The Man is accident prone. I’ll admit that “accident prone” is a charitable phrase. From the moment he could crawl he was getting hurt. His mother has told me stories that leave me amazed that he is alive at all. She has actually said to me (with all the love in her heart), "I'm glad he's your problem now."

When he was a little boy he fell out of a tree so violently that he had to get stitches in his tongue and had blood in his urine for a week. He had a car wreck that I cannot believe he survived. He broke the steering wheel with his body and, despite wearing a seatbelt, he broke the windshield with his head when the driver's seat came unbolted from the floor.

All of that was before he met me - the self-appointed Goddess of Safety Awareness. I wouldn’t say I’m paranoid, but I do pride myself on seeing what might happen and preventing at least the most serious of injuries. During the nine years that I have known him, there have been no major incidents. The Kasten Family Motto is “The red stuff stays on the inside.”

Rutilus effercio subsisto in penitus!

Yesterday morning, The Man broke the rule. The alarm went off as it has thousands of times over his thirty-seven years. On this particular morning, as he sprung up to hit the "snooze" button, his legs did not get the telegram from his brain that told them to wake up and move.

The Man's legs went squish.
The Man's head went ::smack!:: 
The nightstand had attacked.

I was suddenly wide awake and hearing screams of agony. The MommyTools© instantly appeared. Wet washcloth, icepack, peroxide, band-aids. When he finally arose from the floor, there was a pool of blood where his head had been. The blood ran down his arm and I got the sinking feeling that this was out of my realm of expertise.

The Man went into the bathroom and contemplated his wound. He said he needed “a small band-aid.” The bleeding stopped after a few minutes and I accessed the situation. The large split ran across the top of his forehead and into his hairline. It was two and a half, maybe even three inches long. The Handy Manny band-aid was not going to do the job. He would have to go to the doctor.

He said he would drive himself. I asked him if he was dizzy or disoriented. In the interest of safety I asked, “What did you have for breakfast yesterday?” He replied, “Blue.” That’s when I knew he’d be okay to drive.

The Man drove to what we call the “doc-in-a-box.” It’s an emergency care clinic with a flat rate that accepts insurance. It’s a good alternative to the emergency room, especially here in Jacksonville where you’re more likely to get shot in the parking lot than get a shot inside the hospital. With our insurance, the whole visit would cost $30. After he was assessed, the doctor told him he needed stitches, but he couldn’t do them because the wound was partially on his face, which would require a specialist. The nurse put a little antiseptic on the cut and sent him on his way. Charge: $30.

The Man came home and called the insurance company. In the meantime, his head had begun to bleed again. He was enough of a gentleman not to get blood on the phone. After a fifteen minute wait, an insurance employee told him that he would have to see either a plastic surgeon (co-pay $30 plus co-insurance - full charge) or go to the emergency room ($75 co-pay plus full cost because while the FAMILY has met the deductible, he has not met his personal deductible). She emailed us the list of plastic surgeons. The (Still-Bleeding) Man made an appointment for 1 p.m. with the closest plastic surgeon. While he was holding, he was treated to several commercials for the various things rich people have injected into their faces.

He came back with 13 lucky stitches. Here's the FrankenMan:

 

Even with as much health insurance as one family of six klutzes can purchase, those 13 stitches cost another $40 (it's a specialist, you know). The bill for the "co-insurance" will come when they figure out how much we can be squeezed for. 

Back in January, we took Pudge into the ER for a fever and a rash. The doctor took a brief look at him, told me I was paranoid, charged us $75 then billed us for $400 more.
No meds, no diagnosis, no instructions.
$475 - WITH INSURANCE.

Where did that $475 go? It wasn't taken up in physician time, supplies, medications or treatment. It went to pay for all of the people who come in without insurance who cannot pay. We are ALREADY PAYING FOR EVERYONE ELSE'S HEALTHCARE.

I keep hearing people talking about the government's $600 hammer as an excuse to kill government health care. You're buying the equivalent of a $6000 hammer every single time you use an American hospital. If you don't believe me, ask for an itemized bill. I was charged $42 for a single dose of cough syrup when I was in the hospital having Pudge.

If we sucked it up and paid for a single-payer public health system then the people who are currently uninsured could utilize early detection, vaccines, well-child care, yearly check-ups and screenings which would actually bring DOWN the cost of health care. (Go ahead and call me a socialist, I enjoy it. I am in favor of the social - preferably with coffee and cake.)

The United States already pays more per capita for health care than any country in the world. How can eliminating the insurance companies and placing our care in the hands of the people we CHOOSE to put in elected positions be worse than who-the-hell-knows arbitrarily deciding that it costs $475 to tell a mother that she's stupid? A better question would be, how much did my insurance company pay that hospital on TOP of what I paid them? Your guess is as good as mine - all I get is a statement which says, "Partial payment rendered, insured is responsible for remaining balance."

The government does stupid things all the time. (Amtrak, anyone?) But, right now, even if you are fully insured, you are at the mercy of faceless bureaucrats that you have no power over. I would much rather have a vote in who makes decisions about my health care.

I hear scaremongers saying, "Well, if you don't like this system, you can choose a different insurer!" Really? Last time I checked the majority of insured Americans obtain insurance at least in part through their employer. The majority of those of us still employed can't even get our employer to refill the pretzels in the snack machine, much less change providers for an entire corporation. That's reality.

If The Man's bonked head ends up costing only as much as Pudge's rash, then for just two minor incidents, we will have paid out the equivalent of a mortgage payment for two minor incidents this year, even though we have full health insurance coverage. That's before any routine care, sickness, vaccines or other emergencies. What happens when someone gets seriously ill?

There HAS to be a better way.
I would gladly pay the equivalent of my insurance premiums (and all the silly fees, co-pays, co-insurances and fees for processing the other fees) in taxes to end this madness which drives so many hard-working people into poverty.

We need to come up with something FAST.
The Man has a chainsaw.

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Images:
Frank - solarnavigator.net
The Man's Rudickalus head - I did that. Yep.