Reflections on how the other half lives

(With apologies to Jacob Riis)

As mentioned in my three line post below, I am currently without health insurance. Have no fear, my new job starts Monday and I will soon be on the state employee's plan, so I've got no real worries. The problem, however, came when I had excruciating pain in my throat this morning and, since it was unbearable and Halls Sore Throat drops didn't touch it, I went on in the the local Urgent Care clinic.

The point of this post comes when the desk clerk asked me for my insurance card. I didn't have one. From that point on, it became readily apparent that I was not a preferred customer. I had to give them a credit card (which they held in the desk drawer until the doctor saw me), and they took in the three patients who came in after me before me. Instead of weighing me, the nurse asked about how much I weighed. She really did take my temp and BP (thank God for miracles). When the doctor came in, he glanced at my throat with the light, looked in my ears, and listened to my lungs. Then, he told me that I had a peri-tonsular abcess. He prescribed me 10 days of Amoxycilin and 4 days of Prednisone......and I was out the door.

The time of the visit was 1 hour 45 minutes in the waiting room, 10 minutes in the exam room waiting on the doctor, less than 5 minutes with the doctor. Total cost of the visit, $75 bucks. Total cost of the medicine, when Walgreen's checked my insurance on file (from my old job) and found out it was no longer valid, was $36.

This was absolutely the worst medical care I have ever had (even though the drugs he prescribed to me seem to be working). The previous doctors, in Kingsport, JC, Asheville, and Gainesville, all took more time, ran more tests, and called for follow-ups. Part of it could be the location (an urgent care clinic in a college town), but I suspect that most of it is the B-team status I was given because I don't have insurance. It was blatantly obvious that I dropped a few points in the mind of the nurse because I did not have health care. This is just appalling to me. I have no idea how someone makes it without insurance. Its a wonder more people aren't falling dead in the street.

Its also hard to understand why that is the case here. We have a county-wide insurance program for the "employed poor" that provides an adequate level of coverage assuming that you have a job and submit a paystub to the program office every couple of months. We passed a sales tax increase to fund it (and yes, Josh, I voted for it even though raising taxes goes against my Republican fiber) but only about 25% of the eligible people signed up for it. We probably have one of the best localized programs in the country and people don't utilize it. If they saw the difference between covered and uncovered, the numbers would probably be up.