The Woman With the Golden Toe

The bills are coming in for my toe surgery. Or should I say the procedure to remove the fluid-filled ganglion cyst on my right foot, second toe.

Surgery Center Charge: Close to $10,000 (On the bill, when they break it down, it says: "Supplies - $6,000.00." What fucking supplies were six grand? SIX MOTHERFUCKING GRAND? The paper napkin I wore as a gown? The boot they sent me home with? The blood pressure cuff? The cotton they wrapped my foot in? The saline drip? The needle? The bag? The liquid valium? Mother of God, I should've just taken a truckload of Xanax and let him give me the numbing shot and jerry-rigged my own boot to wear home.

Doctor Bill: Close to $2000 so far (Don't know if/where the anesthesiologist's bill is included anywhere in these bills)

Pre-op appointment: $150.00

Pre-op physical, including blood work and EKG: Close to $300.00

Experiencing health care in America AS ONE OF THE LUCKY FEW WHO CAN ACTUALLY AFFORD MY OWN DECENT PPO PLAN: Furious BEYOND BELIEF

It is a fucking TOE. Granted, I lived with the cyst for years, watching it grow bigger and getting more and more inconvenienced by it, and suffering with more pain from it, each year. But Jesus God, it wasn't CANCER. It probably would've cost less to simply amputate the fucking toe.

Are we talking about AT LEAST almost $13,000 to take off a tiny cyst from my toe? I do NOT CARE WHO YOU ARE OR WHAT YOU DO OR WHAT YOUR POLITICS ARE - if you cannot see that this is JUST PLAIN FUCKING WRONG - I don't want to even know you.

This is MORALLY and ETHICALLY and LEGALLY WRONG. This is criminal. This is highway robbery. This is rape. I am lucky enough - LUCKY LUCKY LUCKY enough to be able to sit here and I am not even angry for myself - I am angry for all the people who can't even GET health insurance because they had the bad luck to get sick or have a pre-existing condition and they can't even get rated (that'd include me - I'd be flat out turned down with fibromyalgia - fucking scary, huh?) or they lost their job and can't find another and can't afford COBRA...I have to hang on to this private insurance FOR A LONG, LONG time...until I am a tenured teacher and even then if I get laid off and I've let go of my private insurance...it isn't a pretty picture.

No, I don't want the government to fully control my health care, nor do I want the government to make me wait 6 months to see a specialist if I have a problem. That's why I've always had a PPO - so I could make my own medical decisions. Lucky me. I AM lucky. But I am getting less lucky. My general physician stopped taking my health insurance - Blue Shield. I am currently insured through my job with Blue Cross. He doesn't take that either. He takes Medicare and Cigna. That's it.

Years ago I had to leave my long-term ENT - a doctor whom I adored. But he dropped my insurance and I needed sinus surgery. I found another doctor. Now I will find another GP. I suppose the doctors are not getting decent contracts with these insurance companies anymore? I mean, Jesus, it's got to be about the MONEY right? It's ALWAYS ABOUT THE FUCKING MONEY, isn't it?

No, I'm not sure I want fully socialized health care. BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT - this country can NO LONGER CONTINUE ON THE WAY IT'S GOING. And yes, I am tired of every fucking illegal in America coming to Los Angeles and essentially closing down our ER's and our hospitals because they use them as general practitioners. It sounds cruel - but the system is caving in Los Angeles under the weight of too many people and what - am I paying for their health care? No offense, but I don't think I should have to do that. No, I DO NOT have all the answers. Maybe I don't have any of the answers.

Actually I do have one answer. I know that a $13,000 toe surgery is just wrong on every count. Who's getting rich off my toe? Who profited the most? Who made the most fucking money? Despite what you think of Michael Moore - and I often think he is an over-rated blow hard who shoots his films fast and loose with the facts - there were a couple of stories in his film "SICKO" that I recall so clearly - I will never forget them. The man who had an accident and his insurance essentially told him, I believe, he could choose which finger to have sewn back on...they weren't going to pay for both... "Which finger do you think would be best honey?" "Well, geez, I don't know, let me think a minute..."

I certainly know what finger I'd choose to give my insurance company. I take several medications to keep my fibromalygia in check so that I CAN work and I CAN be a productive member of society - but these medicines are not generic and they are NOT cheap. Again, I thank GOD EVERY DAY I can afford them. But knowing I am essentially uninsurable if I lose my private insurance and don't get another job with group insurance has scared the hell out of me.

It's laughable really. I am uninsurable by a filthy, stinking, greedy industry because I have a 'disease' that actually cannot even be proven medically to exist. So.....geez, can I just tell them I've magically recovered from fibromyalgia and no longer have it? How can they prove I don't have it if they really can't prove I ever had it? I mean, there is still a large part of the medical community that doesn't even believe it exists. Pfizer must be shitting itself with glee over FDA approval of Lyrica - but hey, even if those idiot women come on TV at night complaining of sore muscles and talking about how Lyrica has enabled them to start gardening again, we still can't even prove fibromyalgia is REAL. But I can REALLY be DENIED insurance FLAT OUT because of it.

So who got the most money off my toe? I really want to know. My doctor? The surgical center? The insurance company? And how in God's name could they DARE charge $10,000 for a 15 minute procedure? Someone in health care is making the bulk of the money here. And they're making it on people who are helpless to do anything about their situations - who can't say "no", who don't have other choices, who are in much, much, much worse situations than I am in. God help those people. And God help the bastards profiting off the pain, fear, loss and desperation of the American people. I don't know how they can face themselves in the mirror, or sleep at night. I really don't.