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Health Questions on Askville
All too often, I see questions on Askville about medical issues. Like "I have a large growth, about the size of a ping-pong ball, on the back of my neck. It's oozing black liquid. Should I be concerned?"
I couldn't resist having some fun at the latest version of that question.
Bone spur sounds likely to me, but have it checked. We're web monkeys, not doctors!
"I asked a bunch of idiots on the web about it, and they said it was harmless. So I didn't worry about it. Three years later, it turned out to be cancer. They said they could have saved my leg and life if I'd bothered to see a doctor about it when I first noticed it."
...is what you really don't want to be saying three years from now!
I couldn't resist having some fun at the latest version of that question.
"I have a very painful bump on the outside of my left foot about1/2 way between the pinkie toe and heel."
Bone spur sounds likely to me, but have it checked. We're web monkeys, not doctors!
"I asked a bunch of idiots on the web about it, and they said it was harmless. So I didn't worry about it. Three years later, it turned out to be cancer. They said they could have saved my leg and life if I'd bothered to see a doctor about it when I first noticed it."
...is what you really don't want to be saying three years from now!
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Here in the US a lot of people simply don't have health care. The common figure is around 47 million, or a little over 15%. That number includes uninsured children. Without insurance, people usually wait until a catastrophic health emergency, and then go to a hospital emergency room.
As for people with insurance...that's a very complicated issue. There are many different kinds of insurance, from many different companies. And it's often hard to know what is covered and what isn't, depending on your plan. Insurers have been forcing people towards insurance plans that offer the appearance of coverage, but which actually cover very little. You can easily find yourself being billed for hundreds or even thousands of dollars for procedures which you thought were covered.
I happen to have good coverage (and it's VERY EXPENSIVE - I'll look up how much I pay for it when I get home). I still have to pay $10 every time I see my doctor, and $20 every time I see any specialist that she refers me to. That's not much, but it adds up.
Another part of the problem is that so many people are operating in the dark. The language of health coverage is terrible complicated; it's drawn up by lawyers. Most people never even try to read it.
There's also the issue of rescission, in which a health insurance company will find some excuse to dump a member from their policy and deny all their claims once they become seriously ill.
A woman with breast cancer lost her coverage because her insurer looked back over her old paperwork and found that she'd failed to tell them that she'd been diagnosed years before...with acne.
A man with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma was denied treatment because he'd failed to tell his insurer about some cysts which had been revealed in an MRI years before. He explained that his doctor had never told him about the cysts, and the doctor testified that the cysts were utterly harmless and routine, not worth mentioning. Nonetheless the company refused to pay for treatment and the man died. Not only was the company not punished for that, they actually profited by it.
A 17-year-old girl needed a new liver. Her parents were told by their insurance company that she wouldn't receive one, because it was an unnecessary treatment. She died as a result. Again, there were no consequences for the insurer - they SAVED money.
Profit is a very, very bad element to have in your health care system.
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Oh we all put off seeing a doctor in the vain hope that it puts off any illness!