I cannot call myself a fan of Liza Minelli--I have not followed her singing career and haven't really engaged much with her concert persona. I maintain though that one of the finest performances I have ever seen accomplished by anyone in anything is her work in the film "Cabaret", and she astounds me in it every time I see it.
The title I chose here is of course leads me to think of her, though I believe it was the MC who sang the song in the film--Joel Grey, pernicious, vulgar and unctuous--also brilliant. Lately the more the US reminds me of the Weimar Republic, the more I think of Liza, Joel and Cabaret.
And the more I think of the slow sucking sound of a national tub of bathwater circling the drain of resolve, healthcare comes up Topic One. I freely admit that I tuned out the Obama health reform plan once I realized that single payer would not be included or discussed. That's the only rational way I can see to provide healthcare as a citizen right, and to ensure a relatively equal access policy. But I am a flaming communist or something; a kulak turned collectivist pursuing the evil of pooled production and flattened profit structures.
Or I'm just a guy with cancer who is scared out of his mind by what things cost in my life.
I do have insurance with my job, and that will limit my liability to the final tally of this incredible run of tests, scans, surgeries, formulas, jolts of radiation, bags of chemicals, pain killers, antibiotics, infection control, physical therapy, rehabilitation, psychological therapy, room charges, nurses, and god knows what else. Still, I'll find myself a few thousand dollars down the line with no buffer of cash against the unknown, and a feeling of utter exposure to the vagaries of modern life.
Worse, I'll be Mr. Pre-Existing Condition, someone upon whom the system will have likely already paid something like 350,000-500,000$ to keep alive. If that estimate seems high--and it might be--consider that one CT Scan that took one tech and I about 15 minutes to achieve cost slightly over $2000.
Yesterday, I sat in a surgical waiting room with about 20 other family groups--most of whom looked as if they didn't have any spare change to knock against the quarters they were gleefully feeding to the vending machines. They may be publicly financed, they may be insured through work--but in each case, more of the burden of cost is shifting to them, and to me, in every business' plan. The cap on out of pocket is going up. And if they have anything like what I do, the choice to not spend the money or run up the bill is to die. And not in a particularly friendly, managed, manner.
Total Buzzkill Factoid of the day: No one has spoken to me at any point, at any time, about any procedure in terms of cost. No one has attempted to tally up what the total expenditure of saving my life may be. No one has revealed what the several consultations I've undergone cost individually, or why they cost what they cost. Had I wished to be a smart consumer, to better manage the dollars I and my insurance company will spend on this project, I would had to fought through the pain, lassitude, fear and horror I'm feeling to push against this notable silence. I would have to ignore the voice inside of me that says--do what they say! do it, and get better, please!
Of course I want to live, and I want to live well. I want as many people as possible to tell me that I have every expectation of emerging from surgery in a state that will allow me to climb the mountain of my life at the pace I'm willing to engage to do so. That independence is what I'm good at--that challenge is what I find secretly wonderful in what's happening. That chance to prove I am who I claim to be and made of the type of piss and vinegar more akin to honey colored wine is a priceless opportunity in any life.
It costs money to climb. The right sort of gear, the training, the genetic lottery that handed you the body type to make such effort doable, not risible. You want to see the next sunrise. You want to see it from the top of Mount Mark. It takes money, money, money, to get there.
Charles and Scott have both pointed out to me that worrying about this will not make me better. True enough. But ignoring will ensure that I'm not better, either.
And good luck even if you have the energy and wherewithal to TRY to find to how much things cost. There is no shopping around. There is no "confirm your order before purchase." One of things that always perplexes me about those folks who are appalled at the idea of single payer or universal healthcare and extol the virtues of the market is that the market is supposed to assume competition that drives price to equal marginal cost. But there is so much cloudiness around what the cost actually IS that no one can make rational market choices on healthcare. Conservatives will say Obamacare is socialist, while healthcare conglomerates jack up costs ad infinitum and their shareholders get all the little people's healthcare monies....competition indeed.
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