[wisconsin_cur]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Aaron', 'G')oing home today... new man. Thanks everybody... I'll have some more reflections soon.

[WildRose]

Hey, Aaron! Just saw this thread.

You've been through a lot, but as another poster said, the procedure is life-prolonging.

I remember many years ago when my husband had his colon removed because of life-threatening
peritonitis - he was in ICU when I visited him the evening after his surgery, and he gave me a smile...
I remember thinking how resilient he was, and now, so many years later, healthy and robust...

Wishing you a smooth recovery and many happy memories down the road.

WildRose

[RedStateGreen]

Glad to hear you're feeling better.

[drew]

I see from the photos that they gave you a zipper! I have one on my knee, but I'll bet yours hurt ten times more. Glad to see you returned to the land of the living!

Drew

[Auntie_Cipation]

After seeing that photo, shouldn't this be in the "sewing" forum?

Welcome back, Aaron.

Tell your surgeon you've displayed his/her work on the internetz, and direct them to this thread. You might convert a doc or two!

[Aaron]

Feelin' pretty weak... but better each day it seems.

I'll have some more detailed reflections I'll want to share no doubt... has been quite the eye opener.

Thanks once again for all the well-wishing folks... means the world to me.

stay tuned...

[eXpat]

Well, take it easy now, you have all the time in the world to get back

[Aaron]

So I've been recovering at home in what I assume is the traditional fashion.

No unexpected complications to relate... just the healing process. Had my first follow-ups with surgeons & cardiologists which seem to have gone well, so it seems like these folks have saved my bacon, as it were.

As mentioned earlier this thread, I fall into a category of preexisting, & therefore non-insurable cardio-treatment. Which basically means I'm on the hook for 100% of the costs associated with this experience. This makes me a poster-boy for medical reform efforts in the US I suppose...

The short version is I'm a 45 year old male with a pretty typical history of medical care, as well as professional history. I have been working since 14 years of age in a variety of occupations, the last 20 years of which have been as a professional technologist. I started at $2.10/hour way back when, (minimum wage) & worked my way up the wage ladder over these many years to the 6 figure guy I am today.

It's been a rocky ride between 1975 & today, with many ups & downs along the way; both personal & financial.

The vast majority of this time I have been contributing to mandatory taxation including Social Security contributions, as well as voluntary insurance programs mostly sponsored by my employers. I'd be hard-pressed to give an accurate total for these contributions over the decades, but it's certainly been many 10's of thousands of dollars.

Fast-forward to a period where my Cobra extended insurance coverage expired before I managed to procure new employment-sponsored insurance, and we find my first cardiac event. This of course makes all subsequent heart-related medical events preexisting as far as insurers are concerned, and therefore un-insurable.

The result of this timeline of events is of course, massive amounts of debt.

Multiple trips to the stint lab for angioplasty plus this latest bypass procedure adds up to about a million bucks in debt. This excludes doctor visits, prescriptions etc... I'm paying for all of this "out of pocket" as it were, which is, of course, absurd on it's surface. It effectively makes me a medical share-cropper for life. No possibility of repaying this debt in my lifetime, and therefore in perpetual servitude to the medical-industrial community in perpetuity. To be fair, this beats the alternative... these folks saved my life... no doubt. And I also have a keen appreciation of the triage process which much have occurred prior to this bypass surgery in my favor. A panel of medical folks who were well aware that I'd never repay the debt generated by this procedure, made a decision to perform the surgery anyway. What a nightmare decision this must be, especially since they must get confronted with multiple instances representing individual lives on a regular basis. Our system is literally forcing life/death choices on medical administrators, surgeons & doctors across the country.

So where do we assign blame/responsibility for this condition?

My fault for failing to get new insurance coverage and prevent gaps in coverage?
Insurance companies for excluding preexisting conditions?
Medical device/service providers for the incredible costs of these systems?

All the above?
More?

And where do we go from here?

Since I can't possibly pay for the accumulated debt of these treatments, this financial burden will fall onto the shoulders of taxpayers & insured consumers at the end of the day, in the form of higher taxes & higher premiums.

In a world of shrinking resources, what will be the criteria our medical community employs to determine who receives these heroic measures... & who does not?

I am of course grateful beyond words to be here to write this post, and my thanks goes out to all of the people who made this possible for me. But if you're gonna save Aaron from peakoil.com, you're gonna get some pointed questions eventually which are directly related to energy, resource depletion, financial fidelity & the moral/practical application of these concepts to individual humans, and society as a whole.

As always, your thoughts & comments are most welcome...

[dunewalker]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Aaron', '
')...Insurance companies for excluding preexisting conditions?

[HeckuvaJob]

A physician who posts here recently commented on another forum that universal health care was the equivalent of slavery:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')here's a word for it when one person has an inalienable right to require that another person to provide a service for them. That's called slavery. Healthcare is a service provided for one person by another. Clearly having an inalienable right to have another person provide you with a service is a facially idiotic concept.

[Aaron]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dunewalker', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Aaron', '
')...Insurance companies for excluding preexisting conditions?

[Aaron]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ')It makes no economic sense to poison a people when you have to pay to keep them healthy.

[drew]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Aaron', 'A')nd where do we go from here?
Since I can't possibly pay for the accumulated debt of these treatments, this financial burden will fall onto the shoulders of taxpayers & insured consumers at the end of the day, in the form of higher taxes & higher premiums.
As always, your thoughts & comments are most welcome...

[Aaron]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('drew', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Aaron', '
')
And where do we go from here?

Since I can't possibly pay for the accumulated debt of these treatments, this financial burden will fall onto the shoulders of taxpayers & insured consumers at the end of the day, in the form of higher taxes & higher premiums.

As always, your thoughts & comments are most welcome...

[smallpoxgirl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Aaron', 'I') therefore detract directly from the incredible cost associated with American health care, by teaching these organizations to make more efficient use of these expensive resources. This reduces their operating costs, but seems to do little to reduce the price tag of their services. I rather suspect it actually boosts profits, which fail to translate into more affordable rates for services.

[BigTex]

Here is some useful information from the resident employee benefits attorney:

An employer-sponsored health plan can only impose a 12 month pre-existing condition limitation for someone who has had a previous lapse in coverage. Thus, you're potentially only 12 months away from having good coverage.

Here is some more information.

If you went to work part-time at Starbucks or bagging groceries (or wherever) and had access to a health plan, they could only impose a pre-existing condition limitation for 12 months. After that, you would be covered.

I would do the math on the point at which it would make sense to seek regular employment to take advantage of the availability of health coverage. It sounds like with your skills it wouldn't be hard to do the employee gig instead of the contractor gig.

As for the $1 million plus in bills, I would think about bankruptcy. You will never pay that off, but worrying about it is likely to shorten your life, which would be inconsistent with the purpose of the procedure in the first place.

I guarantee you that the doctors who were working on you knew that you would be required to file bankruptcy and they were okay with it (if they weren't they wouldn't have done the procedure).

I'm glad you came out of it okay.

[Daniel_Plainview]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BigTex', 'I') guarantee you that the doctors who were working on you knew that you would be required to file bankruptcy and they were okay with it (if they weren't they wouldn't have done the procedure).

[hardtootell-2]

Glad to hear that you are on the mend Aaron!

Every day above ground is a good day! On the other hand, I see death as "the great liberation" so, its all good.

IMHO the main thing is to get well. All the other stuff- medical dept, insurance etc will work its way out eventually. It seems just a matter of time and demographics that it will all come crashing down anyways. I see a future where almost no one can afford high quality medical care and fiat currencies are history.

We can work on getting you one of those iron man hearts or a heart used for the cowardly lion in wizard of oz.

We need to chill and enjoy each day like it may be our last.

[Aaron]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smallpoxgirl', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Aaron', 'I') therefore detract directly from the incredible cost associated with American health care, by teaching these organizations to make more efficient use of these expensive resources. This reduces their operating costs, but seems to do little to reduce the price tag of their services. I rather suspect it actually boosts profits, which fail to translate into more affordable rates for services.

[Aaron]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') guarantee you that the doctors who were working on you knew that you would be required to file bankruptcy and they were okay with it (if they weren't they wouldn't have done the procedure).