Pondering

I preface with, in NO way is this intended to be political.

I got sick on Tuesday...

Mostly that nasty gross middle of the winter congestion, coughing ick (I know it's only September...it's gonna be a long one).

I decided to go to the doctor...not to let it get away from me.

Actually got to see the doctor (not a Physician's Assistant or Nurse Practitioner) always a bonus.

They will bill me because of the way the new insurance works...no worries (easy for them to say right?)

It's bronchitis...a couple of inhalers, some really good cough medicine and an antibiotic were called into the pharmacy by my house.

I went back to work for a couple of hours.

I checked my flexible spending card to see how much money was on there so that the cost of the prescription doesn't come out of my pocket...

we set it up so that the amount of our deductible is deposited in to the account, so while the money is still coming out of our pocket it's pretax dollars..blah blah blah...

Fast forward a couple of hours to the drive thru at the pharmacy.

Lady comes to the window

I give her my name

She finds my scripts and says that will be $407.12

I almost fell out of the car.

I asked if they ran it through the insurance.

She said yes.

I handed over my card, thankful for the foresight of putting money into the account and drove away.

I came home and looked over the merger offerings that I had just spent that much money and thought

For some, that's a whole month's grocery budget

For some that's the cost of heating their house (for a month or even a whole season)

For some, that's their rent payment

For some, that's two car payments.

For some that's gas money, day care money, bill money...the list just goes on and on.

But for most people, that is an awful lot of money to plunk down at one time, just to feel better.

While I know that I had prepaid for this and am thankful to be in a position that I can do that I know many who cannot.

What do they do?

What if the medicine is for a child?  How do you chose between feeding them and making them better?

I don't know what the solution to this all if but I have read multiple facebook posts and articles in the last several weeks about the horror of government run insurance and how there's no way that it will work.  

But I have to ask the question- is what we are doing now working?  Is private insurance really the answer?  There has to be some way, and I don't know what it is, to take the decision out of getting medication or feeding your family.  Some way that people don't need to decide between heating their house and making sure that their kids have medication so they can breathe correctly.

It is something that I have been thinking about for the last few days and I am not sure where the solution lies, but there has to be something better.  Anyone out there have any thoughts??

Hugs and love to you all!