My husband and I participate in something that many of my peers frown on. Its called calculated risk. This means that we are willing to not fork over all of our money on insurance that never pays out its value. With regards to medical insurance, we have considered our average expenditure on health care, considered the expenses we would like to take on in coming years, imagined the probability of disaster and weighed it against the outrageous cost of health insurance and the futility of their benefits. We also considered the fact that we are very unlikely to take prescription drugs and prefer alternative medicine which is not covered under the insurance offered to me at my job. My husband receives some discounted medical services through the Musicians Union, but by no means is it comprehensive insurance. The point being we are prepared to absorb the cost of an emergency. Furthermore, we can afford it since we aren't forking over the $800 a month it would cost to insure the two of us.
Several months ago my husband was changing the oil in his truck. He was tugging at something, his hand slipped and jerked and he cut himself very badly on the wrist. He gave himself the appropriate first aide and drove himself to the doctor, who sent him to the ER at TOURO hospital to be stitched.
Long story short, the doctor did not have a sterile gauze napkin, blood wipe thingy, so he had to open an entire kit of sterile instruments. He pulled out a very nice sterilized napkin to place over the wound and discarded the remainder of the items in the pack. He then decided to staple my husbands arm in all of the wrong places. The staples actually increased the damage to the wound and added some nice train track scars.
We were upset about the poor quality of care and expected to pay for it anyway(see, I was already beaten down into paying for non-care) We new it would be about $1000 to walk into the ER. When we received the bill it was itemized and included a sterile emergency pack for over $600. We have requested several times to discuss the charges with someone from Touro hospital, but the conversation falls into the "not my problem" category so we ended up in a collection agency.
This is actually a chronic problem of mine. Im sure if I ever tried to use it I would find that my credit report looks sick and diseased. I consider myself a prudent consumer who keeps debt to a minimum and pays my bills. However, I refuse to pay for things that don't make sense. In the end it makes me look like a derelict cheapskate, but really I just have principles. Really. I do.
