Given a recent mishap, I now feel qualified to chime in on the current debate over affordable health care insurance. Without thinking and in my haste to welcome summer’s late arrival on August 1, I put my hand where everyone knows it shouldn’t go when operating a certain gas-powered landscaping tool, which I now call The Amputator. Within moments, both my neighbors were rushing me to the emergency room at Copley Hospital in Morrisville.
Often times, when seeking emergency care, thoughts are dominated by fears of how much it will cost, rather than concerns for the actual injury and potential consequences. Fortunately, however, for the first time in my life, I have a good health insurance policy. Vermont’s Catamount Health Care (BC/BS) has been my provider since February, and I was facing its first test. I give it an “A.”
Nurses and doctors tended to me as soon as I arrived at Copley. Once the Phentanol took effect, I could relax enough to converse with the medical staff. It wasn’t long before the discussion turned to the ongoing health care “debate.” The attending physician was the most emphatic. “Everyone should be able to get free health care,” he said. While I knew I was not getting a free ride, I took comfort knowing Catamount would cover 80 percent of my emergency room visit, after my $250 deductible. My previous policy, with a $5,000 deductible, would have paid none of it.
Then my visit got more complicated. Since there was not an orthopedic surgeon on call that weekend, my doctor referred me to a surgeon at Central Vermont Hospital. So, with finger bandaged, off I went for another ER visit. Thirteen stitches and four hours later I was on my way home, feeling fortunate that the injury wasn’t worse. My damaged ego was another matter.
While much of the current health care “debate” revolves around employer-sponsored health care plans, that is not my situation. I am self-employed and solely responsible for my monthly premiums. Again, I give Catamount Health Care high marks because their premiums are determined by one’s income. My current payment of $110 per month is 42 percent less than what I previously paid, even with a $5,000 deductible. While I fully appreciate Vermont’s health insurance program, the transition was not without risk. I had to be uninsured for one year in order to qualify. Can you imagine where I’d be if my injury had occurred a year ago? I’ll tell you where—Craig’s list, selling my road bike, my mountain bike, my canoe, and my skis in order to pay my bills.
Accidents like mine happen every day. I know this because when I went in for my follow-up visit, my doctor couldn’t immediately remember if I was the chainsaw, car door, lawn mower, leaf mulcher, or hedge trimmer accident, all of which he had seen in the last week. For me and other healthy people, health care is about more than life-threatening illnesses or chronic conditions. It’s a part of every day life, which is why insurance needs to be affordable for everyone, no matter what system we have.
None of us knows what lies ahead, yet we all want to be capable of facing emergencies that are as unexpected and dramatic as our “summer” weather.
—Kate Carter
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