Ask me: We need public option health care

November 10, 2009 12:35 am

Last December, I saw my doctor with what I thought was flu. She sent me straight to the emergency room. My appendix had ruptured.

The ER folks gave me priority, and it took "only" four hours to be seen by a doctor. I spent four hours waiting, in pain, with a life-threatening condition.

After the emergency room, though, I received great care--a competent surgeon, incredible nurses, a clean and comfortable room. At the end of a week, my bills totaled about $30,000.

I am a small business owner. Health insurance totals 20 percent of my net income. It's a catastrophic policy--$3,000 deductible, and then my policy pays between 50 percent and 80 percent of the remaining "allowable" charges. The rest, including office visits and tests my doctor orders, is billed directly to me.

Bottom line: I owe Mary Washington Hospital, my surgeon, a couple of radiologists, an emergency-room doctor, the emergency room itself, an anesthesiologist, and several other medical entities $7,000.

Additionally, every time I make eye contact with my doctor, it's $102 out of pocket; I'm still paying off the blood work she ordered after my surgery and the mammogram she ordered last spring. I've put my foot down about having a colonoscopy. I can't afford it.

It'll be 11 years before I've paid off my appendectomy. Stupid me. What was I thinking, allowing that little sucker to burst!

As one who carries health insurance, I am nevertheless awash in medical debt. I desperately hope the health care reform package includes a public option.

Megan Hicks

Fredericksburg