$60,000 for hospital bills
By candyfairy21
@candyfairy21 (2039)
Philippines
May 2, 2010 2:59am CST
I was going over my stuff today and I found my dad's hospital records complete with the bills we paid it was tucked inside a brown envelope. As I went through it, it brought memories with every piece of paper with every bill written. $60,000 in hospital bills has sent us in debt for the last 1 and half year and has slowed down our business. $60,000 worth of 2 months hell in the hospital as we battled to save dad's life but in the end he was gone.
But that's just money.... we can still find all the money in the world but we could never find another dad. My dad is irreplaceable, valuable and priceless to us. No matter how much we have spent it didn't matter. He wanted to live still and we gave him all the best we could. Our insurances were not honored and his senior citizen's card was just as useless! We had to fork it out from our pockets and it was hard.
The government should make amends to their stupid law. It is hard to buy meds with the senior citizen card and I mean it really. The owner of the card is lying in the ICU without any strength left and the pharmacy demands that it should be signed not thumbmark! I mean isn't it stupid? How in the world would an almost dying patient sign an authorization letter? Just see how this dumb bills the congress passes.
As with health insurances they are so useless. They are good at enticing you to buy an insurance from them but in the end you don't get what you deserve to get. As for me I would just put all the money in the bank for emergency needs and not buy any type of insurance. They are useless in the end. The money you pay them every quarter would earn more interest in a time deposit compared to what insurances give after your policy matures. This is a lesson learned. After I pay for my insurance in full I will withdraw it and place it in a bank. No more free money for insurances.
2 people like this
6 responses
@dorannmwin (36392)
• United States
5 May 10
You are absolutely right on several points here. First off, you are right that the money that we spend trying to save a person's life is nothing more than money but when they lose their battle we will be able to eventually recoup the money that was spent on that endeavor, but we can never replace the loved one that we have lost.
The other thing that I completely agree with you on is that there is nothing that is really good about insurance. I learned this lesson myself several years ago when I ended up in the emergency room while suffering from a miscarriage and my private health insurance didn't cover a dime of my expenses.
@SomeCowgirl (32189)
• United States
4 May 10
I am sorry that you have had to pay that much money because the insurance company and the senior citizen card would not pay for the things your father needed. It is not right the way the insurance companies do us, but I believe some are more fair then others. As for without insurance, the bill is still hefty and maybe having insurance even if it's almost useless is not a bad idea because some parts of medical treatment may be paid by the insurance company and so atleast a percentage won't be out of pocket directly.
@zandi458 (28102)
• Malaysia
2 May 10
The same thing happened to my dad. As a former high ranking government officer he was supposed to get free medical treatment from government hospitals until the end. But when he was in critical condition the private hospital we send him advises us to send him to the the government hospital as they lack certain equipment for his need. So we transferred him to the g'ment hospital. We were asked to sign papers to agree to pay all his hospitalization and medication on admission. Even his pensioner card was of no use as they still wanted us to sign a letter of guarantee. He was also in the ICU and was there for about 3 weeks before he passed away. Luckily one of my siblings is working in the government and is entitled to cover the cost of parents hospitalization. We do have health insurance here but is not enforced on everyone to buy. Coming back to us, we must have enough savings to meet this kind of hospitalization bills when we grow old one day.
@mensab (4200)
• Philippines
2 May 10
oh, i am sad to hear what happened to your father. i could emphatize because that's exactly what happened with my father too. in the end we lost him after incurring huge expenses. yeah, i like your attitude that money can be produced and generated. but the exasperation and frustration lie in the senior citizen's card in which the government should have provided all the elderly a fund for their medical needs. we got very little from the card. i think i will think also of getting my money from the insurance and put it in the bank. thanks for this.
@divineathena (1746)
• United States
2 May 10
I am sorry to hear about it. My dad also had similar thing. He had a stroke. Our bill was $26,000, but the thing was that my dad didn't have health insurance back then. And once he had the stroke he had to stop working for a few months. It was an unusual company where he was neither fired nor he resigned from. But the bill got waved once we told them that my dad was unemployed. But still I don't agree with the private insurance. It is pretty much useless. I remember once I had an unknown disease. I had to go through a series of lab tests. In the end, the insurance company didn't pay much of it. And we ended up with $3000 bill. I hate the notion of doing business with people's health.
@mercedlegurpa (955)
• Philippines
2 May 10
Hi candyfairy21, I'm sure you're not only one in this world who felt the same way as angry with those insurance stuff. Here in the Philippines there are so many "hulabaloos" before enjoying what you paid for. Our law is too laxed for those things. Our government has no iron will to control those institutions that didn't follow orders. We Filipinos don't mind how much we spend as long it would be for our love ones. At least you tried hard to spend it with your father.
