- “My mind was filled with questions,” he reports in the memoir. “Would I survive the surgery? Would I feel like myself again? Would I be able to do the job I’d just been elected to do? I wasn’t used to having health problems, and I had no symptoms whatsoever. And yet here I was, wondering if the position I had worked so hard to attain was about to slip away.”
One worry he did not have was money, which looms large for the uninsured even when faced with their own mortality in starkest terms. Health care for members of congress at Bethesda and all military hospitals is fully reimbursable thanks to insurance provided by the government.
I know I bitch about work a lot on here. Especially on #pubski. But this subject, health insurance? It is why I'll put up with anything that happens at work. And I pretty much mean anything. I've got multiple friends who have left work via an ambulance trip. Because my healthcare? It is basically free. I mean... it is not, but when I start to compare it the norm, it might as well be. I have a $10 co-pay to go to the eye doctor. I pay nothing to go to the dentist. I have a $1000/year coinsurance for hospitalization, but that's as barbaric as it gets. Based on the coinsurance I've paid before, I'm pretty sure it accrues at 10% of the cost incurred by the plan. No premiums. I know three people getting cancer treatment on our plan right now. I've talked to two of them recently regarding how much the plan has paid out. One is a few months in, and already has $300,000 paid out in their name. The other is a year in, and is setting north of the $1,000,000 mark. I don't even want to know how much the guy who's 5 years into his battle has racked up. My family doesn't understand why I work the job that I do. I don't understand why everyone that doesn't isn't rioting in the streets. I really don't.
This is almost the definition of pure evil. Why aren't people like this confronted with the reality of their evil every possible chance? I mean, Paul Ryan's life's work is making sure poor people suffer as much as possible.
Dude. You don't understand. He's a senator. He earned his free health care. As an aside, I know a dude who had routine surgery about five years back. He told me the other week he's just now earned back all the money he lost. I mean, I know he's rich or nothing, but shit. Also, I don't know if this is like this everywhere, but I hear a lot of hospitals are starting to do installment plans for paying off bills. I kind of like that idea, but I'd need to see a contract first. I'm sure there's some kind of catch.