Ian and Landlady both are coming up from the city, and both are allegedly bringing guests. As far as I know neither have planned activities (read, work) that involve me. But as part of the unwritten and largely unspoken agreement that allows me to stay here, I try to keep my schedule open whenever either or both are in the area just in case. With my schedule that rarely presents a big challenge.
Today I must call the ophthalmologist’s office in the big town about fifty miles away, because I got paid for the arsenic caps yesterday and can afford to get my eye pressure checked and my meds renewed for another couple of months. I wish to finally impress upon them that I need a call back with an approximate cost for cataract surgery, because they’re always going on about the surgery but never know what the damn thing costs. It grows a bit annoying, actually – this is a very poor and rural area and I know damn well I’m not the only guy here with no medical insurance, and they say it’s no big deal – but then they won’t give me a figure.
And then last night I was lying awake for some reason and a new thing to worry about dawned: What if, under the blessings of Obamacare, I’m no longer allowed to pay cash? After all, I’m legally mandated to buy the insurance coverage I don’t intend to buy, so in the authoritarian mind the simplest way to force me into a plan would be to make the alternatives impossible, right? That would suck. After all, I’m not going without health insurance because I have some strange philosophical aversion to it. I simply can’t afford it. And under the far less affordable “affordable care act,” my lack of willingness to spend money I don’t have will certainly double down. But it would be just like a government to close the one path currently open to me. For my own good, of course.
So I’m suddenly anxious to get that question answered.
Huh, hadn’t considered that. I pay cash to my doctor too, rarely use her services but it sure is nice to know I can.
Finished reading through your archives and caught up to when I first clicked the link in Claire’s blogroll. I missed many good posts, well worth it.
As I understand it, Canada had banned cash payment for medical services, but that was overturned by their equivalent of the Supreme Court around ten years ago. The same thing might happen here, although it would take long enough that a lot of people would be out of luck.
Personally, my fallback plan is “take a bus to Mexico.”
Under the glorious umbrella of ObamanationCare if you can’t afford the insurance “tax” you will supposedly be automatically covered under a bastardized version of Medicare/Medicaid. If you don’t sign up for it on your own initiative (like signing up for Medicaid now) and the loving and caring folks or the people’s glorious regime discover you — even if you think you are living off the grid (hard to do if you’re seeing a doctor whose license is in the hands of the gestapo — report all patients or be stripped of your livelihood persuasion) — they will automatically enroll you out of loving concern for your welfare.
I wonder how long it will take the individual doctors to begin accepting cash under the table for those who are not/don’t choose to be covered?This is how black markets get started,the .gov creating too many regulations,and people finding ways around them.Not that you want to trust your eyes to ‘back alley surgeons’,but if your Dr knows you don’t have Obamacare,maybe he takes the cash after all.The way I understand it,a lot of med professionals don’t like the Obamacare any more than we do.
(Whether it’s legal or not,and what they can do to you if they catch you,is for another post.)
Isn’t it funny that Obamacare was supposed to ‘simplify Healthcare’ and all it seems is to bring up all kinds of issues.
Dad used to tell me that doctors back in Depression were far more accomodating in how they took payment. They had to – money was in short supply and the doctor had many options of what his payment could be. Food – work – items – whatever. The patient was viewed as a human being, not a patient number.
You read the whole thing? Seriously?
Where I live, cataract surgery would cost about $4k per eye if you were paying cash, and the intertubez suggests $3500 is the out-of-pocket average across the States… I’d plan for that ballpark, if I were you, unless you’ve got really good dirt on the practice manager and the scrub nurse.
Medicaid isn’t an option, Joel?
Nope. They closed enrollment in this state just when I found out I had the problem.
I’m sorry, then. Medicaid was a blessing to my mom in her last year when she was in a nursing home.
With so many doctors planning to “retire” over obummercare, I suspect our black market medical business will make the USSR doctors look like pikers.
For general practice docs, I’m counting on it.
You might consider going to Mexico for the surgery.
Rand Paul has been doing charitable eye surgery: https://www.facebook.com/RandPaul/posts/10151719786596107
Hah, seriously. Insomnia combined with not having a book I felt like reading. I skimmed past some of the “tyranny today” stuff and songs stuck in your head but it was around 100 pages to get caught up. Surprising (maybe?) how many youtube videos are gone.
The tale of young LB biting Magnus in the nuts made me laugh harder than I have in ages.