Suleika Jaouad on her personal experience with health insurance and hospital bills. What a contrast with care and treatment in Canada: I never saw any bills for my treatment, tests, procedures and the like. The only area that was not covered were post-treatment drugs where I was fortunate to have 80 percent coverage with my workplace drug plan (no small matter when some of the drugs – e.g., Neulasta – were about $3,000 a time).
Also striking was the sheer amount of time and effort (and administrative cost – one of the reasons that the US spends more money on healthcare than other countries) of dealing with insurance companies. Quote:
When I’m lying in bed at night, I often worry about how cancer may affect my future: my career, my relationships, my dreams. Sick people don’t plan on getting sick. We shouldn’t have the added worry that someday insurance coverage may not be there. Or that a medical crisis could become a financial one too.
Life, Interrupted: Medical Bills, Insurance and Uncertainty – NYTimes.com.
A striking difference between the US and Canada. Facing Cancer Together is an online community deriving from a Canadian organization, but there are many American ladies amongst us. Reading their stories of fundraising and scrambling each month to cover insurance is quite heartbreaking.
Catherine
http://www.facingcancer.ca
Indeed.