Cost Effectiveness

I was caught in the act this week. The act of complaining. I was complaining to my brother about the bill we recently received for a recent surgery. I'll admit, he stopped me in my self-pity tracks when he said, "Just be glad you had the chance and pay it." So much truth it hurts. I should be more grateful our health care system overhaul-to-be is still largely empty promises and I'm hoping he's wrong about me not having a chance in the future.

Without divulging all of the nitty gritty details, I was a non-textbook case with something that could have become very serious in just a matter of days. Within 2 hours of symptoms I'd seen a doctor and already had a number of tests performed. I had two ultrasounds and 3 rounds of blood work done in just 12 hours. Just to ease my doctor's mind, I stayed overnight in the hospital for monitoring. In the morning, there were still a lot of questions but my doctor felt strongly that she should operate. She wasn't sure at all. In fact she was 90% sure she was performing an unnecessary surgery but her gut was telling her she should operate. As the patient, I listened and weighed my options. I made the decision to go ahead with the surgery knowing full well I might be recovering from something completely unnecessary - which is a huge risk for a mother with two young children to care for.

Without the professional freedom on the physician's side and the individual liberty of being able to choose to take on the expense and stress of surgery, I might not have the opportunity to be caring for my children today. This really hit me right after the surgery, which proved to be more urgent than anyone thought. If I lived anywhere but America I would have found myself in serious trouble as I waited for appointment times and tests, but things moved quickly and smoothly so everything went really well. So now we will be altering our finances for a while to pay for my surgery. While I realize we are blessed enough to be able to handle the blow, I also believe that if our financial circumstances were different I would take monthly payments to the hospital for the rest of my life over losing the opportunity to raise my children.

The freedoms we enjoy in America are the reason we have the best health care in the world. I'm glad I had access to the best and the opportunity to purchase it, even if it was really expensive.

I thought I should share this, even with my teeny readership. My thoughts were further stirred this week by a "guide" released in Britain on how to handle American tourists and other nationalities for the 2012 Olympics. Click here for the full report. I found the advice on Americans interesting: "They can appear 'informal to the point of being very direct or even rude' and won't ever hesitate about complaining, the guide says."

The informal part - if we weren't there already, the Obamas and their disgust for all things traditional and proper sealed the deal. The complaining bit hit me hard though. We complain. We complain so much that people start thinking normal life's struggles are unjust. Then they move on to feeling entitled to something better. So instead of complaining about the high medical bills I'm just going to be happy more cost effective measures weren't taken due to the federal government's new health care regime and enjoy making my own personal medical choices.