Healthcare for profit: a personal experience

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SOCIALIST ACTION DECEMBER 1987 5 When Mrs. Reagan had her mastectomy recently, it was reported that 20 doctors were in attendance. Some may wonder how a physician could reach through the crowd around the bedside to lay a healing hand on the patient.

Others may shudder to think of 20 doctors' bills being added to operating-room costs, intensive-care expenses, and all the other charges involved in even a routine operation. Such a medical bill can put a dent in even a president's income.

In Mrs. Reagan's case, such alarm is quite unfounded. Long ago, Congress legislated "socialized medicine" for themselves and high-ranking government officials.

However, average citizens can only wish their medical bills could be met so easily. Even a minor injury that calls for no more than out-patient care can cost hundreds of dollars.

I personally discovered this fact in a doubly painful way recently.

Forgetting my 73 years, I took a shortcut to our Socialist Action editorial office. Being less agile than formerly, I slipped and banged my leg on the sharp edge of a loading dock. The result was a nasty cut that would take some stitches to repair.

Solicitous friends called a city ambulance, which normally takes its patients to the municipal hospital. Unfortunately, we were told, San Francisco General was "diverting." That is, they were so overloaded, they could take no more patients.

As a veteran, I was entitled to treatment at a Veterans Administration (V.A.) hospital. But the ambulance could not take me there. They would take me to the nearest hospital, which happened to be just across the street.

So, after the shortest possible ambulance ride, I was deposited in the emergency room of St Lukes hospital. After a wait, a doctor sewed up the cut with 15 stitches, bandaged the wound, and sent me on my way.

In two weeks, I returned and had the stitches taken out by a second physician— who suggested another visit, as there were signs of infection. About 20 antibiotic pills costing $25 seemed to clear that up, so I was turned over to the billing department.

Having survived the physical trauma of an injured leg, I was now to endure a period of psychic trauma as the postman brought me a series of bills for various aspects of my medical care. For the sterile bandage, $33.25. For the use of the emergency room (most of the time waiting), $120. For the 20 minutes the doctor took to sew up the wound, $273.

A different doctor took out the stitches. His bill for four visits, lasting about five minutes each, was $280. Then the city ambulance put in their claim, $212. Interspersed among these bills were enigmatic little statements for $25 and $45, with no explanation.

Clobbered on all sides The billing department could not explain the charges, but waved them aside by assuring me that Medicare would pay a large part of them. Their attitude suggested that so long as the government or an insurance company paid, the patient should not care if the charges are excessive.

Patients must be concerned, however. They are in the middle and being clobbered on all sides by the government, the medical industry, and the insurance companies.

The government raises the cost of Medicare. Next January, it will rise from $18 to $24 a month. At the same time, Medicare declares they will pay less to doctors and hospitals. This in turn will leave patients with larger co-payments.

Private insurance companies are glad to cover the "gap" for a hefty premium. This can run to $40 or more a month. So we find elderly citizens and the disabled, living on $500 a month, trying to scrape up $65 a month for minimum health care.

Not considered for the moment are the millions of younger workers and their families who cannot afford the even greater cost of private health insurance.

Free healthcare for all!

My odyssey in the health-for-profit system has a sequel. Shortly after being discharged as healed, my leg became infected again. This time I carefully avoided St. Lukes and made my way to a V.A. facility.

Here I was hospitalized for a week, given scans and tests of every description, treated with the latest antibiotics, and cured-—all at no cost to me.

Of course I had to serve in one of America's imperialist wars to qualify for V.A. healthcare, and there are rumbles from Washington that we can no longer afford this "luxury."

However, the healthcare offered only to veterans here is given to every citizen in every industrialized nation except South Africa and the United States.

If my experience with the health-forprofit system is typical, the medical crisis in America has reached the acute terminal stage. Only through a nationalized health plan with guaranteed free medical care for everyone can the financial agony of being sick in America come to an end.