, I could post the details of my coverages and costs for next year if anyone is interested.)
Mikey: Since I got insurance and had to find my own doctor, I've had four women. I don't usually say this in public, but I chose the current one because I thought she was hot. We communicate fairly well (although I don't mention her hotness). My urologist is another matter. He's the charming bastard who operated on my mother and failed to get the cancer out of her bladder. He's also the one who probably caused the hematoma in my kidney a couple years ago. He's moving to Denver in February, so I need to find a new one. Just as well.
Annie: Hello. [edit]Back to who won the thread, I'm going to say Scott did because he never got into the whole guess-the-physicist thing at all.[/edit]
Phil: If you were closer to Chicago, I'd invite you to the Chicago Chapter NRHS Where Are We??? quiz tonight, presented for the second straight year by me. I show a Powerpoint with 55 pictures in it and ask questions about each one. Most of the questions are What town? What direction ? and What railroad(s) (meaning the owners of the track back to 1900)? Then I run through a copy of the Powerpoint that also gives the answers and everyone goes "Duh!" or "Oh, I should have known that" or "I had no idea" (mostly that last one). Almost all of the locations are within the six counties Metra operates in and the four of NICTD, but I stick in a couple of easy ones outside of that area. One of the top three winners each year is a conductor for Metra. I used to do fairly well as a player myself, but my sadistic streak came out and I volunteered to do it. (I'm not totally mean, though. There are a few that are as easy as reading the station sign -- if your eyes are good enough.) (And then there was one last year where I deliberately composed the shot so a pole was right in the middle of the sign.) If Phil or any lurker is close enough and interested, it's 8pm at the Downers Grove Park District's Lincoln Center on Maple Ave. We go for pizza afterward.
David
Miserable old git
Patiently waiting for the asteroid with my name on it.
@David: Oh I wish I could come up for that. Sounds like a ton of fun.
Next year when I'm training on the Chicago district we'll have to see if we can meet up. We run to Calumet, Landers, Blue Island, and several other places up there. It's been several years since I quit running that side, so it'll be fun seeing old sights again.
Norfolk Southern has a lengthy pedigree. I recall seeing somewhere there are around 150 railroads in our past. Mergers and buyouts of everything from large well known companies to small short lines are what make up our railroad. The other large railroads are just as varied in their makeup.
AAAARRGGHHH!!!!!!!! In
)
AAAARRGGHHH!!!!!!!!
In today's mail, a bill from the hospital for $1,178 for my nothing kidney stone. That's what they say I owe out of 9,551.
I'm going to wait until I also hear from Blue Cross to confirm that I owe anything.
A month and a half later, it would be on my new high deductible plan. I'd have to pay the first 2,600 of that 9,551 and then nothing for any medical expense for the whole rest of the year. And my employer will give me the first 1,000 of that first 2,600.
I'm too tired to be funny, or even think anything is funny. zzzzzzzzzzzzz........
David
Miserable old git
Patiently waiting for the asteroid with my name on it.
Wow !! Around $9.5K USD for a
)
Wow !! Around $9.5K USD for a maybe kidney stone ? Cripes! How much if there was one ? That's outta control .... seriously, your premiums over there would pay for entire treatments over here! :-(:-(
DownUnda you could get a new hip, or half a brain tumor removed, or two new breasts for that. Or be buried thrice over. :-)
Cheers, Mike.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
One thing about being poor
)
One thing about being poor and on SSDI; I qualify for Medicare. Half my income goes to Medicare and Supplement expenses; however, I have NO medical co-pays, NO medical deductibles whatsoever with the policies that I'm on. (Medicare, Anthem Blue Cross Plan F - Medicare Supplement, and Anthem Blue Cross Dental.)
Medicare: No premium for Part A, $109/month premium for Part B - paid by Medi-Cal. (Medicaid in the rest of the US.) ($147 Part B Deductible per year. Paid by Anthem Blue Cross Plan F.)
Anthem Blue Cross Plan F - Pre 65: $313.77/Month for 2014.
Anthem Blue Cross Dental: $49/Month
United American Part D - (Prescription Drug Plan for Medicare): $42.80/Month for 2014
Plan F increases $50 for 2015 to: $363.77/Month
Part D increases in 2015 to: $48.70/Month
Dental: $49
SSDI Income for 2014: $1038/Month
SSDI Income for 2015: $1056/Month
NOT much to live on after car insurance, gas, maintenance, DMV fees, Vonage, and misc. expenses... However; medically I'm covered!!!
Part D drug co-pays: $2.20 Generic, $6.60 Brand Name. (2015)
TimeLord04
Have TARDIS, will travel...
Come along K-9!
Join SETI Refugees
We get top cover for private
)
We get top cover for private care access ie. very little co-payment and that's the dental stuff mainly, for Mum & Dad and three children ( all under 25 y.o. ) for $1600 AUD per year. The only exclusions are 'aesthetic' surgery items, fingernail painting, crystal healing weekends and that sort of stuff. You will still get plastic surgery though for causes like trauma, burns, tumors etc.
But I would add though that road trauma care comes via a levy on one's car registration ( say $300 per year per car roughly ), worker's comp via business levies ( premium varies with industry risk levels ). Whereas a 1.5% Medicare levy on personal earnings forms the base support for the public network and the only source of rebate for attendances to local doctors.
Cheers, Mike.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
RE: Students are awarded
)
Time was when the medical profession was a "calling" for both doctors and nurses, witness Nightingale F and Cavell E. These days it is just seen as a job to pay bills, which is why the UK NHS is in such a state.
Waiting for Godot & salvation :-)
Why do doctors have to practice?
You'd think they'd have got it right by now
RE: Good to see you Julie.
)
Hi Doc!
.
Big Bang Corollary
RE: RE: Students are
)
I agree, I'm not in the UK so can't say about that but I went thru 3 Doctors at my HMO before I found one I now like and can TALK too! The last one, a lady, spent 18 minutes of our 20 allotted minutes talking about my BP being a bit high AFTER I told her I had not taken my pills because I had to do blood work that morning! I even SHOWED her the pills still in the baggie! When she said I needed to make another appt I told her I would NOT be back to see her as I never got to talk to her about WHY I made the appt in the first place!! The Lab is in the same building, but you don't need to see the Doctor to get Lab work done. I pay $10 US copay to see her and all she does is yell at me over something she SHOULD have understood was out of my control! I went thru several others before I found this new guy who TALKS to me like I have a brain in my head and he explains the whys and why nots of why certain meds may be good or bad for me and my own health issues.
I LOVED one female Doctor, but she quit and retired back to her old home town to private practice, she was WONDERFUL!! If it took an hour to go thru what we needed to do, she took an hour, if she could do it in 10 minutes I was out of there in 10 minutes. I LOVED that, no BSing around, just get thru the business at hand and stop wasting each others time! BUT she also LISTENED TO ME when I talked about things, she often had solutions I had never thought of or steered me away from things I thought I was doing right, but in fact weren't helping at all.
Both the lady I loved and my new Doctor studied OUTSIDE the US for a period of MORE than 5 years, I think that helped them be better Doctors. They are not stuck in the US knowledge bank, or institutional way, as they have tried other ways of getting to the same point, a healthier me. We can even talk supplements to a point, they are NOT homeopathic Doctors, but they do know about studies on some things and can explain things in laymans terms when needed, such as this may be a placebo effect and this may be bunk, or that one has shown promise for example.
After my 3rd appt with my new Doctor I told him I would be sticking with him IF he thought we could work together, he agreed and we are both working towards a healthier me. I wanted to give him the opportunity to say 'no' if he thought we weren't compatible, it's GOT to be a two way street for me, I MUST trust him and he MUST trust me to do what he says!
Well... sticking to the lamp
)
Well... sticking to the lamp theme a moment... I've had to pack away our plasma discharge lamp for reasons of SERIOUS derangement to the sanity of an already bonkers cat :) And... deftly onwards to Chris's mention of the lady of one... :)
Florence's calling was from God I believe. But while we're on the subject (not God - but callings to care :)) may I insert Mary Seacole into that? :) I know Mr "Oh-look-HE-has-no-brain! Let's-make-him-education-minister" tried to write her out of the history books... and certain sectors tried to keep her out of the history books entirely right from the very beginning, but she recognised the value of quality convalescent care including for mental health issues related to trauma, which does seem to get a little rare everytime budgets come up I've found *wrinkle nose manically in order to qualify for care in the community in a cardbox under Waterloo bridge at some point in the future* :)
There is an element of truth in what you say unfortunately :/ but the caring is still there Chris - it's just being flogged to death by the politics :( and as a result is being forced into taking a back seat... even amongst those who were "called" for the right reasons.
Having said that... it took a lot of political flogging to get doctors to agree to work within the NHS at the outset. Many were VERY unhappy at not being able to turn away the sick who could not pay. Must say - I highly respect Doctors without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières) and Mike too!! For his stance! :)
@David - OUCH! That must hurt almost as much as the "kidney stone" I hope the news from the Blue cross is better!
@Aurel heh heh heh heh heh - good method!! Good luck!! :)))))))
Hi Julie :) y-e-e-e-s I got hailed on today. Most invigorating! :)
Hi TL :) Hi Mikey :) Hi Phil :) Hope the medical went well!
Please wait here. Further instructions could pile up at any time. Thank you.
RE: Wow !! Around $9.5K USD
)
The premise behind Obamacare (The Affordable Care Act) is that people who are able to pay (in most cases, their insurance) pay hugely inflated prices to subsidize those who can't pay, and that forcing everyone to have insurance will (mostly) eliminate the latter, removing the need for the extra revenue from the former. Some claim that it is already starting to work. I hope so (but I know that even if it works more spectacularly than even its architects expect, the likes of Rash Limburger will never admit it).
Scott: Not to be insulting, but that sounded rather like a Vic post. (That said, I could post the details of my coverages and costs for next year if anyone is interested.)
Mikey: Since I got insurance and had to find my own doctor, I've had four women. I don't usually say this in public, but I chose the current one because I thought she was hot. We communicate fairly well (although I don't mention her hotness). My urologist is another matter. He's the charming bastard who operated on my mother and failed to get the cancer out of her bladder. He's also the one who probably caused the hematoma in my kidney a couple years ago. He's moving to Denver in February, so I need to find a new one. Just as well.
Annie: Hello. [edit]Back to who won the thread, I'm going to say Scott did because he never got into the whole guess-the-physicist thing at all.[/edit]
Phil: If you were closer to Chicago, I'd invite you to the Chicago Chapter NRHS Where Are We??? quiz tonight, presented for the second straight year by me. I show a Powerpoint with 55 pictures in it and ask questions about each one. Most of the questions are What town? What direction ? and What railroad(s) (meaning the owners of the track back to 1900)? Then I run through a copy of the Powerpoint that also gives the answers and everyone goes "Duh!" or "Oh, I should have known that" or "I had no idea" (mostly that last one). Almost all of the locations are within the six counties Metra operates in and the four of NICTD, but I stick in a couple of easy ones outside of that area. One of the top three winners each year is a conductor for Metra. I used to do fairly well as a player myself, but my sadistic streak came out and I volunteered to do it. (I'm not totally mean, though. There are a few that are as easy as reading the station sign -- if your eyes are good enough.) (And then there was one last year where I deliberately composed the shot so a pole was right in the middle of the sign.) If Phil or any lurker is close enough and interested, it's 8pm at the Downers Grove Park District's Lincoln Center on Maple Ave. We go for pizza afterward.
David
Miserable old git
Patiently waiting for the asteroid with my name on it.
@David: Oh I wish I could
)
@David: Oh I wish I could come up for that. Sounds like a ton of fun.
Next year when I'm training on the Chicago district we'll have to see if we can meet up. We run to Calumet, Landers, Blue Island, and several other places up there. It's been several years since I quit running that side, so it'll be fun seeing old sights again.
Norfolk Southern has a lengthy pedigree. I recall seeing somewhere there are around 150 railroads in our past. Mergers and buyouts of everything from large well known companies to small short lines are what make up our railroad. The other large railroads are just as varied in their makeup.
Phil
Phil
I thought I was wrong once, but I was mistaken.