Daytime summer camp through the local Parks and Recreation Department—what could be more wholesome? My son has done week-long stints at this camp twice each summer for the past three years. Your kids have gone to similar camps and/or will go in the future. And why not? They're fun, especially for a rambunctious only child like PJ.
This past week PJ did not come home when camp ended. He went to the hospital, then into the operating room, where four metal spikes were inserted into his cleanly broken femur to hold the two reconnected pieces of his leg together. It will be next year before he can run like he longs to—like he was doing when he was hurt at camp. He will be in a wheelchair for possibly two months, miss a chunk of school and the entire soccer season. All this, after two days of hospital noises, smells, pokes, prods and pains for an 8-year-old who was terrified every minute, seems like piling on, kicking the wee lad while he's down.
"Luckily," my family has health insurance through my wife, though her job is in an industry that is itself on life support (print journalism). We are, like millions of Americans, glad to have insurance even as the premiums rise and the benefits melt each year, and we are only one downsize away from being on our own. We, like millions of American who do have insurance, also like to think that a catastrophic health event like this one will be taken care of.
And yet, as we have learned this week, this is not entirely the case (and we will continue to learn as the bills for our venture into catastrophic medicine drift in in the coming weeks). The chintzy policy my wife's employer has (the only choice offered) has a $500 co-pay (or "deductible") per day of a hospital stay on top of the co-pays for prescriptions, ambulance, commode purchase, wheelchair rental, home rehabilitative care, etc. Thus the pressure was to get our son, who was in pain of indescribable intensity, out of there ASAP. After two days, we were ready to leave.
Luckily (for real), we were fortunate to live near enough to Yale New Haven Children's Hospital so that PJ could get the best care for his specific condition. And he needed all they could give him. The staff and doctors were great, attentive, kind but firm when they needed to be (with a stubborn little boy in pain, that is more art than science).
And, of course, in every room in the hospital the same scenarios were unfolding: kids with eye injuries from rough-house play, kids with broken bones from skateboard stunts gone awry, fingers nearly severed by car doors, and worse. In each room were uninsured parents wondering how they will ever pay for this care, as well as (like us) insured parents wondering whether their policies will catch them during this trying time.
Unfortunately, Americans often don't learn exactly how much and what their health insurance policy covers until their worst parental nightmares occur. The lesson seems to be: don't get sick, America, but do keep paying those health insurance premiums. Our CEOs need their bonuses. And if you don't have insurance: good luck.
Is this any way to run a health care system?
