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The Assumption of Health-CareI not only heard a few talk radio shows talk about this, but I also read an AP article from USAToday that a 22 year-old waitress without insurance was in an auto accident. Half of her brain was removed for corrective surgery. In fact, the USAtoday article reported that “Lane, who was not wearing a seat belt, was thrown through the windshield. (She was later charged with driving under the influence and not having a driver’s license.)” Oddly enough, that’s not the interesting part — the good part is that Medicaid and the hospital debated over who would cover the surgery to put her skull back in place after surgery on her brain. And because of this, four months passed where she didn’t have a complete skull. Thr AP article even stated that Briana Lane would sometimes “wake up in the morning to find that her brain had shifted to one side during the night ... The operation took place after Lane’s mother’s insurance decided to cover the surgery, as well as her nearly $200,000 in medical bills.” People on talk radio questioned her having a license or being intoxicated while driving, but one dee jay said the final statement from this AP article in passing: But she said the experience has left her a little more cynical about the health care system. “Just because they don’t have money doesn’t mean they should be treated differently from anyone else,” she said. “I’m a good person. I just happen to be not as rich as some of them.” This sidenote at the end of her story shocked me more than anything else, because there is no reason she should by cynical that a healthcare system she never earned or payted for took so long to do work that to her was otherwise free. It’s horriffic that he had to go for months without her skull completely attached, but she should at least be grateful that someone was willing to pay the charges that she was never willing to pay insurance for. I quit my job to travel around the country, and thought that I didn’t need health insurance, because I never used it when I had my job. But my travel companion told me to get it anyway, because you never know when you’ll need it — and less than a year uear later someone almost killed me with their car — and having that insurance that I didn’t want to pay for saved my life. I know full well that medical bills have to be paid when someone is injured and meeds medical attention. If I didn’t have health insurance, I would never make enough money to pay for my medical bills - especially when I can’t get a job after that accident that gives me the chance to pay any of those bills off. Buying insurance may seem like buying a lottery ticket that never gives you money back, but when you need it most, it’s there for you. It seems to me that the only people who ask for things that they don’t deserve are the people who haven’t earned the right to these things.
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