American Health Care - An example for our European Friends....

[Minimalist]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/03/26...ke-or-Dead

Hang with me as I do the math here on paper. It isn't a small number.

13.5 hours of work for the visit + 100 hours for standard preventative lab work + 360 hours for one year of a generic medication = 473.5 hours of work.

At 40 hours a week, that's nearly 12 weeks of work. Or 3 full months. IF you can find full-time work. For one visit, normal lab work, and a necessary medication.

Let that sink in.

That doesn't include food, housing, transportation, or any other necessity. It doesn't include follow up appointments or the physical they insist on. It certainly doesn't include the financial flexibility to stimulate the economy through purchasing a home, shopping for retail goods, or starting a family.

But, it makes the insurers incredibly rich while any serious illness the last five years would have killed me financially, physically, or both. This is what they're fighting to protect. Republicans want to go back to a system where people like you, me and millions of others either die quickly or mortgage our financial futures for basic medical care.

[xpastor]

I haven't got a clue how much I've cost the Ontario health care system.

Back in 2000 I had a high reading on a PSA test, and my family doctor sent me to a urologist who ordered a trans-rectal ultrasound with a prostate biopsy.

The biopsy was negative, but the PSA was too high on repeated tests. I saw the urologist several times as he tried to eliminate possibilities other than prostate cancer.

Finally in 2001 he did another biopsy himself using a different technique and found a small tumor.

He referred me for radiation treatments to Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto, one of the top five cancer institutes in the world. My radiation oncologist there was doing research for the U.S. Army. I know because I signed a consent form for him to take an extra sample of my prostate.

I received 9 weeks of radiation therapy 5 days a week from a team of 3 therapists.

Over the next 9 years the oncologist saw me on average twice a year as follow-up.

Finally, in 2010 there was a slight uptick in my PSA. I was promptly given a CT scan and a bone scan. When these tests proved negative, I was given an MRI- guided biopsy, which found that a small tumor had regrown in the same place.

I was offered 3 different treatments, and I opted for surgery because the oncologist was pretty sure the tumor was wholly contained in my prostate.

I was referred to a surgeon who is a professor at the University of Toronto medical school. My family doctor told me that the man is considered the top surgeon in Canada for prostatectomies.

There were follow-up appointments of course, but I am now down to once a year because my PSA remains at zero. If that is still the case 5 years after the surgery (Nov. 2015) I will be considered cured.

In the meantime I continue to see my family doctor who is a very good physician. In fact , he has been appointed an adjunct professor at a large university, so that he can train family medicine residents. Ever since I turned 60 and developed the prostate cancer, he has insisted on seeing me 3 times a year.

In the meantime I have had a few other medical issues. There were some small lumps on my head which looked like skin cancer, but proved to be benign after surgical removal.

My heart had a weird arrhythmia, so a cardiologist sent me for an angiogram, which showed it was nothing dangerous.

Lately I've had some trouble with eczema, and I've had numerous appointments with a dermatologist. He seems very capable. My only gripe is that 2 hour waits in his office are not unusual.

As I say, I haven't got a fucking clue how much this cost the provincial health plan, and nobody has ever tried to guilt trip me about it.