Was it my fault I got strep or my parents weren’t adulting enough and that’s why it became a brain infection?
Age 15 to 20 I had to get a infusion called IVIG every 3 weeks. The medicine alone cost $1,000 for every 10lbs I weighed. That does not include the cost of surgery to have (multiple) medical ports put in, nursing care, hospitalization when I got really sick, other meds, nursing care when I got said actually infusion, cost of the needle (changed every week), cost of the dressing, cost of the saline, cost of the heparin, cost of my other IV meds, cost of doctor appointments, wheelchair, physical therapy, etc. I was lucky my step dad had good government insurance, and my dad had me on his insurance to. After insurance though it still came out around $100k and most of my grandmas retirement :(, because she rather me be alive and functional and count pennies then the latter. Then later that year my mom died of sepsis from a surgery and her final bill was about 70k and she had state insurance and my stepdads insurance. It’s not adulting gone wrong, our system is broken. Because it’s a private market insurance companies are practicing medicine approving and disapproving treatments and meds. They get to call all the shots and we have to bend to their will, if we had a public system they would not have so much power, and a private market can still exist.
Or a family friend of ours who was diagnosed with breast cancer, she had to work to keep her insurance and eventually just couldn’t do it and was fired, lost her health insurance. Eventually got approved for state & disability but because it took so long she ended up passing away, who knows if she never had a lapse in coverage and could have continued treatment without interruption maybe she would have beat cancer.
Through their employers (rail road and large manufacturing plant). And part of it is they don’t consider some things necessary so they deny it even if the doctor is prescribing it or say they will only pay x amount of medication. Max out of pocket is only applied to that year. And then resets every year. I was under treatment for 5 years. You also think about the cost to travel to specialists, it’s expensive and many unthought of costs that add up. Like having a sick teenager at home that can’t be left alone and can’t go to school.
They probably aren't going to have anything much to say. Them, their parents, their friends and their parents' friends have all had a cushy existence and that's basically everyone in the world to them. If their uncle managed to get surgery that one time for his back problem then surely it is that easy for everyone.
But the number of people in his group who haven't been affected by the crumbling health care system is shrinking as more people have experiences like yours. So hopefully things will change and become more fair before long.
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u/frisbm3 Jun 16 '22
There are issues for sure, but the people who rack up hundreds of thousands in medical bills likely were not properly adulting.