Co-payment hell February 21, 2007
Posted by spacemom in : Life...otherwise, Kids, Fun with Crohn's Disease , trackbackYesterday, I read this post at Raising WEG. It was a very timely post as Luna awoke this morning covered in spots.
I called and got a morning appointment. We suspected, and it was confirmed, to be a reaction to the antibiotic she was on. Why was she on an antibiotic? For the staph infection she got on her finger while I was away in Florida. Turns out she chewed her cuticle while Soleil and I were gone. Jay saw it, put neosporin on it, and we watched it. By the next weekend, it was weeping green, so we got her into the doctor. She went on an oral antibiotic. I tell them that she is allergic to amoxicillian. Her sister and father are allergic to it as well. They all break out in spots.
The doctors insist that a young child grows out of those and we should use this antibiotic that is related to amox.
This has been a strange month for doctors. First, Soleil had an ear infection, $10 co-pay. Then the finger, $10 co-pay, plus today, $10 co-pay. Jay saw his doctor this month, $10 co-pay, okay, $40 in co-pays.
For us, this isn’t a big hit. But Massachusetts is requiring health insurance for all residents. This could be terrible for some families. The price of individual coverage was recently released as $380 a month. This is what a person would need to scrape together to get their own insurance under law. Think about it. Can you find an extra $380 a month? How about if you are single and trying to live in a high rent area?
When many decried this price, the industry replied with a $300 a month plan, but this isn’t much better. The original plan was for something to be offered at $250 or less a month.
We are in a position where we really need to fix our health care system. The small businesses claim that they shouldn’t take the hit on health care. I see their point, but what about the little guy who has to choose between buying health care and paying rent?
Food for thought.
Comments»
I’ll leave the insurance issues aside since our system is so different (though screwing the little guy always seems like a bad idea to me), but the drug allergy issue really set off my internal alarms.
Your doctor said that children often outgrow DRUG allergies? I’d be very interested to see the research on this. I do know as an LC that children can often outgrow FOOD allergies, but speaking as someone who is deathly allergic to both pennicillin and sulfa antibiotics I’ve always been told that repeated exposure will WORSEN the symptoms, often dramatically, and that it is critically important to not take any chances. I’m not trying to scare you, but you might consider getting a second opinion on that one…
As a Canadian who used to live in the US I have my own perspective. Here we pay $108/mo for a family of four. That is the max. It goes down if you earn less. You can pay almost nothing if you are poor enough. We don’t have copays.
Then again, my mother has been limping around for weeks waiting for an MRI and surgery on a bum knee. I told her to just pay the $5000 at a private clinic and get back to her health club. She is lucky to have the money to do that. Many don’t. But they do get care, eventually…
Our co-pay went up to $20.00. GOd forbid I have to take both kids together. We also pay about 200 a month (his firm pays the about the same amount) I wouldn’t even call it great insurance…A staph infection? Scary!