BetterMost Community Blogs > Skipping Stones Across the Pond of Life
Phil Skips Stones Across the Pond of Life
injest:
so it has been about twelve hours...how are the pain meds holding? Hope you are not hurting TOO much.
Don't be macho...if you are hurting USE the meds!!
ffrn:
--- Quote from: Andrew on October 16, 2006, 07:09:08 pm ---...Meanwhile, our forum members in Canada, Europe and Australia are probably experiencing either sadness or outrage at this very specific example of the sorry state of healthcare in the United States, Jess...
--- End quote ---
You are so right Andrew. I simply cannot believe a country that is supposedly as advanced as the USA, doesn't have universal health insurance. Our system isn't perfect but it is miles better than yours.
Shakesthecoffecan:
Poor Phillip, hope your feeling better. Toothaches are the worst kind of pain if you ask me.
My family flipps out when I tell them I don't have insurance. I rarely have had it, and I am not about to pay for it. I would rather put my money in a medical savings account, where I could rob to go on trips to Alberta.
Yes, it is a shame a country the size of the United States cannot care for its citizens, but if it did how could it go all over the world saving everyone from theirselves? (Big Sarcasm here).
Phillip Dampier:
Actually, I broke the silly tooth while eating... a jellybean! One quarter of it sheared off. I have been remarkably pain free, however. It turned out the nerve inside the tooth was 50% necrotic so while he was doing the crown prep (which honestly bothers me more than a root canal - it's a solid 10 minutes of drilling to drill the tooth down to its surface) he managed to enter the pulp canal, which was inflamed and under some pressure anyway, so it was clear a root canal was needed. He ripped out the nerve itself (which honestly was not painful, and in my previous ones the twang only hits you for a second, so even that is not bad). Then he did a little prep with the files going in and cleaning out the canal pathways (which is completely painless).
What gets me is about two hours after the procedure when the throbbing starts, which is why I got my Vicodin script. But I only needed two tablets over that day, and I have been totally pain-free. The worst part was the freakin bill.
I have to go back next Monday at 9am to finish clearing out the canal, then wait another two weeks for the permanent crown to arrive and get glued on.
Dental coverage is awful in the United States. You pay a lot per month and end up with a $1000-1500 maximum plus often a 50% co-pay. For someone who is self-employed, the monthly insurance rate adds up to $1000 a year anyway, so there is absolutely no point in having the insurance.
Medical coverage is also outrageous. I just dropped our highly rated Blue Cross plan (Blue Choice - an HMO) for Preferred Care, a competing plan. For John and I, the monthly premium was around $700 with Blue Choice and they were raising the prescription drug co-pay to $7 for tier one (generics), $50 for tier two (expensive generics + moderately priced/common brand names), and $100 for tier three (newest brand name drugs mostly). John takes two blood pressure pills so that would have been $150 a month just for those. Forget it. Preferred Care charges us around $650 a month I think, and the co-pays are $10/$25/$40.
Insurance locally has been going up around 12% a year. It's already well beyond most people's car payments, and within a decade, it is likely going to exceed a lot of mortgage payments. We're approaching the breaking point. Yes, the health care quality is often the best in the world with not a lot of waiting and often a choice in providers, but it's becoming unaffordable for the middle class with no end in sight. There should be a way of devising a hybrid system similar to a social medicine program but with some built-in choices and perhaps some private insurance add-ons for greater choice in medications or providers.
opinionista:
--- Quote from: Phillip on October 16, 2006, 09:57:10 am ---
And the silliest thing, I actually thought a moment about what someone like Jack or Ennis would have done - probably a tooth pull. One of the critics who didn't love BBM complained that casting Hollywood "pretty boys" in the starring roles made it an "uncredible" film. In his eyes, a realistic portrayal, especially in later years, would have been a lot harder look on their faces and at least one tooth missing here and there.
--- End quote ---
Funny, I thought about this the other day when I went to see the Black Dahlia. I didn't know anything about her murder so after the movies I went to the Crime Library online to find out more about Elizabeth Short. In the movie they show her as a young beautiful but rather poor woman, with perfect teeth. However, according to Crime Library, her teeth were practically rotten because of lack of proper hygiene due to her extreme poverty. She used to put wax on them so people wouldn't notice. So it got me thinking if Ennis would have teeth problems too, and not just a tooth missing or two, but a mouth generally in bad shape due to his poverty.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version