Jim Goldsworthy, Columnist
A friend who is still young enough to want to argue about things he can’t control was incensed because he believes the town hall protests against proposed health care reforms have been “organized.”
He thought that was terrible and was appalled at the way some of the people act.
In self-defense, more than for any other reason, I asked him, “You don’t think any of the civil rights protests were organized?”
He could have replied (as I would have) that, “Yes, they were, but its participants were far more well-behaved than some of these people” ... but just stared silently at me for a few seconds before going on to his next point.
A TV news show reported that two or three busloads of people were recruited by ACORN to go to a town hall meeting in Pennsylvania, apparently to counter the swastika-wearing, gun-toting, conservative fascists with a presence of tree-hugging, income-redistributing, liberal socialists.
They were riding school buses, and I wondered if the school board that allowed them to be rented for use by ACORN supporters would consent to having them serve as transportation to a gathering held for religious purposes. (It wasn’t said who actually paid for the bus rentals.)
Many of these people are probably just angry, and that’s what I told my friend. They’re basically satisfied with what they have and aren’t pleased with the thought of it being taken over by the government — which they don’t particularly trust.
Health care in America once was affordable, but is no longer.
My father saved a filing cabinet full of documents and other items that most folks would have thrown away after they outlived their immediate purpose, but which I have since found useful. Among these was a folder containing the bills, insurance papers and other correspondence associated with a bout with mortality I experienced in December 1963.
For a 12-day stay at West Virginia University, during which I underwent surgery to remove a kidney that had been smashed beyond repair, the hospital bill was $879.95, and the surgeon’s bill was $350. The cost of the Rotruck Funeral Home hearse/ambulance (talk about a multitasking vehicle) ride was $46, and if students from Potomac State College hadn’t volunteered to replace them, the six pints of blood I needed would have cost $125.
The insurance form my dad submitted consisted of ONE piece of paper that had to be filled out on both sides.
It could easily have been handled by anyone who had a basic command of the English language and asked questions like the nature of the accident; where, when and how it happened; which doctors and hospitals were involved; and the amount of the bills.
With no hesitation whatsoever, the insurance company paid all but a $100 deductible out of the total of $1,216, which averages out to about $100 a day. Friends of mine are on prescription medications that cost more than that for one pill.
Granted, $1,216 was a substantial sum of money in 1963, but my parents were making about $15,000 between them as teachers ... what today, I call abject middle-class. It wouldn’t have sent them to the poorhouse.
I would echo what my friend Maude McDaniel says in her column next door about her recent hospital stay.
Mom passed away after 10 days in the Memorial Hospital hospice in 1995, and Dad died after 12 days in Sacred Heart Hospital in 2003, and I cannot imagine that anyone could have gone elsewhere and received care that was better, and more kind and compassionate, from the doctors, nurses, nurses’ aides and everyone else who was involved, than my parents did.
I also remember what Dad went through after Mom died, waiting for Medicare to follow through on its promise to pay for her last hospitalization. The size of the bill was breathtaking, and Medicare changed its mind.
It took months of effort from Danny Staggers and Harley (Bucky) Staggers Jr., attorneys from Keyser, to resolve the matter in our favor. (Danny said that when he started his practice back in the 1970s, Grade-A health insurance cost him $25 a month.)
Dad told me afterward, “Jimmy, if I’d had to pay that myself, I’d have been ruined. I’d have nothing left.” I told him if that had been the case, we’d both have been ruined. I’d not have allowed him to bear that alone.
Eight years later, following his death, I found myself in a similar frame of mind. When I finally got notice that Medicare had approved his final bill, there was a sense of relief I’d have a hard time conveying to someone who hasn’t felt it, himself.
Part of it was covered by his educator’s insurance, but what Medicare paid for his 12 days in the hospital was $12,500 — almost exactly 10 times as much my 12-day stay in the hospital had cost 40 years earlier.
To hear some folks talk, our health care system is in a shambles. The truth is that most of the problems stem from the fact that the costs associated with health care are ruinous. Instead of redesigning the system, let’s find out where all the money goes and do something about that.
Dr. Guy Fiscus once showed me a corner of his office that was filled with several huge stacks of paper. “Those are all insurance forms,” he said, “and every company’s is different. I had to hire another person just to deal with insurance.”
Other folks want to blame the lawyers and America’s legal system, but I remember what Danny and Bucky did for us. Our families have been friends for nearly a century, and I have other friends who are attorneys and would trust them any of them with my life.
That said, a friend of mine once was awarded $180,000 in a thoroughly justified malpractice case. She got about $30,000, and the lawyers and expert witnesses took the rest.
So don’t expect me to enlighten you about health care reform. I have no answers.
You can find out all you need to know from folks who consider themselves experts on the subject and are more than ready to tell you why they’re right and every other expert who disagrees with them is wrong.
I’d just as soon not argue about it.
