Tag Archives: Health insurance

Colonoscopy: Insider’s Report

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Being over 60 means getting a colonoscopy. Truth to tell, I had one about 10 years ago, not long after turning 50. It’s a rite of passage at the end of the middle years. We’re entering new territory, and by now we understand the value of health.  The colonoscopy is a symbol of our new watchfulness in a dangerous world.

My second colonoscopy was today, at age 61. Any day that starts with a colonoscopy can only get better. Assuming, of course, that they don’t discover some dread disease that begins with “C.”

Everyone says the day of preparation before the procedure is the hard part.  This time, the prep day didn’t seem so bad. Two bottles of salty stuff to drink, four little pills to swallow. Just follow the instructions. They let me drink water up until five hours before the procedure.

I drive to a nice modern facility at 8:30 a.m. Lots of friendly and professional staff. They give me a hospital gown, and a robe to put over my shoulders like a cape. The volunteer says I can keep my socks on, because it’s cold in there. He leads me to a reclining chair, and puts a blanket over my lap and legs. A pre-warmed blanket! First class all the way.

There’s the usual blood pressure and temperature routine, an IV is started, people keep asking my name and date of birth, to make sure I haven’t forgotten. At least four different people ask if I’m allergic to anything. They all seem genuinely happy to be doing their jobs. I sign a few papers, talk to the anesthesiologist. The nurse says there’ll be a short wait. I relax and read my book.

After a while the doc comes and chats, and says we’ll get started in a few minutes. I walk into the next room and lie down on my side, as directed. The chief nurse announces the procedure. At least six health-care folks are in the room, and we don’t want anyone thinking this is an amputation.

The doctor asks, “Do you mind if the student nurse observes?” Of course he can observe!  He might learn something. Sell tickets, for all I care. I’m going to be knocked out. Put it on YouTube, if you want. Just make sure to get my good side.

The anesthesiologist is fiddling with his stuff, and a nurse comments on the mystery I was reading. She has the same book. It’s about a dog and a private eye, as told by the dog. We’re all laughing about the dog, or so it seemed to me, and that’s the last thing I remember.

I woke up in a fog, still lying on my side. As a nurse had warned, I felt cramps from pockets of air in my gut. They put air into the colon as part of the procedure, and try to get most of it out when they’re done. But they never get it all, so you have these pockets of air inside. You have to relax and allow the air to escape by the usual exit.

I do not remember this air cramping after the colonoscopy 10 years ago, but I honestly have to say it was the only bad part today. When I became fully awake, the air cramps felt painful. Not terrible, but definitely not pleasant.  A guy next to me was having the same problem. Minutes went by, and the air pockets were slow to disperse. I finally got the last of the air out in the privacy of a restroom. It seemed like enough air to inflate a truck tire.

Eventually I got dressed and a nurse took me to a chair, sat me down, and gave me a cup of water. They had said the procedure would begin at 9:30 a.m., and I could go home by 10:30 or 11 a.m. It seemed like a lot of time had passed, but now that I had my watch and glasses back, I could see it was only 10:50.

The doc stopped by and told me everything was fine. He had pictures! He found one polyp and zapped it. No possibility that it was the bad kind, he assured me.  Score: Doctors 1, Polyps, 0. Game over.

You may remember that I drove myself to the medical building. But you probably know that they don’t let you drive yourself home. Fortunately, my neighbor was kind enough to come and drive me home. I had something to eat and took a nap. I’ll go back and retrieve my car tomorrow.

One thing more: I decided to have the colonoscopy now, because in two months, I probably won’t have health insurance.  — John Hayden

Life And Blogging: So Much To Do

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Let me humbly acknowledge: I have been shamefully neglecting “Life After 60,” the blog. This is because I’m too busy LIVING life after 60, the life.

Here are a few of the things I’ve been busy with:

  • Covering a three-day Nor’easter, worst storm in my neighborhood since 1998, for my other blog.
  • Applying for Unemployment Compensation. (Application accepted)
  • Applying for at least two jobs per week, as required by Unemployment Comp.
  • Attending classes to learn how to be a volunteer adult literacy tutor.
  • Doing homework for above classes. (Found out I’ve forgotten how to study with any discipline.)
  • Rearranging furniture in my efficiency apartment to make better use of the small space. (I’m not finished.)
  • Laundry, at least once every two weeks. Cleaning the bathroom, once every two weeks, whether it needs it or not. Running the dishwasher once every two days.
  • Getting a colonoscopy once every decade, whether I need it or not. (My decade ran out last year. I’m thinking about making an appointment, which is the crucial first step.)
  • I have not yet motivated myself to make the Recession Vegetable Soup, but I have assembled the ingredients and the necessary cookware.
  • Treating my Seasonal Affective Disorder by taking naps. (I don’t know if this is a medically approved course of treatment, but it has the advantage of being free, whether you have health insurance or not.
  • I’m still paying my monthly COBRA bill to keep the good health insurance I’ve got for a few more months. And then there’s the rent, the credit cards, food, gas . . .

Most recently, visited the Christmas Bazaar at my church, near the end of the second day of the event. They had marked everything down to half price. I bought two ancient commemorative tin wall hangings, one with a picture of JFK, the other with a picture of Jackie. They still have the original Hecht Co. price tags. Hecht Co. sold the plates for $1 each in 1977. I bought the pair for $1 at the church bazaar. What do you suppose they would fetch on eBay? (They’re not for sale at any price.)

Jack and Jackie and Hecht Co. have all passed on to their rewards. I am delighted to be living life, with my memory and my health still in good working order.

— John Hayden

Health Care Coverage in Parallel Universes

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The American cable news channels are in full parallel-universe mode today, Saturday.

MSNBC had President Barack Obama, campaigning for health care reform in Minnesota. MSNBC televised the president’s speech in its entirety to a crowd of thousands. MSNBC’s cameras showed wide-angle views of the packed arena, people cheering wildly.

When the president explained the problems facing health care in America, someone in the audience shouted, “We’ve got to do something!” Mr. Obama agreed,  “We’ve got to do something.” It was a long way from Washington, where a congressman shouted at the president this week, “You lie.”

President Obama said he’s not going to waste any more time with cynical politicians who are clearly committed to defeating health care and destroying his presidency.

The crowd in Minnesota was “Fired up!” and “Ready to go!”

Meanwhile, over at FOX News, they were covering an anti-health care rally on the Mall back in Washington. The FOX News camera focused in tightly on a knot of demonstrators (two dozen? a hundred?) and one unknown speaker ranting about the First Amendment and “uniform taxation.” One thing you have to give the health-care opponents, they’re not a single-interest group. No indeed, they’ve got a gunny sack full  of gripes. (Correction: Later in the day I learned that there were a lot more than a hundred demonstrators in Washington. There were thousands and thousands. See note from Lizzi in Comments below.)

FOX was in Texas, too, providing air time to some Texan who was complaining about health care for everyone. What an un-American concept! Health care for all, even the unemployed, even the poor, even people with pre-existing conditions.

The Texan said the government ought to stay out of health care, because the government has no experience running such a program. Umm . . . What about Medicare? Senior citizens seem quite fond of Medicare. Who do you think runs Medicare?  What about Social Security, which has one-percent administrative costs? Who do you think runs Social Security?

And so it goes. MSNBC and FOX News, two professional cable news channels, reporting live from  parallel universes.

Paradox of Personal Wants and Needs Writ Large in Politics

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When it comes to government and bureaucracy, most of us simply want to be left alone and allowed to live as we please. Don’t we have enough demanding voices telling us what to do in our families, our personal relationships, our religion, our jobs?  Enough! We don’t need any more demands from government! All we want is some freedom, some independence, some space. And while we’re at it, some respect. “Is that too much to ask?” We shake our fist at big-brother government: “What part of that don’t you understand?”

Paradoxically, we want our needs to be taken care of. We’d like to be protected from the vagaries of life, please. (Vagary comes from the Latin, “to wander.”) We wander through a world of troubles — failures and successes — broken relationships, financial hardships, illnesses. The fears are not so clear when we are young and invincible; it all becomes more obvious as we get older. We want to be protected at least from the most fundamental brutalities, i.e., hunger, pain, violence, and failing health. At rock bottom, we’d really like to be protected from death.

Once in a while, democracy lays bare the paradox, confronting an issue that speaks to our innermost needs to be left alone and at the same time to be taken care of. A life-and-death issue, you might say. No wonder we are angry, divided, frightened and perplexed about health care.

President Obama Declares Support for ‘Public Option’ in a Health Insurance Exchange

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Surfing back and forth between the cable news channels, FOX News and MSNBC, before President Barack Obama’s address to Congress on health care reform, a visitor from Mars would likely conclude that the Fox pundits and the MSNBC pundits reside in parallel universes, or perhaps on different planets. 

No surprise if it sometimes seems that people are brain-washed by either the conservative pundits at FOX or the liberals at MSNBC.

The president attempted Wednesday evening to speak over the heads of FOX and MSNBC, to speak directly to the American people. 

President Obama made his intentions and his resolve clear from the start of his address: “I am not the first president to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last.” 

The president refused to parrot the pundits on either political extreme. He attempted to position himself squarely in the center, saying he prefers “to build on what works and fix what doesn’t, rather than try to build an entirely new system from scratch.”

Congress has been pecking at health care for months, in the unlikely hope of achieving a bipartisan agreement. Wednesday, the president finally made clear his own proposal.

President Obama proposed a “new insurance exchange” from which citizens could select  and pay for the health insurance plan of their choice. He proposed that the insurance exchange “take effect in four years, which will give us time to get it right.”

Ending weeks of speculation, the president came down solidly for a “not-for-profit public option” to be available along with private health insurance choices in the insurance exchange.

To those who fear losing their present health insurance, the president said: “Nothing in our plan requires you to change what you have,” and he declared, “I will protect Medicare.”

And to those who urged him to fight for health care reform, President Obama said, “I will not back down on the basic principle that if Americans cannot find affordable coverage, we will provide you with a choice.”

He declared that the principles of social justice and the character of America are at stake in the health care decision.

Let’s not let cable news channels trivialize the issues.

— John Hayden

Divide And Conquer — Medicare Vs. Universal Health Care

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All the good intentions of those two dreamers — President Barack Obama and Sen. Ted Kennedy — and their hopes that health care might be available to ALL Americans, have run into a wall of mindless self-interest.

It turns out that Medicare-eligible senior citizens are the new privileged class. People over 65 are the haves; people under 65 are the have-nots.

The virtue of generosity once again is no match for the power of fear and selfishness.

Senior citizens to America: “We’ve got our Medicare; the rest of you can go to hell.”

I never believed the prediction that American democracy would disintegrate into inter-generational warfare over Social Security and Medicare. I was under the naive delusion that America’s  elders would teach wisdom and generosity.

Never mind.  It turns out that as a group, senior citizens appear to be as callow as a gang of teenagers; as greedy as a roomfull of CEOs; as indifferent to the poor as a convention of Wall Street bankers.

If President Barack Obama’s goal of health care reform fails, it will fail because complacent senior citizens decide to make their children and grandchildren America’s health care have-nots.

Adventures in Medicine: MRSA and Health Insurance

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Is health insurance a luxury or a necessity? Of course, I know the answer. Health insurance is a necessity I can no longer afford.

I was planning to let my COBRA health insurance ($443.10 a month) lapse in August. But that was before my medical adventure.

I was abashed about going to the doctor for something as trivial as an abscess inside my nose. But the swelling and the pain were increasing. So after work Thursday morning (midnight to 8 a.m. shift), I brushed my teeth and turned myself in at  the nearby clinic (motto: “Most insurance accepted. No appointment necessary.) 

It took the physician’s assistant (PA) about two minutes to diagnose the problem: “You have a staph infection.”  Also: “It might be MRSA.” (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, if you must know.)

MRSA is the nasty  staph infection that resists antibiotic treatment. It used to be mostly a hospital problem. But with the advances in modern medicine and all, now you don’t even have to go to the hospital to catch it. 

Not to worry. “We’re going to treat this aggressively,” the physician’s assistant declared with confidence.  She prescribed a big shot of penicillin in the butt. Plus two more strong antibiotics, to be taken for 10 days.

Itemized bill: $95 to establish the problem, $60 for penicillin, and $23 for a shot administered by a skilled medical technician. Total: $178. And $4 each for two generic prescriptions at WalMart. It was almost painless (the shot, not the bill).

I took my medicine and imagined how dangerous this little staph infection might become. I looked MRSA up on Wikipedia, which nearly scared me to death. That’s why I decided to pay the COBRA bill for August. And September, and October. 

Epilogue: The pain in my nose is gone. The PA says the antibiotics appear to be working. No need to come back, she says, unless the infection doesn’t disappear completely. That will be another $95. 

Whether this adventure was MRSA, or only your garden-variety staph infection, will remain a medical mystery. But who knows what adventures may lie ahead? Swine flu season is just around the corner.

Clarity on Health Insurance and the Public Option

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Updated and revised, 07-31-2009.

The political and economic debate over health care in America is starting to clarify.

Congress is coming to the conclusion that the private health insurance industry is part of the problem. Tailoring American health policy to suit the private insurance industry makes no sense.

Health care policy should be designed to meet the needs of people and doctors, not insurance companies. Did you ever know a friend who liked fighting with insurance companies to get a claim approved? Do you know anyone who likes needing a referral to see a doctor? Do you know any physicians who like the paperwork that the insurance companies impose on doctors and their office staff? 

Finally, do you know any doctors who enjoy having the insurance companies tell them how to run their medical practice?  Do you know any patients who trust their insurance company more than their doctor?

President Barack Obama’s proposed public option is making more and more sense as an alternative for people who are sick of dealing with the private insurance companies.

Universal health care would also be a giant step toward simplifying life for millions of middle-class, working-class, and poor Americans. 

How nice it would be to accept a different job without having to give up your health insurance! What a relief it would be if, even when you lose your job, at least you don’t lose your health insurance! Your children could still go to their pediatrician, not the emergency room. Health care for all would be so . . . well, so equal. It would be so fair.

And for those of us in the graying generation, baby boomers who often find ourselves passed by in this fast-changing economy, what a relief if we at least had health insurance.

Medicare eliminated the specter of poor, elderly Americans unable to afford health care. What if we could do the same for all Americans? 

Health care is one of the essentials of life: Food, Shelter, Clothing, Transportation and Health Care. It would be so much easier to live a simple and frugal lifestyle, if essential health care was available for every American.