Medical mysteries

If you’re still wondering just how your day-to-day life may be different because of the Nov. 8 elections, try healthcare—and all the tools available out there to cover that care.

Until now, whenever Republicans have predicted that so-called Obamacare was headed for “repeal and replacement,” many skeptics wrote it off as an empty boast. Then Donald Trump’s electoral victory, along with wins for dozens of down-ballot allies, suddenly made R&R altogether likely. Now, the revision of payment systems for healthcare is much more a “when” than an “if.”

There is at least one very big problem in all this. In all the chatter about which systems might work and which ones won’t, I don’t hear anyone addressing one of the most hated aspects of healthcare—and here I’m talking not only about healthcare under the Obama administration but probably for the last generation or so. I’m referring to the overwhelmingly complex nature of the paperwork and record-keeping associated with healthcare. I can’t understand the bills from my doctor and hospital, and I’m even dumber when it comes to interpreting reports from my insurance company.

Could this be a deliberate ploy on the part of healthcare providers—just to keep us in the dark? No wonder healthcare every year typically gobbles up 18 percent of our entire national income. If all the gas pumps and grocery store cash registers in the country were as confusing as the typical medical billing systems, I have a hunch that prices for those basic needs would also leap into the stratosphere.

None of us can consider ourselves good stewards if we don’t even know how to read a medical invoice or statement.

I call this a major problem simply because none of us can consider ourselves good stewards if we don’t even know how to read a medical invoice or statement. And as the market for healthcare services jumps all over the place in the months just ahead, as it is certain to do, many of us will need significant help if we’re to understand exactly where we stand. Millions of citizens were duped by Obamacare over the last half-dozen years just because they couldn’t read a healthcare news story any more accurately than I can read a hospital bill. So they were surprised (but shouldn’t have been) when premiums jumped in the second and third years of coverage, when coverage for prescriptions was greatly reduced or even disappeared, and when co-pays and other extra charges started showing up.

Not for a minute do I disdain those who I say were bewildered and confused. I was one of them.

Several weeks ago, while attempting a small repair job at home, I slipped and slashed the back of my hand with a sharp blade. I was thankful for the services of an urgent care center just 10 minutes away—and for the fact that with seven artful stitches by a physician’s assistant (rather than a more expensive M.D.), my hand was as good as new.

In one sense, I was also thankful for Medicare, which is probably overly generous in looking after a 75-year-old like me getting a bit careless with a sharp tool. Thankful too for supplemental insurance coverage for which I pay a modest amount every month.

But to this day, I’ve not yet seen a bill for any of those services. And that, I suggest, is a disservice to me and to our society. We’ve pretty much lost all sense of “market value.” I do still remember how, after Dr. Closson, my hometown physician, repaired the pointer finger on my right hand which I had accidentally cut off in a printing press, he said, “Yeah, that’ll be about $10.” And I remember Dad’s showing us the bill from Dr. Hershey, who had just delivered my brother Tim. He charged $10 for that procedure, but also gave my dad a $10 clergy discount. Dr. Closson and Dr. Hershey both served society well by helping set market value.

When you don’t have a clue what a particular service or commodity is worth, and nobody else does either, somebody’s going to get gouged. Or maybe a lot of people. That failure needs to be taken into serious account by the folks doing the repealing and replacing of Obamacare.

Email jbelz@wng.org