Healthcare Hellhole

I have been a smoker for a while now, not going to give that specific of a number seeing as though I already feel old enough in our class. I recently went to the doctors to try the new wonder drug Chantix. I had a hard time getting into the doctors because I had an HMO and apparently there were only two doctors in the Columbia area that were taking new patients towards the end of 2008. I settled for the one closest to my house. Upon my first visit she walks in, feels my throat, checks my ears and nose, tells me my blood pressure is wonderful and that I "have hit the age where I need to watch it". She immediately tells me that I have a growth on my thyroid which could be cancerous and have to have a number of blood tests, an ultrasound and make an appointment with an endocrine surgeon right away. Keep in mind that I had to return to office every time a result came in because it needed to reviewed in person. A month and one hundred and forty dollars in co-pays later I find out that yes I have a small goiter (which is absolutely no concern) and never did get or even ask for the Chantix. A few weeks later I begin to receive the explanation of benefits from my insurance company. Although I had only paid $140.00, My insurance company had paid thousands of dollars for no good reason.

After this incident and a few other minor ones I decided to go back to my old doctor which required me to change to a PPO. This would mean picking any doctor I wanted to see without approval from my insurance company. That same week I called the doctor of my choice and was told that they are no longer accepting insurance and would be requesting a FIVE THOUSAND dollar annual enrollment fee. I don't know about the rest of you in this class but I pay enough to have good insurance coverage and to add another five thousand to that figure just seemed ridiculous to me. Now here I stand with "better" insurance as far as the doctors offices are concerned and still can't see a doctor.

Where am I trying to go with this little story of my insurance issue? There are two main issues here, the doctor that would not scare me with cancer in the first five minutes of meeting me was out of reach because at the time I had an HMO. How can doctors decide that they are just too good to help everyone? They just make themselves available to only wealthier patients. How is that not prejudice? Yet the doctor that I was almost forced to see wasn't concerned with me. Because she makes less money from the insurance company on patients with HMO insurance she was more concerned with exactly how much money and how many fees and tests her office could be paid on. My big question, if I am having this hard of a time and I have decent insurance, what are people doing with no insurance? They are forced to use emergency rooms as their primary care physicians. Hospitals are becoming increasingly overcrowded with many individuals that ultimately cannot not afford to pay the bill when all is said and done. This then will effect our insurance once again because hospitals and such will demand more money from the insurance companies to make up for other unpaid bills. This in turn increases the cost for an individual to obtain insurance at an affordable price. It is one big circle of mess. I wouldn't even know where to begin to fix any of it.