The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is less than affordable. It is a broken system that needs to be fixed not abolished. Many people cannot participate due to monthly premiums being too high. All I hear is how the Republican Party would like to scrap the whole system without having a viable solution. For the reasonably healthy individual, paying insurance premiums take food off the table unnecessarily. There are lower plans that you pay into for emergency purposes only, but they do not cover as much. Well, I am here to tell you that regardless of whether we keep it, modify it, or find something different, the price of healthcare can kill you.
I recently had a medical scare. I went to my local emergency room. The emergency care team saw me right away without hesitation. I was treated for my symptoms. After four hours of being poked, scanned, and x-rayed I was discharged with a $1400+ bill, and my issue was not resolved. My original concern for coming in did not end in resolution. They told me that my brain, my heart, lungs, and other vital organs seem to be working correctly and I could go home. It is costly results like this that stop the average working person from going to see a doctor. You want to make sure that if something out of the ordinary occurs, you get yourself checked out.
Of course, who can plan for a medical emergency? No one. Never in my wildest dreams would I have expected to pay that much money for a four-hour visit and leave with a receipt for payment and a notation that the fee has nothing to do with the testing that was done. Expect a bill for those charges in the coming weeks. I am a businessperson; I run an author business. I understand the whole concept of services rendered. However, I didn’t get an answer to my issue. In my business, when I coach a writer, they get the solution with an explanation of what they should do going forward. I’m feeling a little cheated because several doctors and nurses could not tell me why I had an incident.
Indeed, I did not budget for an enormous expense and may have to skip a few things to compensate for it. It has been said that most people are one paycheck or emergency away from ruin. I am not saying healthcare needs to be free. I believe it needs to be better because the after-effects of a medical crisis can be detrimental in the future.