The most popular column I’ve written (judging by the volume of your responses) was published nearly three months ago (March 9). The topic was health care, a subject of increasing attention by President Barack Obama these days. So today and for the next few days, I’m going to tackle it again.
(I’m also including a couple more letters from readers that came in too late to be included in the original reader-response post.)
But first I want to take you back in time to 1951, the year when:
Harry S Truman was President of the United States.
General Douglas MacArthur was relieved of his Far Eastern commands.
“I Love Lucy” marked its début on CBS.
And “The Shot Heard ‘Round the World” occurred when the New York Giants’ Bobby Thomson hit a home run in the bottom of the ninth inning off of Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Ralph Branca, to win the National League pennant after being down 14 games.
1951 was also the year my father began keeping a little brown notebook that recorded his household expenses. Millions of us have started such an effort, full of good intentions. But my father kept it up for more than 11 years.
Among the entries are these:
$15 for a new muffler and tailpipe for the Studebaker,
$15 for 12 months of Barrons,
$72 for a leather chair.
And (a few years into the book) $425.35 for me. That’s right; 11 days after I was born, my father paid $155.35 to Salem Hospital, $150 to a Dr. Haywood for the delivery and $20 to Richardson Associates for anesthesia. General Electric, my father’s employer at the time, kicked in $100. I presume the bill was paid in full and that all parties were satisfied with the outcome.
When I was four years old, there was a return visit to Salem Hospital to treat a cut lip. For that my father paid $3.00.
Now fast-forward to June 5, 2008, just over one year ago. It was a quiet Thursday afternoon. My wife called me saying she had accidentally sliced her thumb with a utility knife and wondered whether she should go to the hospital to have it treated or just disinfect it and put a bandage on it.
I reasoned that on a quiet weekday afternoon, the hospital would be well staffed and we could be in and out fairly quickly, so off we went to Salem Hospital, where after filling out forms and answering questions–including, “Was it an accident?”–we spent a lot of time waiting in the so-called “Fast-Track” room. Eventually, a doctor showed up, and proceeded to apply Super-Glue (cyanoacrylate) to the wound, which was still seeping blood at a healthy rate. The whole site still looked a mess to me, but he wrapped the thumb in a big bandage and sent us on our way, saying the bandage could be removed in a few days.
Days later, we followed instructions, and were not entirely surprised to find, after removing the bandage, that the wound began bleeding again. Perhaps the surface had not been dry enough for the Super-Glue; perhaps the wound was too deep. I don’t know.
At that point, we had no appetite for a return visit to the hospital, which might entail not only a near-guaranteed wait but also a question about whether my wife had purposefully reopened the wound … so we disinfected and re-bandaged right at home. A few days later her thumb was fine.
And then, a month after the accident, the bill arrived. Now just for fun, make your own guess here. One emergency room, one doctor, a tube of Super Glue (apparently the exact same stuff you can buy at CVS but tailored for doctors), and basic bandaging materials. How much could it cost?
The answer is below.
A little farther …
A little farther …
The cost was $840.
That’s $445 for the use of the room, and other “services,” which would include the processing and paperwork and the obligation to tolerate bad TV while waiting.
And $395 for the doctor, for “suturing” a 2.5 cm wound.
But nobody paid $840. And I wonder if anybody ever does. In fact, Blue Cross Blue Shield knocked off $533.58 right off the bat because I was insured and in-network. And then they “withheld” $25.80, for reasons unknown.
So Blue Cross Blue Shield paid $180.62, and the hospital asked me to pay $100, which was our deductible. So I did. After all, the doctor had done his job (though not well), and the thumb was healed.